“When you treat someone with kindness, it enables trust, and with trust, people can be more productive and collaborative together,” she said in an interview.
Ontario Liberal MP Giovanna Mingarelli is hoping to change the tenor of political discourse in Canada.
Earlier this week, she rose in the House of Commons to mark Global Dignity Day, a non-partisan, non-religious event that celebrates something that Mingarelli said it often missing in political debates — kindness.
“When you treat someone with kindness, it enables trust, and with trust, people can be more productive and collaborative together,” she said in an interview.
“We often relate to kindness in elementary schools, or in high schools as being something that younger people are taught, but we honestly seldom talk about it in politics, and I think that it’s missing.”
Mingarelli was previously the chair of Global Dignity Day Canada, and brought together politicians from all stripes for a press conference in February to mark National Kindness Week.
Her efforts come as our neighbours to the south grapple with an increasingly polarizing political environment where personal attacks have become increasingly common – and harsh.
But Mingarelli said Canadians have become more united and collaborative as we’ve bonded together to push back against the aggressive broadsides of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has routinely lambasted Canada for allegedly ripping off our American neighbours and said we would be better suited as the 51st state.
“When I ran in the the 2025 election, it was basically the President Trump election, right? And all parties were running to protect our country from this narrative of of the 51st state, etc… And in a way that has brought us closer together because we are not each other’s enemies.”
Mingarelli said she hopes Canada “remains active and and supportive of Global Dignity Day,” and plans to “continue to enable greater cross-partisan collaboration.”