Imagine a society where you are considered wealthy not by how much money you keep, but by how much you give away.

In 1623, French missionary Gabriel Sagard lived with the Huron Wendat, an Indigenous people in today’s southern Ontario.

Sagard observed that the Wendat assisted one another so completely that their towns had no indigent beggars. When the Wendat learned that France had crowds of destitute people begging in the street, they condemned the French and said it was because they lacked charity. But the word charity was not an Iroquoian word, and it did not mean charity as defined by Christians.

What he witnessed was a form of kinship that extended to whoever was present, including him. He wrote that his host shared the single bearskin that covered him when rain came at night, prepared his sleeping place, carried his pack over the portages and released him from the paddle. He said where two households shared a shelter, each cooked its own kettle, and everyone ate from both without dispute.

Sagard’s host instructed him to call the household’s mother, my mother, and its men, my brother. Villagers called him son, nephew, uncle or cousin according to their age. The day after he arrived, a small household gave up its portion of the longhouse so he would have room.

Another missionary, Jean de Brébeuf arrived in 1634. He lived with one of the richest men in his village. Wealth was determined by how much you gave away, not how much you accumulated.

For example, a fire burned the village down, but the house where Brébeuf was staying survived. The owner of the house hung a great cauldron, feasted everyone and gave away one of his two bins of corn, which held over a hundred bushels. Brébeuf wrote that the Wendat believed in spreading wealth around.

Raised Catholic, I was taught that love and charity are the highest virtues. This is how the Wendat lived, but nobody was performing a virtue. It was an obligation to help those in need. Whoever was providing this season might become a dependent next season.

The difference is that French charity addressed what to do about the poor. But the Wendat practice meant that the condition of poverty just wasn’t a thing.

Obviously before European contact, the Wendat were not Christians. What do you think. Is right action without faith sufficient for salvation?

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If you want to “Make America Great Again,” let’s actually look at when the continent was actually great.

Trump and MAGA want to take you back to the 1950s, which was an era built on segregation, the destruction of the environment, and rampant consumerism. But if we go back further, before European contact, there was zero homelessness, zero medical debt, and zero starvation. Society was organized around the collective good, where hoarding wealth while your neighbour starved was unthinkable. That’s what early anthropologists called “primitive communism.”

So yeah, let’s make America great again. Let’s bring back Indigenous collectivism.

It’s fascinating when you look back on Indigenous populations around the world. How did they all adopt a similar philosophy around the same time if they had no contact with each other? It all boils down to cultural evolution and ecological necessity.

Historically, all human societies faced the same fundamental challenge: how to survive in an ecosystem over thousands of years without destroying it. When human groups live in close, daily reliance on nature for food, shelter, and medicine, they naturally arrive at the same logical conclusions.

An extractive mindset, which means taking until a resource is gone, leads to immediate starvation or societal collapse. Therefore, sustainability, deep observation of cycles, and communal sharing emerged independently worldwide as practical strategies for survival.

This is how humans lived for 99% of our history. Before anyone says that capitalism lifted so many people out of poverty, how is that working out? Capitalism has only existed for a few hundred years, and it’s already pushed the planet to the brink of climate collapse, and there is extreme wealth inequality. Indigenous collectivism lasted for tens of thousands of years in perfect ecological balance.

I can just hear what Jason Kenney would say if he saw my video. He would call this philosophy a mud hut philosophy, implying that I think we should go back to living in mud huts. But that’s not what I’m saying, and these Indigenous practices are being used today to help communities thrive.

For example, the Membertou First Nation is very close to where my mother grew up. It is a Mi’kmaq First Nation. Membertou went from near bankruptcy to an economic powerhouse. But they didn’t do it with capitalism. They did not privatize reserve land. Instead, they created a centralized corporate entity owned by the band. The community collectively owns commercial real estate, data centres, and green energy projects.

Every single dollar of profit is funnelled back into the community. They used the collective wealth to give every member a guaranteed income, free tuition for education after secondary school, and housing with the most advanced modern features.

Wait a minute. Isn’t this evil socialism? Are the Mi’kmaq communists?

The problem with throwing these terms around is that most people have no idea what they mean. There is no authoritarian dictator in Membertou. Chief and Council are democratically elected. The communal trust is not run by them. It’s run by a financial manager with a fiduciary responsibility to grow the value of the trust and reinvest in the community.

This is true trickle down economics. The wealth isn’t concentrated in a few hands at the top. It is evenly distributed to every member of the community.

So yeah, go ahead and call it socialism or communism. It worked for 99% of human history. We need to think of organizing our world in a way that is different from the way we are organized today. Otherwise, we will make this planet unlivable, and wealth inequality will continue to widen.

I think we should be exploring how our Indigenous communities lived before European contact and how they are thriving today.

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I’m curious to know what your premier is saying about the ban on American booze and whether you agree with the Premier of Quebec. There are reports that the federal government is prepared to meet some demands from the United States, including ending provincial bans on American alcohol, in exchange for relief from tariffs from the United States. But Quebec’s premier, Christine Fréchette, said she will continue to defend Quebec’s economic interests.

She said the ban on alcohol from the United States will remain in effect “until an agreement that we deem fair has been negotiated.” “The sale of alcohol falls exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Quebec government. Quebec, and Quebec alone, will make that decision,” she said.

Let me know what your premier is saying.

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I recently heard a First Nation’s Chief in British Columbia say this about the pipeline that crosses his territory. “Whether I support it or not, we have to get on board and reap what benefits we can.” I totally disagree with this because it treats the pipeline as a foregone conclusion. Working within the system to gain from it just reinforces the system that colonized Indigenous people in the first place. The pipeline will accelerate climate change, and it represents a direct threat to the habitat it crosses. Why are you willing to accept this in exchange for a few dollars?

I much prefer the philosophy of the Mapuche. The Mapuche are an Indigenous people of southern Chile and Argentina. Their name means land people. They repelled the Spanish by alternating between armed resistance and treaties and held independent territory for fifty years after Chile declared independence in 1810. They do not ask for a seat at the table. They block the machinery. In October 2025, Mapuche communities stopped fracking equipment from crossing their land. The Oil and Gas Industry’s plan was to drain a lake to supply 700 new fracking operations. The Mapuche have taken their case to international bodies, testifying about mining, oil, and gas projects. Women lead as spiritual authorities, teachers, and defenders of territory.

Someone in my comments might say this is the problem with First Nations in Canada. They are just obstructionists. What about the people of Albania who have been protesting for months against Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s resort because they want to protect their ecosystem? Are they all just obstructionists that should either be bought off or swept aside? Instead of using the term obstructionists, I would prefer to use the term defenders.

We should demand our leaders defend us against the harmful practices of the oil and gas industry. I reject the idea that a pipeline is a foregone conclusion. It reminds me of the Star Trek episode about the Borg who said “resistance is futile” as they tried to assimilate the human race. Just like Captain Picard, I will never accept that resistance is futile. In many cases, resistance is a moral duty.

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If we had just listened to Indigenous Peoples 500 years ago, we wouldn’t have a climate crisis today. I’m a member of the Mi’kmaq First Nation. I find it fascinating to study the Mi’kmaq concept of “taking only what you need.” It’s known as Netukulimk (pronounced neh doo goo limk).

It is a cultural and spiritual philosophy that has guided resource management, environmental stewardship, and community sustenance for over 12,000 years. Netukulimk is the use of the natural bounty provided by the Creator so that the individual and the community can support themselves and be well. It is achieving adequate standards of community nutrition and economic wellbeing without jeopardizing the integrity, diversity, or productivity of the environment.

Netukulimk teaches people to have enough, but not more than enough. Hoarding, overharvesting, or taking resources for pure profit violates this natural law. When an animal, fish, or plant is taken, every single part must be utilized or repurposed. Wasting nature’s bounty is seen as a profound disrespect to the Creator.

Harvesters must always evaluate how their actions today will affect the resource in the future. For example, when gathering wild sweetgrass, traditional harvesters never pull the plant out by the root, and they switch picking locations frequently so the local population can regenerate next season. Leaders distributed and rotated hunting territories so that no area was exhausted, allowing resources to replenish. Animal bones were handled with care. Throwing them into a fire or feeding them to dogs was not allowed because it prevented the animal’s spirit from becoming another life form.

Humans are recycled by the soil and nourish plants, plants nourish animals, animals nourish humans. Because ancestors are absorbed into land, water and air, consuming plants and animals is a celebration of ancestors. That’s where the term “all my relations” comes from. It’s a reminder that we are interconnected with all aspects of our natural world. To the Mi’kmaq, humans, rivers, plants, and animals are all equal parts of an interconnected family spirit.

Today, DNA mapping proves that all living things on Earth share a single genetic origin. The Mi’kmaq people knew this was true 12,000 years ago. Netukulimk does not treat humans as rulers over nature. Nature has rights. Humans have responsibilities. How do you think this way of life compares to capitalism?

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Canada tried to erase a spiritual, economic and political institution created centuries ago by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. A potlatch is a ceremony practised by First Nations along the coast of British Columbia. The word comes through Chinook Jargon, and it means to give. A host gathers guests for a feast, speeches, songs and dances, and then gives them gifts.

A potlatch can be held to commemorate a marriage, a death, the naming of a child or the succession of a chief. It can transfer names, titles, rights, privileges and responsibilities. It preserves oral history, regulates social standing and distributes wealth. Rather than hoarding resources, a host elevates their status by how much they give away. It is not simply a celebration. It is also a legal, political and economic institution. And the guests serve as witnesses to validate what took place.

In 1884, the Canadian government amended the Indian Act to outlaw the potlatch. European authorities and missionaries saw the practice as an obstacle to assimilation, contrary to Christian values, and economically wasteful because of the mass giving away of property. If caught, participants faced two to six months in jail. Many communities continued holding potlatches as a form of underground resistance.

In 1921, Chief Dan Cranmer hosted a secret potlatch on Village Island. Authorities charged 45 people and imprisoned 20. Officials pressured the community to surrender hundreds of masks, pieces of regalia and other cultural belongings. Many pieces were sent to museums or private collectors. It wasn’t until 1951 that this oppressive ban was removed from the Indian Act.

Imagine that. In the late 1800s, the Canadian government tried to eliminate the potlatch because they determined that giving away property was seen as a threat to capitalism. Here we are in 2026, and what is the number one issue, besides climate change, that is causing so much suffering? We have the richest 1% of the population owning 37% of all the wealth, while the poorest 50% owns just 2% combined. If Donald Trump and the Republican Party were around in the 1800s, no doubt they’d be calling these Indigenous communities communists.

It’s just one example of many where the Indigenous way of life, before European contact, made much more sense than the way we have organized our societies today.

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Starting next Sunday, I’ll be posting a longer video for paid subscribers on Substack that examines one Indigenous concept, like the Potlatch or Netukulimk. I’ve just created short videos about these concepts for everyone. But I want to explore the Indigenous way of life in more depth.

I’ll continue to post my short videos here for everyone. The longer educational content will be available to my paid subscribers once a week. If this is something you’re interested in, consider becoming a paid subscriber. You can always go back to being a free subscriber anytime.

If paying a monthly subscription is too much, but you still want to support what I’m doing, you can also buy me a coffee. The link is in my bio. I appreciate you all very much.

Thank you,

Michael

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Whatever Trump says, I believe the opposite is true. So, when Trump says we don’t need anything that Canada has, that’s b******t. If Canada ever decided to close its doors, the whole world would feel it within weeks. Let’s start with food. Potash is one of the main ingredients in fertilizer. Without it, crop yields around the world would collapse. Canada holds the largest potash reserves in the world. It controls about one third of the world’s potash supply. If Canada stopped digging potash tomorrow, the price of food everywhere would go up within weeks.

Then there’s uranium. The world is racing to expand nuclear energy to fight climate change, and nuclear plants run on uranium. Canada ranks second among uranium producers in the world and has some of the richest deposits ever discovered, with grades that are dozens of times higher than those found anywhere else. So, many of the reactors that are lighting up cities around the world are running on Canadian fuel.

Then there’s water, the one resource no one can live without. As the planet heats up and rivers dry up, fresh water is becoming one of the most valuable substances. Canada holds around 20% of all the fresh water in the world. Canada is known as the land of lakes. While countries are heading toward a future of drought and water wars, Canada is sitting on an ocean of the one thing everyone will be desperate for in the future.

Canada’s oil reserves are also the third largest in the world, at around 170 billion barrels, behind only Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. It is also one of the largest producers of gold, nickel, and the rare metals that go into your phone, your laptop and the batteries of electric cars. Then there’s timber. Nearly 40% of the planet’s forests that are certified as sustainable are Canadian. That means that when Canada cuts down trees for timber, paper, or fuel, it is ensuring that the forests will remain ecologically diverse for future generations. Canada also produces wheat and canola.

And let’s talk about aluminum. The U.S. relies on Quebec for its aluminum. This means Quebec has an irreplaceable role in keeping U.S. manufacturing going. America relies on Quebec because aluminum production requires massive amounts of electricity. Quebec uses cheap hydroelectric power. Electricity in the U.S. is expensive, and it keeps going up. The U.S. simply lacks the infrastructure to fulfill its own demand, and it has learned that it cannot get it anywhere else. For example, a new project that would make 50,000 tonnes per year has been proposed in the U.S. Quebec produces that same 50,000 tonnes in just one week.

Major automotive manufacturing relies on Quebec’s lightweight metal. Ford’s iconic pickup trucks depend on Quebec aluminum. U.S. aerospace and defense contractors rely on aluminum alloys of a high grade for commercial aircraft and military hardware. Consumer goods like beverage cans and structural beams used in American infrastructure are deeply tied to Canadian supply lines.

Americans are telling Quebec they’ll give them tariff relief if they move operations to the U.S., but that’s not going to happen because the U.S. doesn’t have the energy. What Quebec produces and ships to the U.S. is 2.7 million tonnes of metal a year. It takes 40 million megawatt hours of energy to produce that amount. The U.S. doesn’t have the energy. It doesn’t have the hydropower. That energy is equivalent to the output of 5 Hoover Dams. Canada isn’t going to move assets that are competitive worldwide, and now Quebec can arbitrage between the European market and the U.S. market. When the return is better in Europe, Quebec producers ship to Europe. This is what has happened over the past 3 months, leading to the accelerated depletion of U.S. inventory.

All Trump’s tariffs have done is make aluminum cost U.S. consumers $2,000 more per tonne than Europe is paying.

So Canada has food, fuel, water, metals, timber, and power. Canada isn’t just rich in one thing. It’s rich in nearly everything the modern world can’t survive without. In terms of resources, Canada is one of the most powerful nations that has ever existed. So, when Trump says we don’t need anything Canada has, why does the idiot continue to wish we were the 51st state?

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When arguing with a climate skeptic who claims the climate has always changed, start by asking a simple question. Are you telling me that you know something that over 99% of climate scientists have missed?

Then ask them about the last time they had a fever. We know our healthy body temperature is 98.6 degrees. An increase of just 1 or 2 degrees and we’re sick. Ask them how they felt when they had a temperature over 100 degrees.

The earth is just like the human body. An increase of just 1.5 degrees means our earth is running a fever. We already know that a small temperature shift can completely upend human civilization.

Between 1300 and 1850 the global temperature dropped by .5 to 1 degree which was caused by massive volcanic eruptions blocking sunlight and a dip in solar activity. This is the same amount of temperature changes we’re seeing today, but in the opposite direction. It resulted in massive food shortages and famine. Glaciers grew and swallowed up entire farms and villages. That cold triggered crop failures, mass starvation, the French Revolution, and a spike in European witch trials. So, a drop of just 1 degree was enough to freeze oceans, wipe out villages and trigger revolutions.

If we turn the thermostat up 1-2 degrees, it would be just as catastrophic, only this time we’ll have rising seas, blistering heatwaves, catastrophic forest fires, and historic droughts.

For the skeptics who say that the climate has always changed, remind them that the speed of change is like a moving glacier. Historically it took 1000 years for the temperature to rise just 1 degree. But in just the last 150 years, temperature rose 1.2 degrees. That’s 10 times faster than natural global warming.

There’s absolutely no doubt that humans are causing this rapid warming by releasing so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gasses act like piling on a heavy winter coat. The room doesn’t have to be hotter, but your body heat can’t escape. The earth is trapping solar energy right at the surface. Our oceans act like a giant sponge, absorbing over ninety per cent of this trapped heat. This massive volume of stored energy is melting polar ice sheets at an accelerating rate.

The melting ice causes global sea levels to rise every year, directly threatening coastal communities. Everywhere, mountain glaciers are shrinking, birds are nesting earlier, and marine life is migrating north looking for colder water.

And we’re about to get hit with the strongest El Nino on record. This means heat from the Pacific Ocean is now going to be dumped into the atmosphere, making global temperatures even hotter. There’s a 90% chance that 2027 is going to be the warmest year on record around the world. The last super El Nino we saw was in 2015 and this meant 2016 was the warmest year on record that year. Scientists think that in 2027 we might see the first single month where global temperatures temporarily cross the terrifying 2 degree threshold. This is the warmest we’ve ever seen. That is some serious heat. And the countries most affected by this are going to be India, China and Canada.

Next year’s weather is going to be even more unstable. The peak of this El Nino is going to be around January or February next year, right when winter happens and the biggest snowstorms happen. Even though Canada and the Arctic are going to be warmer than average in the winter, this means more snow possibly for places in the Northeast US. So, we might see huge Nor’easters this coming winter.

And no, El Ninos are not caused by climate change. But climate change combined with El Ninos can cause devastating consequences. And yes, humans are currently the ones causing climate change right now. Yes, maybe in the past, millions of years ago, it was natural, but now it’s human made because of all the carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses we’re dumping into the atmosphere.

If none of this convinces your friend, you might need new friends.

What are your favorite lines from climate skeptics?

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Just in case you needed another reason not to trust the conservatives. BC Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay has directed MLAs to no longer use the term “First Nations” because it is a woke description and language from the left. She wants to return to using the term “Indian,” and she says the name of the Indian Act, which defines Indian status and reserve lands, justifies using the term again. Findlay has promised to take a harder line on Indigenous issues. She promises to be unapologetic about B.C.’s colonial history. She promises to repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, and she wants to work with Western provinces on constitutional reform to protect private property rights from Aboriginal title declarations.

The BC NDP says that Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s extreme and divisive approach would set our province back to the 1800s. I previously made a video about how Findlay is in love with Trump. It won’t be long before we hear the slogan, “Make British Columbia Great Again.” She’s more interested in pitting neighbour against neighbour than in making life better for British Columbians. Christy Clark recently said that Findlay “cannot win an election” because “she is too kooky.”

But why is reverting to the term “Indian” so offensive and harmful? First, it is a literal colonial mistake. Christopher Columbus used it because he was lost and mistakenly thought he had reached India. Forcing a centuries old geographical error onto the original inhabitants of this continent erases their true identities. Second, the term lumps hundreds of distinct nations, cultures, and languages into one inaccurate bucket. It completely ignores the rich diversity of unique communities like the Haida, Squamish, and Gitxsan, treating them as if they are all the same rather than sovereign groups.

Third, the word carries deep historical trauma. In Canada, “Indian” is an institutional label imposed by the federal government through the Indian Act, which was a piece of legislation designed to assimilate Indigenous people, outlaw their culture, and force children into residential schools. Using it is a direct callback to state sponsored oppression.

Using “First Nations” isn’t “woke” language; it is a matter of basic respect and self determination. Indigenous peoples chose this term to recognize their status as the original sovereign keepers of this land long before European contact. Forcing an outdated colonial label back onto people isn’t just “kooky,” it is a deliberate tool to strip away dignity and erase decades of hard fought reconciliation.

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