Great column, Matt. I would add that Federal government "programs" will not address all these problems. Canadians need to do the work, including holding the appropriate levels of government responsible.
The people who mock the phrase, "Canada's broken" either misinterpret it's meaning or willfully ignore it. Canada isn't "broken", but far too many of our public sector-led institutions are. Hence, Toronto is filthy, in every way imaginable, and the rot is spreading out to small town Canada as well.
The pace at which "stuff", both important stuff and mundane day-today stuff happens in public-sector Canada is not just glacial it's inert. There's NOBODY willing to take responsibility or make a decision. Why? Because the bureaucracy no longer exists to deliver services, it exists to self perpetuate and feed itself.
I read an account of an individual wanting to open a produce/farm store with a relatively fancy cafe attached here in the Port Hope area. The idea was proposed in 2019, "consultations" began in 2022, and the idea died in 2025. Pathetic doesn't scratch the surface as a descriptor.
It's past time that the situation gets fixed. Local government needs to focus on supporting the development and maintenance of a healthy, safe and clean community for the people who are and want to be a positive contributor to society. That means re-balancing the rights to this-or-that arguments to favor those who just want to live a happy and productive life. Make clean and safe streets a priority as opposed to just a talking point. Allow prosperity to flourish, as opposed to snuffing it out through endless consultation with self anointed "stakeholders" and layer upon layer of bureaucratic regulatory muck.
The mental health problems those of us who live in Toronto are seeing on a daily basis in the streets and on transit has been with us since the 1980's and has escalated in recent years with lethal and highly addictive street drugs. This is a deeply sad and discouraging problem that the Ontario government with major and willing support, both financial and human, from the city of Toronto . There are solutions. But they don't. Why? The city simply doesn't have the budget or even access to borrowed operating funds to solve it alone. And the province, I can only think political will is lacking. In the past the issue was street addicts with multiple mental and health issues chose to live on the street and the courts declared it to be their right to refuse treatment. This should have been dealt with and is no longer the public mood on this issue to say the least.
Once again it's a health care financing issue. The health organizations responsible are doing some great work on this but much more money for housing supports and ongoing health monitoring post rehabilitation are just the beginning. Yes we have problems to solve in Canada's largest city and this is one entirely of our own making.
Good points but why put good money after bad. The seriously mentally ill don't want housing and are highly resistant to any form of rehab. Taking the worst mental health cases off the street would make an enormous, highly visible difference to the safety and security of everyday folks.
To put it bluntly, the only thing that works is coercion. That means involuntary mental health committals, legislation to back this, investment in secure treatment facilities, post-release supports, and a strict mental health parole system that sees the subject returned to custody at the first sign of relapse (drug use, refusal to take prescribed meds).
It does mean that the worst cases will spend their entire lives incarcerated by the state. However, this is far better than a life spent causing havoc and harm on the streets before dying in a dank corner of a flophouse or while lying on the gravel of an empty parking lot.
Most of Canada’s problems are easy to fix with common sense and how did Carney put it ““Aspiration without effort is just empty rhetoric.” What Canada has is lots of empty rhetoric. What we don’t have is effort.
Change the constitution, make the people who make the rules (judges and politicians come to mind) accountable. This is especially necessary when politicians use things like a trade war (both Carney and Trump) to get voted back in, look tough or just let their egos be their guide.
Wouldn’t it be easier to change the laws that stop Canada from producing then create a new office that appears to be an organization full of aspiration and empty rhetoric. Shouldn’t our ethics committee have teeth – like getting rid of the politician for even a minor ethics violation would be a good call – one small unaccountable violation will lead to more and larger ethics violations – kinda like liars, liars, lie it’s just what they do.
And for gods sake, just quit spending our tax dollars outside of Canada until we have a plan. Canada is not in charge of saving the world, so lets just save ourselves and put virtue signalling on hold.
And finally, let’s hold the media responsible for accurate and unbiased journalism. The reason Substack is so successful is that most folks writing here know that their livelihood depends on good journalism, not government handouts.
Reading between some of your lines, this is what I also read: the folks who were happy to provide the effort, were told no so many times by the same activists, the same ideologues, and the same intellectually captured people, that the effort providers just stopped trying.
There are about ten solid additional problems Matt left out of his excellent article.
Where does one start?
Canadians can never admit they were wrong, and can never litigate the past.
Canadians are never to blame, and require a constant scapegoat.
Thank you Matt! Your thoughts and suggestions are very much appreciated!
Wish that somehow as nation we could change all that needs to be changed without our Government.
And above all, like you, be inspired to help make things better.
Inspire people to act instead of whining.
Maybe the wrong statement, but I see lovely grandparents demonstrate against Genocide in a park that is dedicated to a an amazing a Jewish poet. I have asked, very nicely to move their rightful protestations to another corner.
How about we get together and make sure our children, in my case, Grandchildren, have the life that Canada provided for decades.
Matt. Matt. you are right! however we are deeply unserious people. Fixing our problems would require us to confront the issue we have been avoiding for 50 years now. Open the constitution deal with the structural imbalance. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
This is the column that should be on the front page of the Globe and Mail, but is 180 degrees away from their "all panic all the time" editorial position so would never make the cut.
Donald Trump has given Canadians, and especially a certain kind of Canadian - you know the kind: smug, city dwelling, older, Liberal, still think it's 1998 - the perfect excuse to ignore all of the country's festering problems. We came so close to getting serious, even got rid of our most unserious leader, only to let an even more unserious US leader take away all our focus.
I have very little hope the focus will go back to reality any time soon. The prospect of less than perfect Canada-US free trade and some nasty rhetoric from the former host of The Apprentice has basically been fanned into Canadian Boomer 9/11. Just like real 9/11 made America focus on moral panic insanity for close to a decade, waste a trillion dollars on a war nobody can explain, re-elect an incompetent president, and ignore the domestic problems that would lead to the 2008 financial collapse, we are reacting like equal dumbasses to our own much more silly (and thankfully far less deadly) national trauma.
Finally, about time. A column about what we can do for ourselves as a nation. I would like to see our PM use the current crisis with the US to force a certain level of courage and sacrifice into the national conversation. For example, can we finally have the courage to change the way health care is delivered. Can we make the sacrifice to raise the GST, restructure our tax code to encourage investment, and drastically reduce the size of the civil service so we can afford the necessary funding of our military. Courage and sacrifice. It will not come from Canadians voluntarily. We need our leaders to lead, and I suspect Canadians will follow. The political moment is ripe.
It is important to remember that Detroit had to really bottom out before it got its act together.
The usual suspects were rooted out of office, and the City’s finances were governed by a State Conservatory in 2013.
Being a Tigers fan, I can tell you that I feel safer going to a game at Commerica Park than I do a London Majors game in downtown London.
Never in my 64 years did I ever dream of uttering that sentence.
Canada, Toronto, London…………
We have yet to bottom out.
Also, Detroit may have gone bankrupt, and hit rock bottom. But Detroit never abandoned being American, or what that American ethos entailed. There was no talk of having twice committed genocide, land acknowledgements to peacock virtue, and no hatred or self-loathing.
I remember. My brother-in-law went to school in Windsor so I got the Detroit experience for concerts, sports, food. I was in Waterloo so it was a bit of a longer hike but not impossible. Saw Rush at Joe Louis. That was the era where my buddy and I were told by the restaurant staff to take a cab rather than walk the mile or so to the rink, which was plainly visible down the road from us. The mile wasn't safe.
But yeah, now, wife, kids and I did a short walking tour so I could show them a bit of Gurney family lore. We definitely stayed in the core, but it was clean, safe, well maintained. We parked, walked, ate, walked some more, visited a park, etc. Hands down in better condition than Toronto.
This is such a great column Matt. Your questions demand answers and for me there really is only one question: what does the Liberal party have to do to keep winning elections? It's important to know the answer now that we live in the age of shamelessness thanks to POTUS.
Fundamentally, though. Canadians are cheap and the Liberal party will always do whatever they need to win. Even if ramifications are well foreseen.
Another point that I think is relevant. Canada has not experienced conflict on its own soil. Canadians have not been forced to fight for what they have.
Ours is a nation that constantly hugs the middle and it doesn't like making important decisions. Meantime, it loves to get its moralization all over everyone and everything outside our borders.
👏👏👏👏 thank you Matt! We'll put, well written, factual and non partisan. Being in Finance, real estate, etc for many yrs, I see what's happening to our 🇨🇦 for many yrs now. Its like we are so fragmented. Provinces run their own country and we've been competing with each other longer that there has been a US issue. Ive never seen so much layers of crap to get anything done. I see people struggling, losing our identities, forget the trade war for awhile let the Feds figure it out. Provinces also should give Carney full authority. We need to concentrate on this country not others and get ourselves back. Major problem are all the wealthy people my age who can't see the forest for the trees and can't see all the issues you listed. I live in their world and listen to it daily. Love love your piece. Thank you.
Well seems like the first time in a long time we’ve agreed.
One caution is the polling is not as neutral as projected. For instance we do not answer the phones if there no origin displayed ie Ipsos. Even then we would not be inclined to answer questions. A long way of saying the polls may not be reflective
Great column, Matt. I would add that Federal government "programs" will not address all these problems. Canadians need to do the work, including holding the appropriate levels of government responsible.
Amen to this!
The people who mock the phrase, "Canada's broken" either misinterpret it's meaning or willfully ignore it. Canada isn't "broken", but far too many of our public sector-led institutions are. Hence, Toronto is filthy, in every way imaginable, and the rot is spreading out to small town Canada as well.
The pace at which "stuff", both important stuff and mundane day-today stuff happens in public-sector Canada is not just glacial it's inert. There's NOBODY willing to take responsibility or make a decision. Why? Because the bureaucracy no longer exists to deliver services, it exists to self perpetuate and feed itself.
I read an account of an individual wanting to open a produce/farm store with a relatively fancy cafe attached here in the Port Hope area. The idea was proposed in 2019, "consultations" began in 2022, and the idea died in 2025. Pathetic doesn't scratch the surface as a descriptor.
It's past time that the situation gets fixed. Local government needs to focus on supporting the development and maintenance of a healthy, safe and clean community for the people who are and want to be a positive contributor to society. That means re-balancing the rights to this-or-that arguments to favor those who just want to live a happy and productive life. Make clean and safe streets a priority as opposed to just a talking point. Allow prosperity to flourish, as opposed to snuffing it out through endless consultation with self anointed "stakeholders" and layer upon layer of bureaucratic regulatory muck.
Pointing out Canada's problems has become borderline treasonous behaviour. It's an incumbent politician's wet dream.
The mental health problems those of us who live in Toronto are seeing on a daily basis in the streets and on transit has been with us since the 1980's and has escalated in recent years with lethal and highly addictive street drugs. This is a deeply sad and discouraging problem that the Ontario government with major and willing support, both financial and human, from the city of Toronto . There are solutions. But they don't. Why? The city simply doesn't have the budget or even access to borrowed operating funds to solve it alone. And the province, I can only think political will is lacking. In the past the issue was street addicts with multiple mental and health issues chose to live on the street and the courts declared it to be their right to refuse treatment. This should have been dealt with and is no longer the public mood on this issue to say the least.
Once again it's a health care financing issue. The health organizations responsible are doing some great work on this but much more money for housing supports and ongoing health monitoring post rehabilitation are just the beginning. Yes we have problems to solve in Canada's largest city and this is one entirely of our own making.
Good points but why put good money after bad. The seriously mentally ill don't want housing and are highly resistant to any form of rehab. Taking the worst mental health cases off the street would make an enormous, highly visible difference to the safety and security of everyday folks.
To put it bluntly, the only thing that works is coercion. That means involuntary mental health committals, legislation to back this, investment in secure treatment facilities, post-release supports, and a strict mental health parole system that sees the subject returned to custody at the first sign of relapse (drug use, refusal to take prescribed meds).
It does mean that the worst cases will spend their entire lives incarcerated by the state. However, this is far better than a life spent causing havoc and harm on the streets before dying in a dank corner of a flophouse or while lying on the gravel of an empty parking lot.
This is the reason why I’ll keep renewing my subscription because Jen and Matt make me think through the issues.
Well done, Matt.
This is the platform to which I originally subscribed.
Imagine what we could have accomplished had we voted for a leader who promised to do exactly the things you have outlined in your fine essay.
Sounds like a leader with the wrong "tone" according to the CBC. Couldn't possibly elect someone like that.
It hurts to much to laugh, but that was a good one.
Most of Canada’s problems are easy to fix with common sense and how did Carney put it ““Aspiration without effort is just empty rhetoric.” What Canada has is lots of empty rhetoric. What we don’t have is effort.
Change the constitution, make the people who make the rules (judges and politicians come to mind) accountable. This is especially necessary when politicians use things like a trade war (both Carney and Trump) to get voted back in, look tough or just let their egos be their guide.
Wouldn’t it be easier to change the laws that stop Canada from producing then create a new office that appears to be an organization full of aspiration and empty rhetoric. Shouldn’t our ethics committee have teeth – like getting rid of the politician for even a minor ethics violation would be a good call – one small unaccountable violation will lead to more and larger ethics violations – kinda like liars, liars, lie it’s just what they do.
And for gods sake, just quit spending our tax dollars outside of Canada until we have a plan. Canada is not in charge of saving the world, so lets just save ourselves and put virtue signalling on hold.
And finally, let’s hold the media responsible for accurate and unbiased journalism. The reason Substack is so successful is that most folks writing here know that their livelihood depends on good journalism, not government handouts.
Great comments Carole!
Carole, you make a lot of great points.
Reading between some of your lines, this is what I also read: the folks who were happy to provide the effort, were told no so many times by the same activists, the same ideologues, and the same intellectually captured people, that the effort providers just stopped trying.
There are about ten solid additional problems Matt left out of his excellent article.
Where does one start?
Canadians can never admit they were wrong, and can never litigate the past.
Canadians are never to blame, and require a constant scapegoat.
Constitutional talks are needed and the participants rarely agree on anything, I think.
Thank you Matt! Your thoughts and suggestions are very much appreciated!
Wish that somehow as nation we could change all that needs to be changed without our Government.
And above all, like you, be inspired to help make things better.
Inspire people to act instead of whining.
Maybe the wrong statement, but I see lovely grandparents demonstrate against Genocide in a park that is dedicated to a an amazing a Jewish poet. I have asked, very nicely to move their rightful protestations to another corner.
How about we get together and make sure our children, in my case, Grandchildren, have the life that Canada provided for decades.
Beautifully stated, friend.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Matt. Matt. you are right! however we are deeply unserious people. Fixing our problems would require us to confront the issue we have been avoiding for 50 years now. Open the constitution deal with the structural imbalance. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
Exactly what structural issues are you talking about?
This is the column that should be on the front page of the Globe and Mail, but is 180 degrees away from their "all panic all the time" editorial position so would never make the cut.
Donald Trump has given Canadians, and especially a certain kind of Canadian - you know the kind: smug, city dwelling, older, Liberal, still think it's 1998 - the perfect excuse to ignore all of the country's festering problems. We came so close to getting serious, even got rid of our most unserious leader, only to let an even more unserious US leader take away all our focus.
I have very little hope the focus will go back to reality any time soon. The prospect of less than perfect Canada-US free trade and some nasty rhetoric from the former host of The Apprentice has basically been fanned into Canadian Boomer 9/11. Just like real 9/11 made America focus on moral panic insanity for close to a decade, waste a trillion dollars on a war nobody can explain, re-elect an incompetent president, and ignore the domestic problems that would lead to the 2008 financial collapse, we are reacting like equal dumbasses to our own much more silly (and thankfully far less deadly) national trauma.
Finally, about time. A column about what we can do for ourselves as a nation. I would like to see our PM use the current crisis with the US to force a certain level of courage and sacrifice into the national conversation. For example, can we finally have the courage to change the way health care is delivered. Can we make the sacrifice to raise the GST, restructure our tax code to encourage investment, and drastically reduce the size of the civil service so we can afford the necessary funding of our military. Courage and sacrifice. It will not come from Canadians voluntarily. We need our leaders to lead, and I suspect Canadians will follow. The political moment is ripe.
Matt, if I may:
It is important to remember that Detroit had to really bottom out before it got its act together.
The usual suspects were rooted out of office, and the City’s finances were governed by a State Conservatory in 2013.
Being a Tigers fan, I can tell you that I feel safer going to a game at Commerica Park than I do a London Majors game in downtown London.
Never in my 64 years did I ever dream of uttering that sentence.
Canada, Toronto, London…………
We have yet to bottom out.
Also, Detroit may have gone bankrupt, and hit rock bottom. But Detroit never abandoned being American, or what that American ethos entailed. There was no talk of having twice committed genocide, land acknowledgements to peacock virtue, and no hatred or self-loathing.
Good article, lad.
I remember. My brother-in-law went to school in Windsor so I got the Detroit experience for concerts, sports, food. I was in Waterloo so it was a bit of a longer hike but not impossible. Saw Rush at Joe Louis. That was the era where my buddy and I were told by the restaurant staff to take a cab rather than walk the mile or so to the rink, which was plainly visible down the road from us. The mile wasn't safe.
But yeah, now, wife, kids and I did a short walking tour so I could show them a bit of Gurney family lore. We definitely stayed in the core, but it was clean, safe, well maintained. We parked, walked, ate, walked some more, visited a park, etc. Hands down in better condition than Toronto.
That is my experience as well, Matt.
Quite right.
This is such a great column Matt. Your questions demand answers and for me there really is only one question: what does the Liberal party have to do to keep winning elections? It's important to know the answer now that we live in the age of shamelessness thanks to POTUS.
Fundamentally, though. Canadians are cheap and the Liberal party will always do whatever they need to win. Even if ramifications are well foreseen.
Another point that I think is relevant. Canada has not experienced conflict on its own soil. Canadians have not been forced to fight for what they have.
Ours is a nation that constantly hugs the middle and it doesn't like making important decisions. Meantime, it loves to get its moralization all over everyone and everything outside our borders.
Yes. 1000 times yes.
Like ending all internal trade barriers, stopping the idiotic talk about separation, and working toward food independence?
👏👏👏👏 thank you Matt! We'll put, well written, factual and non partisan. Being in Finance, real estate, etc for many yrs, I see what's happening to our 🇨🇦 for many yrs now. Its like we are so fragmented. Provinces run their own country and we've been competing with each other longer that there has been a US issue. Ive never seen so much layers of crap to get anything done. I see people struggling, losing our identities, forget the trade war for awhile let the Feds figure it out. Provinces also should give Carney full authority. We need to concentrate on this country not others and get ourselves back. Major problem are all the wealthy people my age who can't see the forest for the trees and can't see all the issues you listed. I live in their world and listen to it daily. Love love your piece. Thank you.
Well seems like the first time in a long time we’ve agreed.
One caution is the polling is not as neutral as projected. For instance we do not answer the phones if there no origin displayed ie Ipsos. Even then we would not be inclined to answer questions. A long way of saying the polls may not be reflective