Canadian sovereignty is usually discussed in terms of borders, armies and trade.
There is another form of sovereignty that is easier to overlook.
Cultural sovereignty.
Ask yourself a simple question.
Who tells Canadians what Canada is?
Increasingly, the answer is determined by global entertainment companies, streaming services, social-media platforms and algorithms.
A teenager in Calgary, Halifax or Toronto can consume hours of entertainment without encountering a Canadian story, Canadian historical event, Canadian musician, Canadian landscape or even a Canadian accent.
That is an extraordinary change.
For most of human history, culture was geographically rooted. People heard local stories, participated in local traditions and consumed entertainment created within their own communities.
The internet demolished those boundaries.
There are enormous benefits to that development. Canadians now have access to virtually the entire world’s cultural output.
But abundance creates another problem.
A small country’s culture can become invisible inside the cultural production of much larger countries.
Canada is particularly vulnerable because we share a language with the United States across most of the country and sit directly beside the world’s most powerful entertainment industry.
Canadian artists are therefore competing not merely with one another but with Hollywood studios, global streaming platforms and enormous American media companies.
This is not an abstract concern.
The federal government announced $600 million annually in 2026 to support Canada’s audio and audiovisual sectors while continuing to revise Canada’s approach to online streaming regulation. The policy debate itself demonstrates that cultural sovereignty has become a serious issue in the digital age.
Canadians can reasonably disagree about subsidies, regulation and precisely what role government should play.
The underlying question is larger than any particular policy.
Do we care whether Canadian stories continue to be told?
We should.
Culture gives a country memory.
It teaches generations what happened before they arrived.
It creates shared references.
Think of Canadian hockey broadcasts.
The Tragically Hip.
Anne of Green Gables.
Gordon Lightfoot.
Indigenous art and storytelling traditions.
French Canadian music.
Newfoundland folk songs.
Canadian comedy.
The Group of Seven.
Saturday night hockey.
Stories of Vimy Ridge, Terry Fox, Viola Desmond, the Underground Railroad, the Halifax Explosion and countless other pieces of an enormous national history.
None of these things tells the complete Canadian story.
Together they create a mosaic through which Canadians understand the country.
New stories need to join them.
Canada in 2026 is different from Canada in 1966.
Its population has changed.
Its cities have changed.
Its relationship with Indigenous peoples continues to evolve.
Its cultural influences now arrive from every part of the planet.
Canadian culture should reflect that reality.
Nationalism does not require freezing culture in the past.
Quite the opposite.
A living national culture absorbs new influences and makes them Canadian.
But something must perform that final step.
Otherwise Canada becomes merely a geographic market into which other countries distribute their culture.
Supporting Canadian musicians, authors, filmmakers, artists, comedians and independent businesses is therefore more than charity for creative industries.
It is an investment in cultural continuity.
Countries exist partly because millions of strangers believe they belong to the same story.
If Canadians stop telling that story, someone else will eventually tell it for us.
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