Let’s not kid ourselves. Canada is an Oligarchy.

Growing up as a Canadian in the 1990s, there was a strong sense of national pride instilled in oneself. Throughout history, we were seen as a land of opportunity; a safe place of refuge where people from all over the world could call home. It was clear then that Canada was a nation with a bright future; universally adored and admired by the rest of the world. Especially when contrasted to our American neighbours.

That time has ended.

And I’m not conflating my general feelings toward the country with the natural consequences of modernization. Canada did have a national identity of sorts, but it was always toned down — I again attribute that to us wanting to differentiate ourselves from our vocally patriotic neighbours to the south. No, what I’m referring to is that Canada has no sense of direction.

Seriously: what exactly is the goal here for Canada?

If you asked someone in the 1990s or early 2000s what Canada’s goal as a nation was, I think it would be pretty clear: to offer a place for anyone to prosper and have the social supports in place for all to feel welcome and secure. In other words, a nice mash-up of the American Dream with some Scandinavian social democracy sprinkled on top.

But today? That goal is unclear.

Is it to offer a safe place for all to call home?

Perhaps. We do bring in large numbers of refugees, as Canada’s role as a safe haven hasn’t changed on the global scale. But what happens once refugees are settled here? They usually choose to settle in a larger, more multicultural city. And that means that they’ll barely be able to afford to live there. But hey, at least they get free health care!

Is it to offer an opportunity to find prosperous work for the smart and talented around the world?

I mean…I guess? If your idea of prosperous is going to school for 3 times the price, getting conned into enrolling in a bullshit program at a college because it’s a fast path to citizenship, and if you’re lucky, working in tech at a bank for half the salary you’d get paid in the US. But more likely you’ll probably make $20/hour at a warehouse in the GTA and/or become an Uber driver (all while renting a room in a house with 8 other people and paying the highest car insurance rates in the country due to high rates of fraud). But hey, at least you get free health care!

Is it a place where its citizens can be proud to call home and build your career?

Well…not if you were born after 1980. The country’s governments have made it very clear that they don’t really care about your well-being or your economic prosperity. There’s a great chance you won’t be able to own a home and you’ll forever be held back because we tax productive labour far more heavily than we tax passive, wealth generating assets. But hey, at least you get free health care!

Is it a place where you can get a great education?

Certainly, and because it is, everyone else did the same thing as you. So that degree that most of you went into almost $30,000 of debt for isn’t that special, wages haven’t kept up with what they were when your parents were your age (you know, the ones who told you school was the path to success). Canada is the most educated G7 nation in the world and second overall (behind South Korea). Maybe because schools caught on to the huge opportunity that education was the hottest commodity on the market and rapidly expanded enrolment, flooding the market with more degrees than there were jobs. But hey — well, you get the point.

Canada’s problems have long been concentrated in Toronto and Vancouver, and with COVID igniting the powder keg that was our society, that has spilled out all over the country. Our fragile health care system, our economy that is overly reliant on boom-bust resources and housing. Our rampant corruption that has enabled industries like telecom or construction to become monopolies. And most insidious of all: a betrayal of young people — the future of the country — from their own economic well-being.

One does not have to look far to find ridiculous examples of how insane the situation is.

I have a friend who went to school, got a professional designation, got more certificates, worked hard, and moved up. He has had great-paying job after great-paying job. Unfortunately, like so many others experience, wages in his field have not kept up with the price of housing, so he and his partner are always chasing the moving target of home ownership. They don’t even live in the GTA; they live in a mid-size city that until recently would get you a couple of follow-up questions if you stated that you were going to buy a house there.

Contrast that with his brother-in-law. He and his wife make combined what my friend makes. They live in a 4 bedroom house in the suburbs that cost them about $650,000 in 2020 (it’s now worth closer to $800,000). They own two brand new cars — one of which is a Ford F-150 (despite being the best-selling car in North America since forever, they’re not exactly cheap). He’s looking at buying an even bigger house in the near future. The difference? This man’s father-in-law died, leaving them a large inheritance to put towards a house they would otherwise have no business owning. I don’t have a problem with them owning a home. What’s messed up is that in a span of a year, this guy’s net worth jumped $150,000. He drives a fork lift, by the way.

I want to be clear that I by no means believe that a fork lift driver shouldn’t have the right to own a home. Housing is a right, and while owning a home is simply not an economic reality in any configuration of our present system, affordable housing for all should be. But the fact that someone working a fairly low-paying job is living like a king while so many skilled (and well-paid) people across the country are not because of our broken housing market is a huge problem.

The fact that my friend’s situation is far from being an isolated incident (just look at intra/inter-provincial migration data from StatsCan) is the real tragedy here. Where people are moving is an indicator of so many other factors at play, the base of which is cost of living. Toronto’s population has been shrinking for years, propped up on the backs of international students and immigrants seeking permanent residency via a student or work visa. During the Trump years this accelerated. Trump axed the H1-B visa program, so Canada, always open and welcoming for settlement, absorbed many of them. This was in line with our aggressive immigration targets to combat our shrinking population.

Our government completely failed us with this lack of foresight. We need immigration to maintain our population growth. I’ve got no problem with bringing more people into the country. What I do have a problem with is doing that without enabling a housing strategy to support it. We simply didn’t build enough homes for everyone. Brampton slum lords can only exploit so many South Asian students who came to school here on a lie.

But to appease their corporate puppeteers who they love going out for drinks with, our government continued to open the flood gates and has not reduced their immigration targets whatsoever. Everyone knows why: all of the large corps need a supply of cheap labour. And the only way to do that is to exploit people from poor countries.

The corporations do a great job of hiding it, since most of these jobs are on our farms or in our warehouses. Which is insane, because these are also the jobs that literally keep our country running. This is how we get food, hardware, and weed. Sorry Janice, your job as a project manager in a transformation program at a fucking bank isn’t that crucial to the well-being of our nation.

Ditto for universities. Domestic enrolment rates have stagnated or are dropping (because the incredibly expensive act of having a child is catching up to our society). So universities decided to change their strategy around 2013. They rapidly expanded their international student recruitment efforts.

So after all of the anger subsides, what happens?

Well, the data tells the story. Canadians are leaving. Always have been. We lose our best and brightest in record numbers to the states every year. Do you want to earn a Ph.D. and struggle through a few more years of impoverished post-doc work and rent until you’re 48? Or do you want a mid 6 figure job in industry and buy a house in a year? During the pandemic, our best and brightest left in even greater numbers. Geography wasn’t an issue due to remote work, and many Canadians took off to more affordable cities either within the country or fled to the states altogether (probably to Austin).

Our policy decisions over the past few decades have continuously told Canadians of all backgrounds that their services are needed but not valued. We’ve already replaced those on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder with foreigners we exploit endlessly, so why not squeeze the other end of the young middle class and screw them out of home ownership? Sounds like a great country to live in.

When the dust settles, you will see a far different Canada in the future.