The Fundamental Question

Can Canada be saved?

Even if you’re not Canadian, you’ve likely heard that ‘Canada Votes’ on Monday, April 28th, 2025. The international press is taking an interest in us, an erstwhile respected G-7 power, now on the skids. Is there a bit of Schadenfreude here? Or, are they picking up on the extraordinary tension and drama of this unique election, the most significant one of this generation. Because this is about a reckoning and accountability for all that has gone wrong in this country during the last decade. And finding out if we have it in us to rise from the ashes, be reborn, and make Canada Great Again. We’re looking to elect not just a new government but a new way of being Canadian. The country we thought we knew is actually gone. The old certainties about our cherished freedoms and good government have been proven false. This election will decide if a truly liberal and prosperous Canada is in our future.

Too many Canadians have been asleep while the country was going to hell in several hand baskets, ranging from a stagnant economy to dysfunctional health care to rampant crime and lack of housing for the next generation. This shocking news is now impossible to ignore though respecting ‘reality’ is not a favourite pastime hereabouts. If a weird conversation with a young, educated Canadian in my local sauna is any indication, nobody wants to hear that Canadian ‘growth’ during the last decade was 1.4 percent, basically a rounding error. There was no growth to speak of, period. Everyone should read Tristin Hopper’s book Don’t Be Canada for more details on how a once prosperous, nice, safe country went to economic and social hell in just a decade.

But my sauna friend wasn’t having it, he questioned my sources and the methods and basically the assumption that growth is required if you want to survive as an economy and a country. He said it was all lies. This kind of myopic head-in-the sand attitude is unfortunately quite common, and one of the reasons why we are heading into ‘shithole country’ territory. Negative feedback is essential to a functioning democratic country, but we don’t like playing that game. Just ask Kevin Klein, owner of a newspaper and former cabinet minister in Manitoba, on the subject of what Carney’s Liberals are planning to do about Canada’s looming bankruptcy, which is to tax the equity in your home. He found that nobody wanted to hear the facts and all he got for his efforts to warn Canadians was a shitstorm on social media.

Further to our tradition of myopia, the Trump tariffs were greeted in Canada with idiotic cries of we’ll pay you back, we’ll fight you. As a result, we no longer stock American goods and proud Canadians no longer visit down south. Good idea? Given that our economy is up to eighty percent driven by sales to the US, that’s a painful process. Because of our long shared history, this is really a family feud and we all know how they end. But the erratic imposition of tariffs has woken everyone up. And all of a sudden, the inherent weakness of our loose Confederation is staring us in the face.

We’re realizing that we have a lost decade that happened under the ‘leadership’ of the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau. And I can’t help pointing out that he was being advised, quietly and behind the scenes, by none other than Mark Carney. Knowing that, you would think that the Canadian public would instantly run into the arms of welcoming Conservatives because they don’t want more of the same. Yes, a rational electorate would do that, and for a long while, they did. But Trump has spooked them out of all reason. They are terrified and not thinking clearly. As things stand, the two main parties are in a dead heat and even the Astrologers can’t call this one.

However, they agree that Carney isn’t the man for the job. They say he doesn’t like it. It’s stressful and the opposition doesn’t respect him. He’s not used to that kind of daily cut and thrust; he is, after all, a high level banker who is something of an intellectual. He likes ideas, not political fights. Which explains the stop and start nature of his campaign and his inability to hide his utter contempt for the media. And even if he is elected, he won’t last, they say. And all of them insist there is going to be a nasty incident of some kind, a direct attack on the democratic voting process. But it will play out in full view of everyone and the people who orchestrate it will loose. It’s going to be a very strange, highly emotional and hard fought election.

Then there is Pierre Poilievre, a political veteran famous for being former PM Stephen Harper’s ‘attack dog’. He entered politics at age 26, one of the youngest people ever elected to parliament in Canada. He is now in his forties and knows the lay of the political land, and is clearly ready for this job, even if you don’t find him appealing. But the legacy media don’t like him. In a long op-ed, the local rag The Times Colonist, took a swipe at him by pointing out his ‘attack dog’ reputation: you wouldn’t want him as a pet, they say. What they fail to mention is that we might actually need a PM with an aggressive streak in order to survive the global chaos.

To sum up: Canada is in danger, and we’re so bedraggled and weak that Trump is constantly tempted to refer to us as the Fifty-first State and then muse how nice that would be for all concerned. He did it again during a recent phone call with Mark Carney, who promptly lied about it. Unlike his rival Poilievre, Carney is showing Canadians how not to be afraid of the Golden Emperor down south. It’s disappointing to see Poilievre not engaging with the one man who is actually the third contender in this race for control of a weak and confused country. It’s a tactical error of major proportions. But Carney also made a major error. In publishing his fiscal plans that will plunge Canada even deeper into the abyss of debt, debt servicing and ever increasing inflation, Carney likely woke up a few people who might now be wondering if electing a platform like this is in their best interests.

Overall, the question that Canadians have to vote on is this: will Canada survive as a loose Confederation? Will we belatedly take down all the trade barriers between the Provinces? Do away with superfluous and costly rules that require professionals like doctors to retake their exams?? Will we stop measuring ourselves constantly against the American behemoth and actually develop a vision of who and what we are and more importantly, could become? Will we put Quebec in its place and stop being bullied by their historic threat to leave? Can we ever unite this vast geographic entity whose population is clinging to the southern border like a drowning man to a raft? And most importantly, can we pull back from the brink of economic disaster?

This election is about our identity and survival, nothing less. Seven million have already voted, one of the highest turnouts in early voting ever seen. There is a sense of great pressure, of a difficult birthing process that will deliver a baby that is either stillborn, or if we’re lucky, a healthy infant identifiable by its lusty scream. And make no mistake, you and I are the midwives. We must deliver this baby and it’s going to be a long hard night.

No matter how it turns out, Papa Trump is watching. And waiting for Canada to give him an opening. In spite of what he says, the US needs our vast natural resources. And the polar region is where the battle for global supremacy is already under way. That’s us. The US needs Canadian territory for reasons of national security. This might be a family fight on one level, but on another, it’s about economic and military dominance in the Arctic. Canada as a vassal state to the US could become the Ukraine of North America, squashed between two superpowers. We should think hard about that possibility before we cast our ballots. Which of these parties is better at ‘handling’ our frenemy, the soon to be great again but very fractious United States of America? It’s your call. And while you’re agonizing about your decision, you could call on Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony to give you strength and the vision to make the right choice. Beethoven dedicated it to the spirit of revolution and freedom that lives in all of us. That’s not just a romantic ideal; it’s the very foundation of our civilization. And I say the Liberal Party of Canada has betrayed those foundations and does not deserve our vote.