Inside the 120th anniversary special issue of Maclean's

Inside the 120th Anniversary Special Issue

I plan to hang a Canadian flag outside my house this Canada Day, something I have not done for many years. After the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee Report, the flag was a reminder of our colonial history. Then the maple leaf was appropriated by anti-vaccine trucker convoyers. But now, thanks to Trump’s annexation musings, hanging the flag has become an act of resistance to encroaching authoritarianism.

Donald Trump says that the line that separates Canada and the U.S. is “artificially drawn.” And in a sense he’s right: our national border is a construct, and a porous one,

A magazine cover featuring the headline ''The New Nationalism''

too. But our countries have different origin stories and different cultures and different values, and Trump has forced us to consider and define what those are. At Maclean’s, we took a long hard look at the country’s new nationalism with a special themed issue, just in time for Canada Day.

A magazine spread featuring a story titled ''Never for Sale''

In this edition, Stephen Maher explains how Canada’s identity has always been forged in resistance to America. A selection of thinkers and industrialists propose concrete, audacious plans for Canada’s future on the world stage. Jason McBride takes the temperature of the country’s most entangled border town: Windsor, Ontario. We hear from a handful of plucky business owners whose lives have been upended amid tariff uncertainty. And Elizaveta Tarnarutckaia, a writer who moved from Russia to Calgary a decade ago, argues that the best way to understand Canada is through its literature.

We may not have all the answers to the burning questions of today, but we hope to provide inspiration, ideas and history—a portrait of Canada in a tumultuous time.

–Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief, Maclean’s