Since 2016, Thomas Homer-Dixon, an award-winning author, social scientist and executive director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in Victoria, B.C., has been warning about President Donald Trump’s authoritarian leanings.
In Homer-Dixon’s view, Canada should be preparing for the worst — including by instituting a mandatory national service program and anticipating U.S. meddling in Alberta’s separatist movement.
Homer-Dixon spoke with Canadian Affairs reporter John Longhurst about those warnings, what Canada should be doing now, and about the threat of U.S. involvement in Alberta’s secession drive.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
JL: When did you start writing about the threat to Canada from the U.S. under Donald Trump?
THD: It goes back to an article I co-wrote in 2016, before Trump was elected for the first time. I already felt back then that he could move to consolidate authoritarian control over American institutions if elected. Since then, I’ve been warning that democratic backsliding in the United States poses risks not only domestically for the U.S., but for Canada as well. Much of what I anticipated has materialized now, in his second term.
I wrote another article in 2021 about the potential collapse of American democracy by 2025 and the rise of a dictatorship in the U.S. That got a huge amount of attention. I said Canadians should prepare for that. I stopped short of raising direct military scenarios.
By March 2025, however, I felt things had shifted enough to speak more plainly. That’s when I published an article invoking the Latin phrase Si vis pacem, para bellum — if you want peace, prepare for war.
JL: You’ve also spoken about the possibility of U.S. coercion tied to Alberta separatism. Why raise that scenario?
THD: Because it’s plausible. If Alberta held a secession referendum and it failed, a U.S. administration sympathetic to annexationist sentiment could claim the vote was illegitimate.
They’re probably going to get around 30 per cent in favour of separation. Trump could declare the results are fake, that it was over 50 per cent, and just say the U.S. will recognize Alberta’s secession.
I consider that a low-probability but high-impact risk. Preparing reduces the probability further.
JL: Some would say you sound alarmist.
THD: I’ve been called worse! But I base my analysis on long-term structural trends, not intuition.
Authoritarianism, I’ve argued, is a “recessive gene” in American political culture. It has surfaced before. The first Trump term was constrained. His second term, freed from institutional guardrails, presents a greater risk.
JL: You are calling for a voluntary national youth service program. What role would that play in all this?
THD: I wrote about that last year. It would strengthen social cohesion and deterrence. Countries like Switzerland and Finland deter aggression not only through military capacity, but through whole-of-society readiness.
Our polling suggests nearly three-quarters of Canadians would resist a military attack in some way. A significant minority would join civil defence efforts. These are not trivial numbers.
A national service framework could channel that willingness productively — through things like a climate response corps, infrastructure protection, emergency preparedness. It would also build bridges across ideological divides. At the Cascade Institute, people from across the political spectrum support this idea because it affirms something we all share: That Canada is worth preserving.
JL: Are there models for this kind of service in other countries?
THD: Israel has historically integrated diverse populations through military service. Scandinavian countries and Switzerland may be better illustrations. Their preparedness signals to potential aggressors that occupation would be costly.
That’s the message I believe Canadians — and Americans — need to understand. Annexation fantasies in the U.S. ignore the reality that Canadians would resist. Effective deterrence depends on making that clear.
JL: What is your message to Canadians now?
THD: That preparation reduces risk. We’ve been comfortable for decades. That era may be ending. We can respond by retreating into denial, or by building the capacity to protect what we value.
