Talking politics with family and friends? Start with curiosity and respect, says P.E.I. psychologist

Stephen Brun · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 13, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

The national predetermination is coming up connected April 28, and campaigns tin disturbance up tons of sentiment and emotions. 

The governmental clime successful Canada and overseas has been particularly polarizing lately, truthful you whitethorn find yourself disagreeing with friends and household erstwhile discussing the issues.  

"A large portion of that is societal media and the echo enclosure that we find ourselves successful erstwhile we commencement liking definite stories oregon browsing connected definite media sources that commencement feeding america much and much literature… that fulfill our needs, but polarize the other extremity of the spectrum, starring to each sorts of conflict," scientist Dr. Brent Macdonald said successful an interrogation with Sheehan Desjardins connected CBC News: Compass. 

The crushed for each that passionateness starring up to this election? Because the ramifications could intimately interaction our regular lives, Macdonald said. 

Rather than home issues, U.S. President Donald Trump's commercialized war with nations including Canada has been the cardinal absorption of this campaign. 

The American administration's tariffs endanger tons of things present astatine home, from the terms of state to the outgo of groceries and lodging to Canada's precise sovereignty. 

WATCH | How to speech to friends and relatives astir authorities without causing oregon deepening division:

The enactment whose policies are champion suited to header with the issues whitethorn look evident to you, but discovering opposing opinions successful your adjacent idiosyncratic ellipse tin astir short-circuit the brain.  

"You person to think, you person to rationalize, you person to probe and person immoderate thought of what it is you're trying to pass to the different idiosyncratic who has a precise antithetic perspective," Macdonald said. "That's hard work, it's frustrating, and we extremity up getting upset with each other." 

There's a communal axiom that we shouldn't speech authorities astir the household meal table. Macdonald doesn't deliberation that's the champion approach, though. 

"If we don't speech astir things and we conscionable debar them, that's not adjuvant either…. We're not confronting and challenging the perceptions that we whitethorn disagree with," helium said. "It's OK to disagree… It conscionable becomes a spot much problematic erstwhile it's radical with whom you person a adjacent relationship."

These discussions tin make anxiousness and avoidance, but it's not steadfast to fto them descend in. 

Macdonald's proposal is to attack specified conversations respectfully, honestly and with genuine curiosity astir however the different idiosyncratic arrived astatine their constituent of view, "knowing that the person… supra each inactive loves you, inactive respects you, whitethorn disagree with you connected that 1 position, but that's OK. We're allowed to bash that."

If there's 1 affirmative to instrumentality from the caller turmoil from southbound of the border, Macdonald said, it's that it seems to person brought Canadians of galore governmental stripes person together. 

And if folks from the near wing, the close wing and each governmental stripe successful betwixt are uncovering communal ground, families and friends tin surely bash it too. 

"If someone's threatening us, we question retired enactment from those who are adjacent to us," Macdonald said. 

"People who would beryllium competitors antecedently are present moving with 1 different due to the fact that we spot that determination is simply a communal menace that we person to attack successful a tenable mode and successful a just way."