Sarnia-born Kevin Mackay, who describes himself as a holistic thinker, is the author of Radical Transformation: Oligarchy, Collapse and the Crisis of Civilization, Executive Director of Sky Dragon Cooperative in downtown Hamilton, and a professor and academic now living in Hamilton, where he teaches social sciences at Mohawk College.
His most recent undertaking was launching Canadian Academics for a Just Foreign Policy in 2024, a platform that penned an open letter advocating for stronger protections for academic freedom.
Mackay has a long-standing history with the academic world, beginning at St Patrick’s High School.
“I had some really great teachers at St. Pat’s,” Mackay said, reflecting on his early education.
He initially enrolled at McMaster University for visual art, but soon realized it wasn’t the right path. “I just started to get interested in anthropology, sociology, psychology, all that sort of stuff.”
Shifting directions, Mackay joined The Silhouette, McMaster’s campus newspaper. “I went to the school newspaper and said I’d like to write,” he recalled. “They asked what I was interested in, and I said, well, anything.”
His first assignment was covering a talk on the crisis in East Timor.
“It was a student activist from East Timor,” Mackay said. “At the time, in the ’90s, there was a war on a tiny island beside Indonesia. Indonesia was basically taking it over and wiping out the populace — horrible, horrible.”
Mackay felt an urge to do something about this crisis, setting him off on a journey rooted in empathy:
“I’m some kid raised in Sarnia, middle-class, white, Canadian. I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Mackay said. “I went to this talk and was like, oh my god, because the Canadian government was funding Indonesia. We were supplying military aid, weapons, the whole nine yards. It was a big eye-opener. I started realizing there’s a big world out there.”
This experience, coupled with his growing interest in the social sciences, set him on a path that led to a teaching role at Mohawk College.
While teaching, Mackay began to witness what he describes as troubling events on campus. In response, he founded Canadian Academics for a Just Foreign Policy (CAJFP) in 2024, an initiative focused on academic freedom, particularly for faculty and students working on areas related to foreign policy, colonialism, and global power.
Mackay says the impetus for creating CAJFP came from observing the active suppression of students and faculty who spoke out about the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“We need the freedom to criticize our own government, our own institutions and accepted norms. Free inquiry is the lifeblood of a democratic society. It’s the ability of professors to do their work and the ability of students to learn freely. That is the kind of thing protected by academic freedom. And we are seeing blatant attacks,” Mackay said.
Reports of academic suppression were documented across the country in a 2023 Canadian Association of University Teachers report, focused on on-campus responses to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Mackay said he has seen students placed on academic probation or suspended, and faculty members disciplined, censured, or even fired for speaking out.
And even he is not immune. He shared that there have been two active campaigns to have him fired. “There are things I haven’t yet spoken to the media about, even at my own institution. It would be tough for me even to talk about,” he voiced.
As part of CAJFP’s efforts, Mackay authored an open letter urging universities to uphold free inquiry in geopolitical research and debate. He said the letter was meant to spark deeper reflection: “I wanted to take this specific approach, and hopefully it’s apparent in the open letter, to get at this deeper idea of: folks, what are we doing here?”
Mackay explained that, beyond individual views, a deeper principle is at stake in academic freedom and free speech. When those freedoms are suppressed, he said, it suppresses the rights of citizens themselves.
“We can agree to disagree, but I would hope you can agree that it is not okay to let our society devolve to the point where inquiry and speech get stifled,” he said. “This research gets stifled, then all of a sudden, you can’t say this in the classroom, or you can’t hold a protest. To me, that’s dangerous — apart from any specific issue.”
“So, that’s where I thought that the CAJFP could contribute to this broader cultural struggle," he explained.
For Mackay, the CAJFP is about protecting Canada’s freedoms and questioning our values as a country, including foreign policy. “I really see us being at a crossroads, at an inflection point in our history,” he stated. “I think the danger — what you have in the U.S. is an empire starting to break apart, and the dangers we get sucked into, and the crisis and upheaval that comes with that.”
“This isn’t about being anti-American, to be clear,” he added. “But it’s about understanding that the world has been run on a system dominated by the U.S. They threw their economic and military power around. That’s changing.”
“We have a real opportunity, not just for our own [Canada’s] selfish interest, but to become a real player on the global stage for sanity, sober problem solving, peace, and international cooperation. But we need all hands on deck to be playing that role. We have shown flashes of independent foreign policy in the past, but we need it now for our future.”
He emphasized that now, more than ever, he hopes Canada will do the hard work required of it. “We have a choice to make. In Canada, we have to wake up as a country and take our sovereignty seriously,” Mackay said. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s very pessimistic. It’s not looking great.”
Despite that, he said he still has hope in people. “I study social change. I’ve seen this in the past, and it’s a beautiful thing. Human beings — we don’t like suppression. When the screws get tightened, the people trying to suppress think it’s going to make people stop speaking out. But it tends to do the opposite,” he remarked. “People are starting to organize against these things. And history shows that when people do that, it’s not easy, but they’re capable of amazing things.”
When asked how growing up in Sarnia shaped his views, Mackay asserted, “For me as a kid in Sarnia — it was a wonderful place to grow up. Part of it was that I was lucky, you know, to be born into a stable, loving family. But it was the community, the friends I was able to meet, the schools I attended — I played all sorts of sports, that sort of stuff. It was a good and safe and nurturing environment.”
Community, according to Mackay, is what brings people together and ultimately allows them to overcome—if they choose to stick together.
“My understanding of history is that all the progress we’ve made is related to groups,” he said. “With groups who are marginalized or cast aside, it comes from them organizing and pushing for a more just society. There is definitely a truth to that that I really believe in.”
As for what’s next, Mackay said he plans to begin a campaign to bring CAJFP to the forefront. “We are in the process of kicking it off. We’ve had successful events and great engagement, so there’s interest, but now we’re needing to do the hard work of building the network and reaching out and getting more signatories.”
He's also working on a second book, A New Ecological Politics, which examines how community can expand collective freedom. “I do way too many things, it’s a problem,” he added with a laugh.
For more information on the CAFJP: https://justforeignpolicy.ca/. Kevin Mackay’s book Radical Transformation: Oligarchy, Collapse and the Crisis of Civilization. For more information on Sky Dragon Community Development Cooperative: https://www.skydragon.org/.