The Extractivist Shock Doctrine: Crises and the New Politics of Extraction in Canada

Seeking to regain ground lost to Indigenous land/water defence and environmental movements, state and corporate actors are successfully exploiting crises to reorient the balance of forces in favour of extractive industries in Canada. This article surveys the political response to three recent crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and geopolitical instability. In each case, the authors show how crises served as both rhetorical justification and strategic opportunity to expand the extraction of minerals, oil, and natural gas. Moreover, in each case, the interests of extractive capital were consistently privileged. These crises were, the authors argue, critical inflection points that significantly changed the balance of forces surrounding extraction in Canada. We may well be witnessing a transition toward an authoritarian extractivist order that uses cascading crises to override Indigenous and environmental demands.