As Canadians head to the polls, we’re not just casting ballots — we’re answering a quieter, defining question: Do we still recognize the country we built and are we ready to reclaim what once made it work?
Canada was once near the top of quality-of-life rankings, admired for its blend of prosperity and compassion. But over the past decade, something vital has frayed. Institutions faltered. Confidence eroded. What once worked for many now barely holds for most.
Hospitals are overwhelmed. One-in-five Canadians can’t find a family doctor. Surgeries are delayed not by weeks but by years. Food banks, once a lifeline for the vulnerable, now serve working families and seniors. According to Food Banks Canada’s 2024 report, usage has nearly doubled in just five years. Educated young people are delivering groceries. Car thefts and shootings have breached once-safe streets. Parents are choosing between rent and food.
And through it all, we’re told this is the cost of global responsibility. But that story no longer holds.
Canada now ranks near the bottom of the OECD in per capita GDP growth. Productivity is falling. Real wages are stagnant. Home ownership feels out of reach — even for the grandchildren of those who built this country.
If this is progress, why does it feel like decline?
Over the past decade, our population grew by nearly 20 per cent — not through strategic planning, but political calculation. Mismanaged visa policies became pipelines to settlement. Questionable institutions flourished, but infrastructure, housing, health care and jobs didn’t. Even entry-level work — once a rite of passage for young Canadians — has become scarce, as many newcomers are pushed into survival jobs. That loss isn’t just economic. It erodes something deeper: the confidence and dignity built through earned opportunity.
This wasn’t immigration. It was improvisation.
I came to Canada two decades ago — an immigrant, a surgeon, an educator. I know what this country can offer. But I also know what it demands. Growth without preparation isn’t opportunity. It’s pressure. And that pressure is now buckling the very systems that once made Canada work.
Skilled newcomers can’t get licensed. Canadian graduates can’t get traction. Nurses are burning out. Classrooms are overcrowded. Small businesses stall under erratic taxation. Trust in public institutions — built over generations — is wearing thin.
Yet, instead of renewal, we’re offered repackaged promises without credible plans.
Take the national carbon tax — once sold as climate accountability, it became a burden on families already struggling to make ends meet. Its last-minute shelving, just weeks before the election, wasn’t a course correction born of conviction, but political expediency — a quiet admission that the policy was more about optics than outcomes. Meanwhile, we sidelined the sectors that built this country, chasing global praise while letting jobs vanish at home.
Canadians care deeply about the planet. But real climate responsibility demands a credible path — not by discarding the sectors that built Canada, but by transitioning them with foresight, integrity, and national purpose.
Even abroad, Canada’s voice has faded. Foreign policy turned inward, we strained ties with democratic partners to serve domestic narratives. And when it truly mattered — when trade was threatened, when our sovereignty was tested — we lacked the unity and strength to respond with conviction. The world noticed.
At home, the pattern repeats. We used to build — homes, hospitals, institutions, and trust. Now, we get hashtags. Spin. Spectacle.
And still, we’re asked for patience.
But this moment isn’t about patience. It’s about priorities.
Behind every delayed surgery, unaffordable apartment, burnt-out nurse and overqualified Canadian in a gig job is someone who still believes this country can work — for their kids, their elders, and the Canada they believe in.
They’re not asking for rebates or handouts. They’re asking for something real — leadership that shows up, listens and builds. A vision grounded in competence, compassion and care.
This election isn’t just about platforms. It’s about confronting misplaced priorities, policy improvisation, and performative politics — and choosing a better path.
As we cast our votes this election, we must meet the moment — not with habit or ideology, but with the conviction to rebuild the country we once believed in and to shape a Canada that works again — for all of us.
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