Don’t call it a comeback because I never left- I can’t remember where I heard that line before, but I suspect it’ll be the echo of many Canadian economists who will be chanting after we save the country.
Canada, my second home, is suffering from a cultural infection that is affecting every single aspect of the country, most notably the economy, via policies designed to please an unknown elite rather than helping Canadians live better lives than their parents. The west is suffering as a whole. The ruling class is following a globalist agenda that is weakening countries economically and culturally and benefiting people we never elected in the first place.
A great example of this is the energy transition. I work in the mining industry, and the push for more minerals means more business for us, so I am not complaining. But I can’t help but wonder how the Paris Accord, the international climate change treaty signed in 2016, was reached. A group of people get together to deal with the world’s biggest problem on behalf of everybody else and make decisions and commitments that later on affect countries’ policies, which then impact local economies. On one hand, it’s great that some people care about the world’s biggest problem. On the other hand, we need to ask ourselves who decides if it’s really a problem or not. Recent events have shown how science has been corrupted to fit all kinds of narratives; how can we trust that the people fighting on behalf of everybody are fighting the good fight?
In Canada, we’re dealing with the consequences of such events locally. The government makes policies that are supposed to be in line with this global accord, to the detriment of the short-term needs of the local economy. Even worse, these policies are also backed by a cultural agenda that is designed to weaken the very fabric of our society. The country needs to be saved. This is not about being a liberal or conservative; it’s about loving Canada and wanting to make it one of the greatest nations in the history of humanity. The great Canadian comeback needs to happen on three main fronts: politically, economically and culturally.
Politically
We need a Canada-first government in charge. This sounds very simple but it’s not. A Canada-first government is one that wants to make Canada a great nation and is willing to fight for it, including taking the heat for not being liked because people don’t always like you when you put your interests above everything else. Currently, we have an administration that wants to be so liked by its allies that they play the iron fist game to some and open arms to others without a clear national strategy. The issue with this approach is that other countries are playing their own game; by blindly following everybody else without fully understanding their agenda and what’s in it for us, we lose our independence.
A Canada-first administration is one that wants to lead from the front, not just happy playing the little brother and always going for the silver medals. It’s time to play to win. That mindset has to run in our veins, starting in the government, because we need leadership policies that encourage that drive. We need a country where the average citizen can have a good life, afford food and housing without being crippled in debt. We need a country where the most ambitious citizens can shoot for the stars and be rewarded for it instead of being penalized with tax schemes that don’t even lead to better social programs.
Most importantly, we need an administration that unifies Canadians under one flag. The big elephant in the room in Canada is the government’s relationship with indigenous communities. The Indian Act was first introduced in 1876 and last updated in 1985. We don’t even call first nations Indians anymore. We need to look at what’s working and what’s not working- and make the necessary changes. The idea that we’ll have the colonial white guilt forever is very detrimental to the prosperity of the country because we’ll forever deal with roadblocks caused by a poor act designed to benefit and appease a tiny minority while the rest of the population, indigenous and non-indigenous, suffer the consequences. We need a new Canada; a new Canada requires a new beginning, one where we’re all just Canadians and working together in this nation, one of the greatest nations of humanity.
Economically
Canada is a weird country where, at first glance, you’d think this should be a country of choice for entrepreneurs, but once you start pilling off the layers, you understand why we lose so many ambitious people, why so many companies only run their R&D in the country while the rest is run elsewhere. Companies headquartered abroad set up secondary offices in Canada to benefit from tax cuts and cheaper labor costs, while all the growth and profits benefit others. Once you dig a bit further, you realize that we’ve benefited from the “nice guy” image well into our economy. Our American neighbours were known as the heartless capitalists, while we were known as the capitalists with a heart- a heart that gives you free healthcare and other social programs to assure that even the have-not can live in the country.
For decades, the country has benefitted from that fake image, despite the fact that capitalism built Canada. Canada’s economy didn’t grow because of free healthcare and other social programs; it grew because of capitalism. And it’s time for us to embrace our capitalist nature and leverage it to make the country great again, literally. I’ve lived in Canada since 2005, and the only companies that have made Canadians proud since I got here are Nortel, Blackberry (RIM), Lululemon, and Shopify. The reason why they made Canadians proud is because they somehow became market leaders in their categories despite having been started in Canada. Why are we surprised when Canadian entrepreneurs succeed? Aren’t we one of the nations with the biggest “innovation” budget? Don’t we have great universities? Don’t we have a stable political climate? Why is it that when a Canadian company succeed, it becomes the pride of the nation, while in America, it becomes just another great American company?
It’s because we aren’t proud of our own capitalist identity. We’d rather spend our taxpayer money inviting foreign firms to invest in Canada and create jobs rather than pushing government policies and creating a culture of winners that build markets and change industries. We want the benefit of a capitalist society while being known as socialist- push more social programs. There is enough money around, they say, but there is not. The middle class is suffering, the low-income class is invisible, and the richest Canadians are fleeing the nation. We need to be proud of our capitalist identity- without it, our economy won’t come back, plain and simple.
Our country is full of natural resources that could fund many programs, including the most socialists ones, while lowering taxes for the entire population. Our inability to tap into them to turn the country into an economic powerhouse is a result of our wishful socialist nice guy identity. We have smart people in the country, there’s a way to mine more in a more sustainable way, and there’s a way to leverage our natural resources for the better without causing harm to the environment, and that includes increasing our fossil fuels production because, flash news, the energy transition will require a lot more fossil fuels than we think.
To stop playing for the silver medal, we need to embrace our capitalist nature and turn it into a force for good. The country is literally set up to win, but it requires winners with a deadly winning mindset. To produce more of them, we must be proud of our capitalist identity. Capitalism works, and we need it to make a comeback.
Culturally
A nation ashamed of its past, ashamed to recognize the system that built it, will always be ashamed of its culture, opening the door to chaos. Culture is what keeps things together. The Canadian culture is having an identity crisis, fueled by the global elites’ agenda that wants to dismantle the very fabric of our society; yes, I said it. By removing what makes people unique, you welcome what makes people the same, in theory, and can justify everything from open borders to the destitution of the family unit.
The war on the Canadian family is very real, and it’s destroying our society. Strengthening families means strengthening the nation. Humans have always belonged to a group; it’s an innate need of our nature as we’re social creatures. Families give us that need from the moment we’re born. The current culture is obsessed with identity because it gives people a place of belonging away from their families. A place that helps further an agenda that, at the nuclear-family level, wouldn’t fly. Why is Canada and the West so obsessed with identities? It is because it weaken the family unit while giving people a place to belong.
We know that groupthink doesn’t make us better; it numbs our brains and leads us to madness. For us to make a comeback, families need to be strengthened. To have strong citizens, you need strong families. I repeat, to have strong citizens, we need strong families. We need strong values, and family provides a safe environment where these values can be learned. Yes, there are some bad parents out there, but the exception doesn’t make the rules; we need strong families.
This is where conservatives can help a lot because they are still pushing for strong families, advocating for marriages and even religion. The biggest issue with conservatives in Canada and throughout the West is that they struggle to depict a vision of the future that gets everybody on board. In fact, most conservatives specialize in telling you how great things were in the past and how things went wrong. Celebrating the past doesn’t help the cause because the past wasn’t perfect either. The world is always moving forward, and conservatives, to win the youth, to win the media, need a strong vision of tomorrow that gets people excited. Telling people that we should bring back the 1970s doesn’t cut it. One thing liberals have over conservatives is their vision for the future; they want a world without inequality; even though they have no idea what it means in reality, at least they have an ideal they can always rely on to justify everything they do. Conservatives don’t have that, that’s why we’re losing the culture war, and it’s not even close.
Conservatism needs to move away from being past-oriented to being future-oriented if it wants a chance to save the world. It’s not rocket science; it’s a framing problem.
The World Needs More Canada
For Canada to make a comeback, our Canadian identity needs to change. We need excellency at every level of our society. We can no longer afford to play for the second medal or pretend to be a socialist country, especially when the economy is tanking. The change has to happen in the political, economic and cultural spheres of the nation. Canada needs people at every level who love Canada. The country has a lot going for it and still a lot of potential; we need to preserve what works and improve what doesn’t. Even our most socialist citizens would benefit from more “free” stuff once we make the comeback happen. I vow to do my part; I hope you do yours, too; the country needs us.
I write about my experiences, entrepreneurship and stoicism on medium, and tweet at @NedNadima.
