Oh... Canada :/ (Extended Distillation)

I’m tired, eh.

There’s a strange kind of fatigue that comes with pretending everything’s fine when it very obviously isn’t. This is glaringly evident in all your relationships. Based on my relationship with Canada right now, I'm tired.

Not tired in the metaphorical “burn it all down” way. More the sit in your driveway for five extra minutes before walking inside with the $200 weekly groceries kind of way.

It wasn’t that long ago that Canada was routinely ranked one of the best places to live in the world. Top of the G7, darlings of the OECD. But by almost every measure that actually affects people’s lives, we’ve slipped. GDP per capita is falling. Housing is unaffordable. Inflation is persistent. Wage growth is stagnant. We haven’t fallen off a cliff — we’ve just been quietly sliding down the gravel shoulder while convincing ourselves it’s still the scenic route.

The truth? Our family is doing okay. Better than okay, really. We’ve got good jobs, family nearby to help, and we deliberately chose a community that feels safe and connected. We are — by any reasonable measure — insulated.

But that’s exactly what makes the current state of Canada so concerning. If even people like us are starting to feel the cracks — with healthcare delays, rising costs or subtle cultural dissonance — what does that mean for people without those buffers?

Something’s shifted. And it’s not just economic. It’s mental. It’s cultural. It’s the creeping sense that we’re being asked to quietly accept a lesser version of what this country once promised.

1. Immigration on Steroids, GDP on Life Support

Let’s start with the data, because even the numbers are starting to feel like satire.

Canada added over 815,000 people in the first four months of 2025 alone. That includes permanent residents, international students and temporary foreign workers. If you're wondering whether that's sustainable — congratulations, you still have functioning pattern recognition.

It’s not just the volume. It’s the dissonance between what we’re told the country looks like and what’s actually happening.

The headlines talk about GDP growth and a “never been better” economy (and even that’s getting harder to prove as we head towards recession). But GDP per capita — i.e., what the average Canadian effectively receives from that growth — is shrinking.

It’s like being told the only way we’re allowed more pizza at the party is by inviting 200 more people, half of whom have gluten intolerance and the other half thought they were coming for shawarma.

So we invite more people and order more pizza. But, by the time yours arrives, it's cold and soggy.

And listen, I get it — we want to help. That’s one of the best things about being Canadian. We reflexively hold the door open, even if it means standing in the cold a bit longer.

But here’s the thing they tell you every time you fly: put your own oxygen mask on first. Not because you matter more, but because you’re not very useful to anyone if you’re passed out in row 12.

Right now, we’re handing out $140 a day for housing and another $84 for food and expenses to people seeking asylum — and again, it’s admirable to help those fleeing terrible situations. But when you stack that next to the amount of support we offer Canadian citizens sleeping on the street, the contrast feels... off.

Heck, that works out to be $81,760 per year. $20,000 more than the average Canadian salary.

It’s not about being less generous. It’s about being functional first. Because if we can’t stabilize the system for the people who already live here — who’ve paid in, who’ve waited their turn — then we’re setting ourselves up to fail the very people we’re trying to help.

Generosity without infrastructure isn’t compassion. It’s chaos with a polite accent.

Job growth has flatlined and unemployment is rising. Windsor’s unemployment rate jumped from 8% to 11% over the last year. Toronto’s crept from 7% to 8%. Youth unemployment is at 15%. Meanwhile, infrastructure remains clogged, rents skyrocket, and hospitals are underwater. Even grocery costs, like beef prices doubling year-over-year, feel like a cruel punchline.

The kicker? The federal government refused to even table a budget for 2025. Not because of war. Not because of some massive external crisis. Just… because. In its place, we’ve got a kind of performative statement from our prime minister: “We know how to grow this economy without spending money.”

a) What does that even mean?
b) Good luck with that…

They’re printing money, but can’t print doctors. Or housing. Or credibility.

We’re growing our top-line GDP while quietly gambling that no one notices how diluted our share is becoming. Population growth as an economic growth strategy isn't viable over any extended period of time.

2. Multiculturalism v2.0 — Bug Fix Needed

Let’s start with the obvious caveat: Canada is one of the most open, tolerant and welcoming countries on Earth. That’s not up for debate.

But what is up for debate is whether our current version of multiculturalism is actually working.

Because increasingly, it feels like we’ve turned the idea of multiculturalism into a slogan, not a system. And like most slogans, the louder you shout it, the less it actually means.

Case in point: I watched a video the other day of a young Black man being subtly discriminated against while applying for a job at a Pizza Pizza. The employees told him, not maliciously but matter-of-factly, that they were only hiring Punjabis.

That’s the kind of quiet segregation that’s happening in plain sight. Toronto is increasingly divided by borough and ethnicity, with whole neighbourhoods functioning like silos. Where your access to jobs, housing or respect can depend on the dominant cultural group of that postal code.

That isn’t integration. It’s a balkanization of identity and it’s turning what was supposed to be a shared project into a loose collection of adjacent but incompatible life experiences.

Everyone’s in the room, but no one’s talking to each other.

More and more, it feels like people aren’t coming to Canada to escape conflict — they’re coming to Canada and bringing their conflicts with them. We used to imagine Canada as neutral ground, a kind of moral Switzerland where you could start fresh. But that utopia is failing.

How about a high school in Pickering, ON walking the streets waving Palestinian flags and calling Israel a terrorist state? I saw ambulances had to be diverted in downtown Toronto last week due to pro-Palestinian marches blocking Yonge and Dundas Square. Or how about the synagogues in Montreal that were firebombed late last year?

These are not — at their heart — Canadian debates. But they’re happening on Canadian soil.

And the truth is, we don’t have the cultural infrastructure to absorb this many imported tensions without fracturing. We want to be fair, to be kind and to be welcoming. But at some point, a nation needs to know where it ends and something else begins.

This isn't just a Canadian issue either. A BBC poll last year found that 95% of people believe multiculturalism isn’t working. Ninety-five percent. When nearly everyone agrees something isn’t working, the conversation isn’t “should we talk about it?” — the conversation is “why haven’t we already?”

3. The Culture Crash

We used to have shared myths. Shared reference points. A kind of quiet pride that came from knowing who we were. Canadians were so proud to be Canadians that even the Americans would pretend to be Canadians when travelling abroad.

That’s disappearing.

Canadian Heritage Minutes used to be about pride.

Vimy Ridge. Terry Fox.

Now they’re guilt trips — reminders of our WORST moments. Residential schools. Internment camps. The story has changed from “Here’s what made us proud” to “Here’s why you should feel ashamed of your country.”

Let’s talk about Don Cherry for a second. I mentioned it last week.

Take his brashness for what you will — he was never going to be delicate. That was kind of the whole point of Coach’s Corner. But I do believe that Canada owes Don Cherry an apology. Not because he was polite or tactful. But because, buried beneath the paisley suits and bluster, he pointed to a real problem before it was fashionable to talk about it.

He got fired for criticizing new Canadians who weren’t wearing poppies. The phrase that triggered it all was “you people like our milk and honey,” which was a terrible choice of words. But the core argument wasn’t about racism or exclusion. It was about remembrance, respect and a shared sense of national pride. About whether immigrants — and even many younger Canadians — still understood why we wear a poppy in the first place.

Ten years later, it’s hard not to see his point. Wearing a poppy isn’t just a decoration — it’s a quiet, universal nod to a sacrifice that allowed us to have this conversation freely in the first place.

Meanwhile, the country starts to feel less safe. I wrote about high trust society late last year.

The 401 shuts down for illegal fireworks or drag racing and no one knows whether to call it a protest or a party. A 14-year-old stabs an elderly woman in broad daylight outside her home, and the public shrugs like it’s just another weird Tuesday. The police now advise residents to leave their car keys by the front door — not so you don’t lose them, but so burglars don’t get violent when they break in.

We are literally pre-emptively surrendering our own homes.

And through all this, the only time I’ve seen Canadians get even remotely nationalistic in the last few years was when Donald Trump joked about making us the 51st state.

Then we got our elbows up. Then the flags came out.

But not when our schools are collapsing. Not when our health system buckles. Not when our kids can’t afford homes and our seniors can’t get surgery.

We’re more offended by the idea of being annexed than the reality of decline.

That’s not patriotism. That’s a good marketing campaign.

And if we’re more comfortable pushing back against an outsider’s joke than standing up for the identity of our own country — then maybe we’ve already lost more than we realize.

4. The War on Families

This isn’t some vague lament about changing social values. I’m talking about real-world, institutional efforts to erode the idea of “family” as a positive or even neutral concept.

Case in point: a recent presentation given to teachers in the Waterloo Region District School Board. The presenter advised educators to stop using the word “family” in classroom materials and communication — because the word might be “exclusionary.”

No one is asking for blind reverence to nuclear households. But when even the word “family” is flagged as a linguistic threat, something is culturally broken.

Here’s the part that worries me: this kind of thing doesn’t land as outrageous anymore. It lands as fatigue. The slow erosion of common sense, met with polite Canadian nods and a quiet internal voice that goes: “Is it even worth saying anything?”

Well, yes. It is. Because “family” isn’t just a word — it’s one of the last remaining anchors we have. For culture. For continuity. For meaning. And if we let that word float out to sea because we’re scared of offending yur Facebook friends, we’re going to lose more than just semantics.

Here’s the thing: I don’t want to give up on this place.

That’s why I’m writing any of this. Because for all its slow erosion, cultural weirdness, and bureaucratic clownery, Canada is still worth fighting for. But we can’t fix anything if we keep pretending that the problems are just cosmetic — or worse, that noticing them makes you some kind of villain.

It doesn’t.

It means you have a pulse.

We are not owed a great country. We inherit one only if we’re willing to maintain it. That means saying the awkward things out loud. It means drawing real lines between values we import and values we stand for. It means recognizing that a nation isn’t just a border — it’s a set of expectations we share and protect.

Yes, it’s good to be polite. But politeness should never come at the cost of honesty, stability or a collective spine.

So if you’ve been feeling the cracks, you’re not alone. And you’re not crazy.

What you are… is Canadian.

And it might be time we all started acting like it. Even if it means just being the guy who politely raises his hand and asks: ‘Hey, is it just me, or does this place feel... off?’ With fingers covered in ketchup chip dust.

Words I Wish I Wrote

Links & Learnings

• Inspiration is perishable.

• Perspective.

• The big map of who lived when.

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