The word was addressed earlier this week to the Liberals and NDP by Conservative leader Pierre Poulieu. And some Liberals danced around the term when asked about it by reporters. “It’s a rapidly evolving term,” says Jennifer Saul, a professor specializing in the philosophy of political language at the University of Waterloo. “For a while, there were people who happily identified themselves as awake. Now it’s been adopted as a term of abuse.”
Some Liberals are distancing themselves
After Poilievre’s election to lead the Conservatives, some Liberal MPs told Radio-Canada they want their party to shift to the center to combat Poilievre’s populist conservatism. “We need a government that is down to earth and less awake,” one lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Radio-Canada. Poilievre would later call the Liberals and NDP — who support the government through a confidence and supply agreement — a “radical awakening coalition” in his first speech to parliament as Conservative leader. Poilievre’s use of “wake” as a pejorative led several Liberal cabinet ministers to cautiously throw the word around during the party’s caucus retreat earlier this week. “Honestly, I don’t even know what it means to be awake. I work to serve Canadians,” said Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeau. “I certainly don’t think I’m awake, trust me and no one in my family thinks so,” said Innovation and Science Minister Francois-Philippe Champan. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre greet each other as they gather in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa on Thursday, September 15, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick) Even NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh didn’t specifically adopt the term when asked about it during an interview on CBC Radio’s The House — though he said he doubts Poilievre understands what it means. “I don’t think Mr. Poilievre knows what he means when he says that. I don’t think he understands what he’s saying when he’s just throwing words around,” Singh told host Catherine Cullen in the interview that aired Saturday. “I think it’s kind of an untenable kind of position. It doesn’t really reflect reality,” he said, adding that his party’s focus is to help Canadians.
Where does the word come from?
The use of the term “woke” in a political context comes from Black activists in the United States in the early to mid-20th century, according to McGill political science professor Terri Givens. Givens said it was used as a vigilante term, calling for greater public awareness of racial discrimination. As a black woman growing up in the United States, she said, she was very familiar with the term. “I’ve heard that term my whole life,” he said. “It’s a term that means ‘We have to wake up to this fact [discrimination is] it’s happening to us.” Givens said that while the term has been used in Black communities in North America for decades, it gained prominence in the broader public discourse during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. A new sign for the Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House in Washington. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Saul said that in the years following the rise of Black Lives Matter, people began to apply the term more broadly to bring awareness to other social issues, such as sexism, poverty and challenges facing LGBTQ people. Both Saul and Givens said the term has since been used by right-wing figures to castigate people or policies they consider too progressive. “This has become a blunt instrument of the right,” Givens said. Saul agrees but notes that “woke” has taken on a negative connotation on the left as well. The term “wake-washing,” he said, is used to describe the actions of people or organizations that try to convince others that they care about certain issues.
Woke up to the current political climate
Both Saul and Givens said Poilievre’s use of the word to smear the Liberals, and subsequent efforts by some Liberals to distance themselves from it, is not surprising. The same things are happening in the US and Europe, they said. “I think the ‘Yes, I’m awake and proud of it’ defense is unlikely to succeed because the term ‘woke’ has become so well appropriated,” Saul said. Givens said she doesn’t think the historical context of the term is understood by either Liberals or Conservatives. “It really pains me to see politicians making these conditions… [as] a quick sound bite, rather than having a nuanced conversation,” he said.
