The news doesn’t tell stories anymore.
It skims them.

Just enough information to make you angry,
not enough to make you understand why you should be angry in the first place.

Everything gets flattened into outrage bait.
A headline.
A number.
A villain.
Then on to the next thing before anyone has time to ask deeper questions.

Take the World Cup coming to North America.

The outrage is already predictable:
“Canada is spending over a billion dollars to host a handful of games.”

And sure — there’s an argument there.
You can absolutely ask whether the economic output justifies the cost.

But honestly?
That’s still not the real story.

The real story is that organizations like FIFA and the International Olympic Committee have become so powerful, so normalized, that we barely react anymore to the ethical rot surrounding them.

And it’s not hidden corruption.
It’s open.
Documented.
Repeated.

Countries bend over backwards for these organizations.
Laws get rewritten.
Public money gets redirected.
Communities get displaced.
Workers get exploited.
Citizens get sold “legacy projects” that somehow never seem to benefit them the way promised.

And then, once the cameras leave, the people are expected to quietly carry the bill and move on.

That’s the pattern.

Every host country eventually discovers the same thing:
these organizations arrive speaking the language of unity, culture, and humanity —
while operating like corporations chasing leverage.

And somehow we’re supposed to separate the beauty of sport from the ugliness surrounding the institutions controlling it.

That’s getting harder to do.

Because the corruption isn’t just financial.
It’s moral.

You can’t spend years talking about human dignity, inclusion, and global togetherness while shaking hands with dictators, laundering reputations for authoritarian governments, and pretending politics magically disappears once a ball hits the pitch.

Sport has always been political because human beings are political.

And these organizations know it.

That’s why authoritarian governments love hosting these events.
It’s branding.
Image management.
A giant televised message to the world saying:
“Look how modern. Look how respected. Look how legitimate we are.”

And the governing bodies go along with it because the money keeps flowing.

That’s the part the news never really digs into.

Instead we get:
“Should taxpayers pay for stadiums?”

Sure. Fine. Ask that question.

But ask the bigger one too:

Why have we accepted that massively profitable global organizations can demand public obedience while operating with less accountability than the governments funding them?

Why do we treat these organizations like noble cultural institutions when they often behave more like untouchable corporate empires?

And look — I love football.

A road trip this summer to catch a couple games will probably be my annual vacation.

The games themselves aren’t the problem.
Sport matters.
Shared moments matter.
Joy matters.

But loving something also means being honest about what’s wrapped around it.

Because right now, ordinary people subsidize events they often can’t afford to attend, while the organizations behind them posture as guardians of humanity despite corruption scandals following them decade after decade.

And the media keeps missing the story.

Not because the information isn’t there.

Because outrage is easier to sell than understanding.

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Punk rock concerts aren’t what they used to be.

I don’t even know if that’s a bad thing.

It just… is what it is.

My kid’s current favorite band is local — The Creepshow from Burlington, Ontario of all places. And if he wanted the “real” punk experience, the one I grew up imagining, he’d probably be heading into Toronto for a show at Lee’s Palace.

But those shows are still 19+.

And since kids today apparently lack the entrepreneurial spirit required to obtain a fake ID, the solution became a two-hour drive to Kingston.

Now if you’re from Kingston and offended by this next part, I apologize in advance, but for me Kingston has always represented exactly two things: the de facto home of Paul Bernardo, until Kingston Pen was shut down, and receiving cancer treatments for weeks at a time.

How Bryan Adams crawled out of there I’ll never know.

At seventeen, a concert two hours from home would’ve involved borrowing the minivan, gathering a bunch of idiots together, and constructing elaborate lies convincing our parents we definitely were *not* driving to some filthy sports bar 200 kilometers away to watch strangers scream into microphones.

But this isn’t what punk looks like anymore.

The bar itself is still seedy.

Sticky floors. Buzzing neon signs. A bathroom door that looks like it survived several knife fights and at least one small electrical fire.

That part hasn’t changed.

The vibe has.

There’s somebody’s tattooed aunt teaching a couple weirdly dressed thirteen-year-olds how to play pool.

A clean-cut mom and dad standing beside their teenage daughter looking like they’d normally spend Saturday night at a golf club fundraiser instead of a punk show above a Subway sandwich shop.

A few genuine music fans in their sixties sitting quietly in the corner because they still love live music enough to leave the house.

And then there’s the locals — the regulars.

You can spot them immediately.

Because honestly, where else are they gonna be on a Saturday night except the bar above a Subway in Kingston?

Gone is the anger.

There is exactly zero chance of a fight breaking out.

Nobody’s posturing anymore. Nobody’s trying to prove how hard they are. Nobody’s looking for an excuse to swing on somebody because they got bumped in the pit.

Girls walk around relaxed.

Not scanning the room. Not calculating exits. Not wondering which guy is going to mistake friendliness for permission.

And maybe the strangest part of all?

Almost everybody is there with their parents.

Literally.

Dads holding merch hoodies.

Moms pretending not to know the lyrics while quietly singing along anyway.

Parents encouraging their kids to dance instead of trying to drag them home.

That would’ve been social suicide when I was growing up.

The whole point of punk culture used to be separation from adults. You escaped your parents. Escaped supervision. Escaped normal life.

But there’s no separation anymore.

Not culturally.

Popular culture isn’t divided by generations the way it used to be.

Back then you could identify someone’s age from across the room by their jeans, haircut, and CD collection. Parents listened to classic rock. Kids listened to punk or grunge or hip hop. Grandparents listened to whatever terrifying war-era music made them emotionally unavailable.

Everything had lanes.

Now everybody consumes the same algorithm.

A teenager listens to vinyl and 1990s emo.

A fifty-year-old man watches TikTok and wears sneakers designed for teenagers.

Kids discover bands from forty years ago before they discover local bands from their own city.

The walls collapsed.

And honestly, all the boundaries of propriety were already bulldozed decades ago.

Blue hair? Nobody cares.

Tattoos? Teachers have sleeves now.

Piercings? Your dentist probably has a nose ring.

Punk fashion got absorbed into mall culture sometime around the third Hot Topic expansion.

Even rebellion became branding.

Some older Gen Xers are dancing like Molly Ringwald in Breakfast club.

The only remnant of the old days is the smell of cigarette smoke drifting in through an open window because we stopped smoking indoors decades ago.

That smell hits like a time machine.

For one second you’re seventeen again.

Outside a venue.

Cold air.

Someone asking for a light.

A girl with dyed black hair laughing too loud.

A guy in a patched denim vest explaining anarchism badly.

Then the moment passes.

And instead of danger, alienation, and kids desperately trying to harden themselves against the world, what you mostly see is people having a genuinely nice time.

Which honestly feels very un-punk.

And yet maybe it’s the most punk thing imaginable.

Because wasn’t Gen X’s whole problem that adults didn’t understand them?

That’s what so much of the anger was about in the first place.

Feeling unseen.

Unheard.

Disconnected.

So are we really supposed to resent a younger generation because they don’t have to struggle through adolescence the same way we did?

That would be insane.

Why would we want kids to inherit our loneliness just so they can earn authenticity points?

A lot of what we romanticize about older generations was just untreated anxiety with a soundtrack.

Sure, the struggle created incredible music and identity and culture.

But it also created a lot of isolated kids trying desperately to find somewhere they belonged.

So maybe it’s okay that punk became wholesome.

Maybe it’s okay that parents understand their kids better now. That girls feel safer. That weird kids don’t have to hide quite as much. That rebellion softened into community.

Maybe this isn’t punk dying.

Maybe this is what happens after the outsiders finally win.

So as long as my kid’s still cool having me around, I’ll be there.

Standing awkwardly near the back in my Doc Martens, leather jacket, and the Bukowski t-shirt I made myself because honestly, where else are you gonna get one?

Trying not to look too interested. Pretending I’m only there as the ride.

Meanwhile I’m secretly judging the sound mix, admiring the bass player, and wondering if my knees can still survive a mosh pit without needing physiotherapy afterward.

And maybe that’s the final evolution of punk rock:

not rebellion,

not rage,

not even youth.

Just generations of weird people finding each other over loud music and realizing they were never actually that different.

FACT CHECK ME.

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One thing I heard my entire life whenever people talked about the NDP was:

“We can’t afford them.”

That was always the line.

Because they wanted to spend more.
Build more.
Provide more.
Expand services.
Invest in people.

And working-class people — already struggling to get by — were trained to fear it.

Irresponsible.
Reckless.
Naive.

Because they were taught to think about government budgets the same way they think about their kitchen table.

I can still hear politicians in my head talking about “tightening belts” and “living within our means.”
George Bush Sr. still rings in my ears when I think about it.

Governments spent decades teaching ordinary people to compare national economies to household budgets because it feels intuitive.

If your family overspends, you go broke.
So if the government overspends, the country goes broke.

Simple.
Clean.
Easy to repeat.

Except governments are not households.

A family cannot:

• issue currency,

• build national infrastructure,

• stimulate economic growth,

• invest across generations,

• or absorb debt strategically to expand productivity.

Governments can.

That doesn’t mean deficits never matter.
Of course they matter.
Waste matters.
Corruption matters.
Inflation matters.

But “we can’t afford it” only seems to appear when ordinary people need something.

Healthcare?
“We can’t afford it.”

Affordable housing?
“We can’t afford it.”

Education?
Transit?
Dental care?
Childcare?

Suddenly everyone becomes an accountant.

But somehow there’s always money for:

• corporate subsidies,

• bank bailouts,

• military expansion,

• tax cuts for the wealthy,

• emergency protections for financial markets.

Apparently we’re only broke when ordinary people need something.

One of the greatest political tricks ever pulled
was convincing working people
that public services are charity.

That they’re handouts.
Entitlements.
Something dirty.
Something other people are taking from you.

The “welfare queen.”
The freeloader.
The scammer gaming the system.

It was political theater.
A villain created to make working-class people resent each other
instead of questioning where their money was actually going.

Because if people start believing public services are shameful,
they stop defending them.

And once that happens,
you can dismantle them piece by piece while calling it responsibility.

You still see it today.

Doug Ford cuts OSAP while talking about fraud and abuse,
even though reports showed the actual fraud levels were tiny relative to the size of the program.

But politically, that hardly matters.

Because once people believe a public service is being “gamed,”
they stop seeing students trying to build a future.

They start seeing scammers.

And the moment that shift happens,
cuts become easier to sell.

But here’s the thing:

We do not “earn” government services.

They are not gifts from politicians.
Not acts of charity.
Not rewards for obedience.

We already paid for them.

Every paycheck.
Every deduction.
Every property tax bill.
Every purchase.

Over and over and over again.

That’s what taxes are for.

We fund the roads.
The schools.
The hospitals.
The transit systems.
The fire departments.
The infrastructure that allows society itself to function.

So why are ordinary people constantly made to feel guilty
for wanting access to the things they already finance?

And here’s the irony.

The same kinds of politicians people were told would bankrupt society —
social democrats,
democratic socialists,
the “tax and spend” crowd —
sometimes end up exposing the myth entirely.

Zohran Mamdani was painted as the scary socialist boogeyman in New York politics.
The guy supposedly promising everyone everything.
The kind of politician we’ve been told all our lives would destroy the economy.

And yet suddenly people are forced to confront an uncomfortable possibility:

Maybe the problem was never that we “couldn’t afford nice things.”

Maybe the problem was priorities.

Because a productive society is not one where everyone fights like hell just to survive.

That’s not productivity.
That’s exhaustion.

A productive society is one where people are stable enough to:

• raise children,

• recover from illness,

• start businesses,

• take risks,

• get educated,

• innovate,

• and fully participate in society.

The worker with childcare works more.
The student without crushing debt creates more.
The sick person who receives treatment contributes again.
The family with stable housing becomes economically productive instead of permanently trapped in survival mode.

That’s not charity.

That’s investment.

That’s infrastructure.

That’s how functioning societies are built.

The biggest lie wasn’t “we can’t afford it.”

The biggest lie
was convincing ordinary people
they don’t deserve the things they already bought.

So next time someone says,
“We can’t afford it,”

slap them with this Fact Check Me.

One of the greatest failures of modern politics is the assumption that people vote logically.

They don’t.

At least not economically.

Because if they did, half the political map wouldn’t make any sense.

You look at struggling communities — rural towns, post-industrial cities, places hollowed out by addiction, unemployment, and stagnation — and from the outside it seems obvious what would help:
better healthcare,
better schools,
better labor protections,
better infrastructure,
more social support.

And yet many of these same communities vote against those very things.

Or at least against the parties promising them.

People love to call this stupidity.
Ignorance.
Voting against their own interests.

But I don’t think that’s what’s happening at all.

I think abandonment changes psychology.

When systems fail you long enough, you stop believing systems can save you.

And once that belief dies, politics stops being about economics and starts being about identity.

Because here’s the thing:
people build their moral philosophy out of their survival story.

If you grew up in a place where the government felt absent, where factories closed, schools decayed, hospitals struggled, wages disappeared, and nobody seemed to care — then “the system” doesn’t feel like yours anymore.

It feels distant.
Hostile.
Run by people who have never met you.

So when someone says,
“Government is the answer,”
what you hear is:
“Trust the people who already ignored you.”

That’s why people retreat inward.

Into family.
Church.
Tradition.
Community.
National identity.
Self-reliance.

Not because these things solve every problem,
but because they’re the only institutions that still feel real.

And once that happens, politics becomes emotional before it becomes practical.

A struggling factory worker might materially benefit from progressive policy while simultaneously feeling culturally rejected by the people offering it.

Meanwhile conservatives may offer very little economically,
but they offer recognition.

They say:
“You matter.
Your values matter.
Your anger makes sense.”

That feeling is powerful.

But this goes even deeper.

The system that fails people creates two very different political creatures.

It creates people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
who look at the few supports that helped them survive —
a scholarship,
a teacher,
public healthcare,
a community program —
and conclude:
“We need stronger systems.”

To them, the ladder mattered.
So they fight to reinforce it for everyone else.

But the same broken system also creates people like JD Vance.

People who climb out of neglect and conclude:
“No one helped me.
I made it myself.”

And once your suffering becomes part of your identity,
the climb itself becomes sacred.

That’s where extreme individualism comes from.

Not selfishness necessarily —
but survival turned into ideology.

If your whole life taught you that nobody was coming to save you,
then dependency starts to feel shameful,
and collective solutions start to feel fake.

That’s why two people can come from hardship and emerge with opposite politics.

One remembers the moments society carried them.
The other remembers being left alone.

Same pain.
Different lesson.

And maybe that’s why strong public systems matter so much.

Because the moment wealthy people can completely remove themselves from public life,
society starts splitting into parallel worlds.

Private schools.
Private healthcare.
Private security.
Private communities.

At that point, public systems stop being shared infrastructure and become “services for poor people.”

And once the powerful no longer use the system,
they stop caring if it works.

That’s the real danger of two-tier healthcare.

Not that some people get faster treatment.

But that the people with influence no longer have any personal stake in fixing the common system.

Because if politicians, executives, and millionaires all had to sit in the same emergency room as everyone else,
you’d be amazed how quickly wait times would become a national priority.

Countries like Denmark understand something we increasingly don’t:

Shared systems create shared identity.

When rich and poor alike use the same schools,
the same hospitals,
the same transit,
the same parks,
the same public spaces,
they are forced to see themselves as part of the same society.

And maybe that’s the real purpose of public institutions.

Not just efficiency.
Not just fairness.

But cohesion.

Because once the wealthy fully exit the public sphere,
they stop investing in it emotionally.

Taxes become charity instead of contribution.
Infrastructure becomes someone else’s problem.
And the country slowly stops feeling like one country at all.

Maybe that’s the lesson.

People don’t support systems they’ve never seen work.

And societies only stay together when everyone still needs each other.

Stop Asking Teachers to Be the Whole School

We ask teachers to be everything, and then we wonder why they don’t measure up.

In Ontario, a teacher doesn’t just “deliver education.”

And let’s be real for one second — delivering a lesson is already a specialized skill.

It requires knowledge. Performance. Timing. Presence. The ability to read a room. To hold attention. To pivot when something isn’t landing. To improvise. To follow a different path than the one you started with because the kids in front of you need something different than the lesson plan imagined.

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That alone is hard.

If all we asked teachers to do was deliver strong lessons, I’m confident we would have some outstanding people in classrooms across the province.

But that’s not all teaching is.

Teaching is also planning those lessons. Building them from the ground up. Making sure subjects connect. Finding themes. Weaving together science, English, history, art, social studies, and whatever else the curriculum demands that week.

In Ontario, teachers aren’t handed full lesson plans.

They’re handed a checklist.

Here are the things you need to cover.

Now go build the machine yourself.

And somehow we act like that makes sense.

You wouldn’t ask an actor to write the script, build the set, direct the show, manage the audience, counsel the cast, clean the theatre, and buy the props — then blame them when the performance isn’t perfect.

But that’s exactly what we do to teachers.

They have to write the lesson.

Build the lesson.

Deliver the lesson.

Assess the lesson.

Modify the lesson.

Document the lesson.

Defend the lesson.

Then they have to build the classroom itself.

Not just physically, either — although yes, somehow they also have to become interior designers. They have to make the room warm, organized, colourful, inviting, functional, accessible, and inspiring.

Often with supplies they bought themselves.

Old books from garage sales.

Bins from dollar stores.

Toys from their own basements.

Pencils, markers, paper, tissues, paper towels.

A public education system where teachers are quietly expected to fund the atmosphere out of their own pockets.

That should embarrass us.

And then there’s the emotional architecture of the classroom.

Because when you have children in a room for six hours a day, you are not just delivering information.

You are managing time.

Energy.

Conflict.

Friendships.

Feelings.

Anxiety.

Attention.

Behaviour.

Self-esteem.

Group dynamics.

You are building routines.

Creating behaviour systems.

Teaching kids how to transition, how to listen, how to share space, how to recover from frustration, how to function around other human beings.

That isn’t “extra.”

That is the classroom.

And then, because apparently that still isn’t enough, teachers are also expected to be therapists, conflict-resolution experts, social workers, motivational speakers, crisis managers, and emotional translators.

Most people will never be asked to carry that many roles in one job.

But teachers are.

Every day.

And here’s my biggest beef: the two biggest parts of teaching — building lessons and delivering lessons — are not even necessarily the same skill.

Some people are brilliant creators. They can design incredible lessons, beautiful resources, thoughtful progressions, deep connections between subjects.

But put them in front of thirty kids and they freeze.

Other people are incredible in the room. They can command attention, explain clearly, read faces, shift gears, make students feel alive and engaged.

But ask them to build a full curriculum from scratch every week and they drown.

Those are different gifts.

Different temperaments.

Different brains.

Often, they belong to different people.

But our system pretends every teacher should be both.

Why?

And why all the redundancy?

Why does every Grade 2 teacher in every classroom in every school across the province need to build the same lesson plan over and over again?

Can’t we do it once?

Can’t we create strong, beautiful, tested, high-quality lesson frameworks and say:

Here.

Start with this.

Now go teach.

Teachers should still adapt.

They should still bring themselves into the room.

They should still respond to their students, their community, their class culture.

But they shouldn’t have to reinvent public education every Sunday night at their kitchen table.

Because that’s what’s happening.

A tired teacher, after marking and emails and behaviour notes and parent communication and meetings and planning and actual teaching, is sitting there trying to find one more worksheet online because tomorrow still has to happen.

And then we wonder why the system feels inconsistent.

Of course it’s inconsistent.

We’ve made every classroom its own little island.

Some teachers have the time.

Some have the talent.

Some have the energy.

Some have the experience.

Some have none of those things yet because they’re new and barely surviving.

And the kids get whatever version of the system that one exhausted person can build.

That’s not fair to students.

And it’s not fair to teachers.

If we want consistency, build consistency.

If we want creativity, give teachers room to be creative.

If we want better lessons, stop making every teacher start from zero.

Give them the script.

Give them the set.

Give them the props.

Give them the supplies.

Then let them perform.

Let them teach.

Because the magic of a great teacher is not that they can do every job in the building.

The magic is what happens when they are finally allowed to do the job they were trained to do.

Stand in front of students.

Connect.

Explain.

Encourage.

Challenge.

Adapt.

Inspire.

Teach.

That should be enough.

And if it isn’t, then the problem isn’t the teacher.

It’s the system we built around them.

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We let temporary people make permanent decisions.

That’s the whole problem.

Politicians come and go.
Four years. Maybe eight if they’re lucky.
But the decisions they make?
We live with those for decades.

Transit lines. Road layouts. Zoning. Entire neighborhoods.

These aren’t short-term choices.
They shape how a city moves, breathes, and survives.

And yet somehow, they get decided like they’re campaign promises.

A new government comes in and suddenly we’re building bike lanes everywhere.

Another one takes power and rips them all out.

Millions spent putting them in.
Millions more spent tearing them out.

Not because the data changed.
Not because the city changed.

Because the politics changed.

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Meanwhile, you’ve got planners, engineers, and people who actually understand how cities function sitting there watching it happen.

People who studied this.
Who model traffic flows.
Who understand density, transit, and how humans actually move through space.

And they get overruled by someone chasing a headline.

Let’s talk about growth.

Look at Markham.

One of the fastest-growing cities in the country.

Houses everywhere.
Townhomes. Condos. Developments popping up like weeds.

Great.

So where do these people go?

Where do they shop?
Where do they live their lives outside their front door?

Because nobody’s building grocery stores.

And before someone jumps in with, “That comes later”—
that’s exactly the problem.

We don’t build communities.
We build inventory.

Homes first.
Life second.

Maybe.

Grocery stores don’t just appear because people exist.

They follow density.
They follow patterns.
They follow certainty.

But we approve housing like the rest will magically sort itself out.

So now you’ve got thousands of people moving into neighborhoods that don’t function yet.

Which means they drive.

Everywhere.

Now traffic gets worse.
Now we need more roads.
Now we’re “fixing” problems we created on purpose.

And the bike lane debate?

We treat it like it’s ideological.

Like you’re either for them or against them.

But nobody stops to ask a simple question:

Was this ever part of a coherent plan?

Because if it wasn’t, then yeah—of course it fails.

You can’t copy-paste Amsterdam into a place that wasn’t designed for it and expect the same result.

Amsterdam didn’t wake up one day and decide to be a bike city.

They committed to it.
For decades.

They built around it.

Here?

We experiment with infrastructure like it’s a trend.

Try it. Scrap it. Rebrand it. Repeat.

All while the bill keeps growing.

This isn’t about being pro-bike or anti-car.

It’s about consistency.

It’s about having a plan—and sticking to it long enough to see if it actually works.

Because once you’ve paid for something?

You should at least have the courage to let it succeed or fail properly.

But that requires something our system isn’t built for:

Long-term thinking.

Right now, politicians are judged on what they can show before the next election.

Not what the city looks like in 20 years.

So they optimize for visibility.

Quick wins.
Big announcements.
Shiny projects.

Even if they don’t connect to anything.

And the people who actually know how to build cities?

They advise.

They recommend.

They get ignored.

We’ve built a system where expertise is optional,
but optics are mandatory.

Where long-term consequences don’t matter
as long as the short-term narrative works.

So yeah—watching it happen is frustrating.

Because you can see the outcome coming a mile away.

More traffic.
More congestion.
More money wasted fixing what didn’t need to be broken in the first place.

We don’t have a planning problem.

We have a time horizon problem.

Until the people making the decisions are forced to think beyond their own shelf life,

we’re going to keep building cities that don’t work—

and then arguing about why.

We don’t suffer the consequences of bad planning—
we inherit them.

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If you do a lazy search online, you’ll find old instructional films from the 1950s and 60s teaching teenagers how to date.

They’ll show you how to ask someone out.

How to read signals.

How to sit, talk, smile, and leave.

We laugh at them now.

They’re stiff.

Awkward.

Completely out of touch with modern life.

But here’s the question no one asks:

What replaced them?

Because as ridiculous as those videos were, they did something we don’t do anymore.

They taught people how to engage with each other.

They gave young people a shared understanding of what was happening when two people showed interest in one another.

A script.

A starting point.

And we threw it out.

Not because it didn’t serve a purpose—but because it didn’t reflect the world we wanted anymore.

Fair enough.

But we never replaced it.

---

Now we’ve got a generation learning how to date from:

social media highlight reels,

porn,

equally confused friends,

and trial and error.

No consistency.

No shared language.

No clear expectations.

And somehow we’re surprised that everything feels awkward.

---

Take initiation.

We talk about equality all the time.

We say men and women are equals in relationships.

But when it comes to actually starting one?

We’re still running the same old play.

Men approach.

Women respond.

Only now, men have been told to be more careful, more respectful, more aware—which is good—but no one handed them a new model to replace the old one.

So they hesitate.

Overthink.

Or say nothing at all.

Meanwhile, women are still largely expected to wait.

Not because they can’t act—but because the system never really invited them to.

And that’s where things quietly break.

Because if one side carries the risk of rejection, and the other side carries the expectation of being chosen, you don’t have equality.

You have imbalance with better branding.

---

And then we get to the date itself.

Dinner and a movie.

The gold standard.

Except now, that “low-stakes” date can cost a day’s wages.

So before you even know if you like the person sitting across from you, you’re already invested—financially, socially, emotionally.

You’re locked into a conversation you can’t easily exit, sitting face-to-face like it’s some kind of interview.

It’s not a connection.

It’s a performance.

We turned dating into something you buy instead of something you build.

---

Meanwhile, the simplest versions of dating—the ones that actually make sense—are treated like afterthoughts.

A walk.

A coffee.

A casual meet-up.

Low cost.

Low pressure.

Easy to leave.

Easy to repeat.

You’re not interrogating each other.

You’re just seeing if you enjoy being in the same space.

Which is the whole point.

---

Even historically, dating didn’t look like what we do now.

People walked together.

Visited each other’s homes.

Sat with families.

Spent time in shared environments.

It wasn’t about compressing compatibility into ninety minutes and a bill.

It was about proximity.

Familiarity.

Gradual connection.

---

We laugh at the old rules.

But at least they were rules.

Now we’ve replaced them with nothing—and we expect people to just figure it out.

And when they don’t?

We blame men for not approaching properly.

We blame women for being unclear.

We blame the apps.

We blame the culture.

We blame everything except the obvious:

We removed the structure and never built a new one.

---

If we actually believe in equality, then both people should be equally responsible for starting connections—not just maintaining them.

If we actually want better relationships, then maybe first dates shouldn’t feel like investments—they should feel like test runs.

Low risk.

Low pressure.

Honest.

Because the goal isn’t to impress someone.

It’s to find out if you like them.

---

Dating didn’t get more complicated because people got worse.

It got more complicated because we stopped teaching people how to do it—and replaced it with a system built on pressure, confusion, and guesswork.

And then we called that progress.

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I’m sitting at the table with my kid — Grade 11 English.

He’s working through his Indigenous unit.

I ask what he’s learning.

He shrugs.

“Residential schools.”

That’s what stuck.

Thirteen years into the system, and that’s the takeaway.

Not who these people are. Not how they live today. Not where they fit in the country right now. Just the worst thing that ever happened to them.

And that’s when it hits you.

We don’t teach Indigenous people.

We teach Indigenous history.

Like it’s over.

And look — that history matters.

The Canadian Indian residential school system should be taught, understood, and taken seriously. It should make people uncomfortable.

But when everything is framed in the past, students don’t see a people. They see an event. Something that happened, and something that ended.

Because nowhere in that conversation is the simplest, most important truth:

They’re still here.

Indigenous peoples in Canada were never one group, and they aren’t one now.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy didn’t live like the Mi’kmaq, and the Anishinaabe don’t share the same worldview as the Inuit.

That was true then. It’s still true now.

But you wouldn’t know that from how it’s taught.

What gets delivered is a simplified version that fits neatly into a unit.

And what my kid walks away with isn’t understanding — it’s distance.

Indigenous becomes something that happened to people a long time ago.

And then there’s the structure.

We don’t even give this its own space.

We tuck it inside an English course — a subject that’s supposed to open things up — and somehow manage to narrow both at the same time. English loses range, and Indigenous studies loses depth.

We’ve gone from ignoring Indigenous history to centering it almost entirely on trauma.

It feels like progress, but it still keeps Indigenous people at arm’s length — locked in the past, defined by what was done to them instead of recognized as part of what Canada is right now.

If this actually matters, then the framing has to change.

Not just what we teach — but how we position it.

Not as something that happened.

As something that continues.

Because there’s something else we’re missing.

When you look at the world right now — how we treat each other, how we treat the land — it’s hard to argue we’ve got it figured out.

There are ways of living that existed here long before Canada did. Ways that placed responsibility to the community ahead of the individual, and treated the land as something to be cared for, not used up. Not perfect, not the same everywhere, but grounded in a different set of priorities than the ones driving most of our decisions today.

And we barely touch it.

We keep searching for new systems to fix what’s broken — while ignoring the ones that were already here.

Because if the only thing my kid learns about Indigenous people is how they suffered…

he’s going to miss what they still have to offer.

That they’re still here.

And that we might actually need them more now than ever.

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My son didn’t discover computer science because of the school system.

He discovered it in spite of it.

---

He’s always loved math.

Not because he liked getting the right answer—but because he liked the process. The steps. The logic. The idea that if you follow something properly, you get an outcome that makes sense.

Something objective.

Something you can trust.

Something you can build with.

You could see it when he was a kid.

His favourite toys were Legos and Power Rangers.

But he didn’t play with them the way most kids do.

There were no battles. No stories. No saving the world.

He built.

That’s all he did.

He’d take his Power Rangers and combine them in every possible configuration, over and over again, just to see how they fit together.

Same with Lego.

Instructions. Systems. Steps.

That’s where he lit up.

---

So when he got to high school and took computer science, something clicked.

It wasn’t just another class.

It was a language for how his brain already worked.

A way to take that “quirky” part of himself—the part that liked structure, logic, building—and turn it into something real.

Something useful.

Something he could actually *do* with his life.

---

But that didn’t happen because the system worked.

It happened because he got lucky.

---

His teacher wasn’t filling a gap.

He wasn’t a math teacher or a physics teacher assigned to computer science because the school needed someone in the room.

He was an actual computer scientist.

Someone who had spent years working in the field.

Someone who knew the tools.

Knew the languages.

Knew what mattered.

So my son wasn’t just learning computer science.

He was doing it.

Building.

Competing.

Exploring.

Seeing, for the first time, a real path forward.

---

Now imagine the exact same kid.

Same brain.

Same interests.

Same potential.

Different classroom.

---

Maybe that teacher is doing their best.

But they’re not a computer scientist.

They’re a math teacher.

Or a physics teacher.

Or someone handed a course they weren’t trained for.

So the tools are simpler.

The expectations lower.

The material outdated.

Same course code.

Same credit.

Same transcript.

Completely different education.

---

And that’s the problem.

We build school systems around geography and then pretend the outcomes are comparable.

We assign kids to classrooms based on where they live and act like a 90% means the same thing everywhere.

It doesn’t.

Not even close.

---

We say we have a teacher shortage.

But look at what we actually do.

We take people with real, in-demand expertise—developers, engineers, tradespeople—and we tell them:

Go back to school.

Get another degree.

Start at the bottom.

Wait ten years to earn what you’re worth.

---

We already know the job is worth $100,000.

That’s the top of the grid.

So why are we structuring the system so that anyone who already brings that level of value has to wait a decade to be recognized?

---

Take a skilled tradesperson.

An electrician.

A welder.

A machinist.

Someone who’s spent years mastering their craft.

They can earn a strong living right now.

Build something real.

Create something that matters.

And we ask them to walk away from that…

To teach shop class for $50,000 a year and hope it becomes something more.

Why would they ever say yes?

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Same in tech.

A capable programmer can work remotely, build real products, stay current in a field that evolves constantly.

But if they want to teach?

We make them step out of that world, retrain, and enter a system that treats their experience like it barely exists.

---

And then we wonder why great teachers feel like exceptions.

Why strong programs depend on luck.

Why some kids discover a passion that changes their life…

…and others never even get the chance to see it.

---

My son didn’t find computer science because the system guided him there.

He found it because the right teacher happened to be in the right place at the right time.

That’s not a system.

That’s a gamble.

---

We don’t need to tear everything down.

But we do need to be honest about what’s happening.

This isn’t a shortage of teachers.

It’s a shortage of pathways for the people who actually have something to teach.

---

Because somewhere out there is another kid like mine.

Same brain.

Same curiosity.

Same potential.

And whether or not they ever discover it…

comes down to a roll of the dice.

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They used to joke that OSAP stood for the Ontario Student Alcohol and Party Fund.

It was funny.
It still is.

But like most jokes, it hides something people don’t want to think about.

Because that money didn’t just disappear into cases of beer.

It paid for tuition.
Books.
Rent.
Food.

It kept students alive while they chased the future we told them to chase.

If you didn’t go to school — or didn’t need help to get there — it’s easy to laugh at it.
Easy to dismiss it.
Easy to call it waste.

But OSAP isn’t some free-for-all.

You don’t just sign up and get a cheque.

To qualify, you have to prove need. Real need.
And the grant portion? That’s not going to kids from comfortable homes looking for a handout.

It’s going to the ones who don’t have another option.

I grew up in a working-class family.

Auto body mechanic father.
Nurse mother.

We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor enough either.

We didn’t qualify.

Not for loans.
Definitely not for grants.

So I did what people say you’re supposed to do.

My parents helped where they could.
I saved.
I worked part-time during the school year.

And in the summers?

Seven days a week.

Sounds admirable, right?

Disciplined.
Responsible.
The kind of story people love to point to and say, “See? If you want it bad enough, you’ll make it work.”

But here’s the truth:

That story isn’t inspiring.

It’s a warning.

Because what did it actually get me?

Subpar grades.
A subpar experience.

No time.
No balance.
No room to breathe.

Just running — constantly — between class and work.

And here’s the part people miss:

I was only able to do that because I lived at home.

Because I was close enough to a school that made it possible.

Take that away?

That whole plan collapses.

So if that was the experience for someone in the middle…

What do you think it looks like for someone at the bottom?

When politicians like Doug Ford cut OSAP grants, they’re not trimming excess.

They’re removing the only version of this path that actually works.

Because the kids who rely on OSAP don’t treat it like a joke.

They don’t have the luxury to.

They plan carefully.
They choose “safe” paths.

Nursing.
Teaching.
Trades.

Not because that’s all they’re capable of —
but because that’s what feels allowed.

And when one of those kids dares to want more?

Dance.
Acting.
Fine arts.

People start asking questions.

“Is that really worth funding?”
“Should taxpayers pay for that?”

So let’s ask it properly.

Are we really saying a poor kid doesn’t deserve to create?

That opportunity should come with a price tag only some families can afford?

That dreaming is fine — as long as it’s practical?

Because that’s what this becomes.

Not a budget decision.

A gate.

You’re not just cutting funding.

You’re deciding who gets to try.

Who gets to rise.

Who gets to become something more than where they started.

And here I am…

Advocating for a system I never benefited from.
One my son could use — but won’t qualify for either.

Even though in this economy, he probably should.

OSAP shouldn’t be shrinking.

It should be expanding.

It should be there for the mechanic’s kid.
The nurse’s kid too.

For every family doing everything right
and still falling just short.

Because education in Ontario isn’t getting easier to access.

It’s getting harder.

More expensive.
More exclusive.

While other places around the world are moving in the opposite direction —
lower costs, broader access, even paying students to learn.

And we’re over here debating whether some kids deserve the chance at all.

That’s the real cut.

Not to a program.

To the idea that hard work should be enough.

Because if it isn’t…

then what exactly are we telling our kids to believe in?

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I don’t know if I’m crazy or not, but I remember a time when politicians actually resigned.

It didn’t even take much.

An affair.

A bad decision.

Something that didn’t pass the smell test.

You got caught, your political stock dropped, your allies scattered, and the writing was on the wall. The only dignified thing left to do was step aside.

And people accepted it.

Not anymore.

---

Somewhere along the way, the rules changed.

Not the written ones — those are still there, buried in policy, law, and procedure.

I’m talking about the unspoken rules.

The ones that governed behavior.

The ones that said, “You’ve crossed a line.”

Those rules didn’t disappear overnight. They eroded.

Slowly.

Quietly.

Until the people in power realized something:

If a rule isn’t enforced, it’s not a rule at all.

---

You can see it everywhere.

Scandal doesn’t end careers the way it used to.

Ethics violations don’t carry the same weight.

Optics — once deadly — are now survivable.

Because politicians started testing the system.

What happens if I deny it?

What happens if I apologize but don’t leave?

What happens if I just wait this out?

And when nothing happened…

they learned.

---

We used to believe in a kind of political gravity.

Do something wrong, and eventually it would pull you down.

But gravity only works if there’s weight behind it.

And that weight used to come from three places:

- the public

- the media

- and your own party

When all three turned on you, you were done.

Now?

The public is fractured.

The media is divided.

And parties protect their own if the stakes are high enough.

So the fall never comes.

---

Instead, we’ve created a new system.

Not one where politicians are held to a higher standard —

but one where they’re constantly testing the lowest acceptable one.

Not:

“Is this right?”

But:

“Can I survive this?”

And more often than not, the answer is yes.

---

So what changed?

We did.

We stopped showing up.

Not just on election day — though that matters more than we like to admit —

but in between.

We stopped paying attention.

We stopped pushing back.

We stopped holding things long enough for them to matter.

Low turnout doesn’t scare politicians.

It tells them something.

It tells them exactly who they need to care about —

and who they don’t.

---

And if people barely show up on election day,

why would anyone in power believe they’ll show up the rest of the time?

Why would they fear outrage that fades in a week?

Why would they respect a standard no one enforces?

---

This is the part no one wants to say out loud:

The rules didn’t fail.

The consequences did.

And once the consequences disappear,

the rules were never real to begin with.

---

We’re not electing monarchs.

But we are electing people who’ve figured something out:

They can act like kings —

right up until the moment someone proves they can’t.

---

Power didn’t become absolute.

But the leash got longer.

And everyone can see it.

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Doug Ford’s government just pushed through changes to Ontario’s Freedom of Information laws — changes widely seen as limiting access and shielding his office from scrutiny.

And let’s not pretend we don’t know what this is about.

Cell phone records. Internal communications. The kind of information that turns questions into answers.

Now, whether you support Ford or not isn’t the point.

Because this isn’t about one politician.

It’s about a system that allows this to happen in the first place.

---

These changes are already being challenged.

Legal experts are lining up to say they may not hold up. That they could run into serious problems under constitutional scrutiny.

So here’s the obvious question:

If we already know that… why are they allowed to pass in the first place?

---

In no other part of life do we operate like this.

You don’t build a bridge and then check if it can hold weight after people are already driving on it. You don’t release a product you know might fail and say, “We’ll deal with it if it breaks.”

But in government?

That’s exactly what we do.

Pass the law.

Let it take effect.

Wait for someone to challenge it.

Spend years in court.

Find out later if it should have existed at all.

And by then, the damage is already done.

---

We’re told this is how democracy works.

Governments legislate. Courts review.

Fine.

But in practice, it creates a loophole — and that loophole is time.

Because time is power.

A government doesn’t need a law to survive a legal challenge.

It just needs it to exist long enough to do what it was designed to do.

Limit access. Delay transparency. Control the flow of information.

Even if the courts strike it down later, the outcome has already been achieved.

---

And don’t tell me they don’t know.

Governments have lawyers. Constitutional experts. Entire teams whose job is to flag risks.

They know what’s likely to be challenged.

They know what’s pushing the limits.

But that’s not the real question being asked.

The real question is:

Can we get away with it long enough?

---

We pretend the courts are a safety net.

But a safety net that takes years to catch you isn’t much of a safety net at all.

It’s cleanup.

Expensive, slow, reactive cleanup.

And while that cleanup is happening, the public is dealing with the consequences — less access, less transparency, less accountability.

All from a law that might not even survive.

---

So let’s stop pretending this is just how the system has to work.

If we already know the courts are slow…

If we already know challenges take years…

If we already know damage happens in the meantime…

Then why are governments allowed to pass laws that might not even be legal?

Why is “we’ll find out later” an acceptable standard?

---

No other system rewards you for doing it wrong first.

Except government.

Pass it now.

Hide what you need to hide.

Fight it later.

And move on like nothing happened.

And we’re supposed to call that accountability?

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We’re not destroying the planet to feed ourselves.
We’re destroying it to keep our meals interesting.

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Let’s imagine something for a second.

Not that we stop eating — we know that’s impossible. Biology, physics, reality… all of it says no.
But what if we didn’t need food the way we do now?

What if we had something else — some kind of complete, balanced, shelf-stable fuel.
Call it whatever you want. A bar. A powder. A shake.

Or let’s just call it what it feels like:

Cereal.

A bowl that gives you everything.
Protein. Fats. Carbs. Fiber. Vitamins. Minerals.
Perfectly measured. Perfectly balanced. Every time.

No guesswork. No planning. No stress.

Think about what food actually is in your life right now.

It’s not just fuel.
It’s pleasure. Comfort. Culture. Identity. Routine.
It’s how we celebrate. How we cope. How we connect.

But it’s also one of the biggest systems quietly controlling your life.

Every day:

• What are we eating?

• Do we have groceries?

• Do we need to shop?

• Do we have time to cook?

• Who’s cleaning up?

It’s not just eating.
It’s planning, buying, storing, preparing, cleaning, repeating.

Over and over. Every single day.

Now imagine… it stops.

Breakfast? Done in a minute.
Lunch? Sitting in your desk drawer.
Dinner? Waiting for you at home.

No spoilage. No waste. No fluctuating prices.
No grocery runs. No dishes. No cleanup.

Just fuel.

And yeah — at first it would suck.

You’d crave sugar. Salt. Variety.
You’d miss the ritual. The comfort. The dopamine hit.

But eventually?

You adjust.

Your appetite stabilizes.
Your cravings fade.
Your body knows exactly what it’s getting — and what to do with it.

You stop overeating because there’s nothing to overindulge in.
You stop under-eating because everything you need is right there.

If you’ve struggled with your weight?

Congratulations. That problem just got a lot smaller.

But here’s where it really changes things.

Your day changes.

You don’t plan meals.
You don’t stop what you’re doing to cook.
You don’t lose an hour to cleanup.

You just… keep going.

Work flows better.
Energy stays consistent.
No crashes. No sluggish afternoons.

You eat when you need to — not when your schedule forces you to.

Your space changes.

You don’t need a full kitchen anymore.

No oversized fridge.
No packed pantry.
No cupboards full of ingredients you forgot you bought.

That space?

Now it’s:

• A home gym

• An office

• A studio

• A place to actually live

Homes get smaller. Cheaper. More efficient.
Or bigger — but used for things that matter more to you.

Your time changes.

Think about it honestly.

How much of your life is spent:

• Grocery shopping

• Cooking

• Cleaning

• Thinking about food

Hours every week.

Gone.

Replaced with:

• More rest

• More creativity

• More work (if you want it)

• More actual living

That thing you always say you don’t have time for?

You just got it back.

Your mobility changes.

Food stops being an anchor.

You can go anywhere — work anywhere — live anywhere — without thinking:

Where am I going to eat?

Travel gets simpler.
Workdays get smoother.
Life gets… lighter.

Because one of your biggest daily needs?

Handled.

Now zoom out.

Think about the planet.

Right now, food production is one of the most destructive things we do.

We strip soil until it’s dead.
We cut down rainforests to raise livestock.
We overfish oceans to the brink of collapse.
We ship fragile food across the world — not because we need to, but because we want variety.

We grow entire organisms just to eat one part of them… and throw the rest away.

Now imagine a different system.

A handful of highly efficient inputs:

• Grains

• Algae

• Insects

• Lab-grown nutrients

Grown where they make sense.
Processed to use more of the organism — not less.
Shelf-stable. Compact. Transported in bulk.

No refrigeration.
Less waste.
Less land.
Less water.
Less shipping.

You don’t eliminate food production.

You compress it.

And with that?

You return land to forests.
You ease pressure on oceans.
You reduce emissions without asking people to give up everything they love.

Because here’s the thing.

This doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

You don’t eliminate food.

You reclassify it.

Most of your meals?

Fuel.

But food?

Food becomes something else.

Something intentional.

You still go out for dinner.

But now it’s once or twice a week.
With friends. With family. With purpose.

You slow down. You pay attention. You enjoy it.

Restaurants don’t disappear — they evolve.

They become:

• Experiences

• Craft

• Culture

• Art

Not just a place to shovel calories into your body between obligations.

And here’s the best part.

You get to enjoy it without guilt.

No health guilt.
No financial guilt.
No environmental guilt.

Because 75% of your intake is already handled.

Clean. Efficient. Sustainable.

So when you sit down to eat something real?

You actually taste it.

But let’s not pretend this is perfect.

There are tradeoffs.

You lose spontaneity.
You lose some tradition.
You lose the everyday rituals built around food.

And if we’re not careful, you centralize power over something fundamental to survival.

That’s where this idea gets dangerous.

But it also forces an uncomfortable truth.

We don’t destroy the planet because we need to eat.

We destroy it because we want:

• Variety

• Convenience

• Pleasure

• Choice

So maybe the question isn’t:

Would a world like this make us less human?

Maybe the real question is:

How much of what we call “human” is just habit?

We don’t need to stop eating food.

We just need to stop pretending every meal has to be one.

And if we did?

We wouldn’t just change what we eat.

We’d change:

• how we live

• how we move

• how we spend our time

• and what we choose to do with the energy we finally get back

Because when you solve one of your biggest needs…

You don’t just survive better.

You become free.

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I am part of the MTV generation.

A generation raised on a steady diet of glamour, aspiration, ambition, and wealth in excess — all beamed into our homes through network and cable TV.

“I want my MTV” was more than a marketing slogan. It was a campaign. A ploy designed to get kids to write their cable providers and demand MTV be added to the lineup. But the brilliance was in the wording. The phrase carried entitlement. It was bold. The “I” and the “my” gave teenagers ownership over the demand.

MTV wasn’t being sold as just a new channel — it was being sold as identity.

And once teens started lapping it up, once MTV was left on 24/7 like a radio in the background, we got more than the latest hits. We got access. We didn’t just hear music — we saw the artists. The clothes. The jewelry. The adoring fans. The lifestyle.

It was, in many ways, the first real form of social media.

It allowed celebrities to engrain themselves into the daily lives of their fans. An artist wasn’t just a voice on the airwaves anymore — they were a person you could follow. You got to go backstage, peek into their lives, hear their stories, and absorb the mythology of who they were supposed to be.

And MTV wasn’t the only machine pressing on the ambitions of a generation.

We also had shows like *Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous*. Robin Leach walked us through mansions, yachts, and ridiculous displays of luxury, narrating excess to kids sitting in modest living rooms with wood-paneled walls. Television that once focused on suburban or working-class life began shifting toward wealth and power. We grew up on *Dallas*, *Dynasty*, and *Designing Women*.

Suddenly, a normal life wasn’t enough.

Or more accurately — it was made to feel like it wasn’t enough.

For the first time in history, the working class didn’t just look up at the ruling class — they started to see it as aspirational.

Not distant. Not untouchable.

Possible.

We were made to believe that if we worked hard enough — or got lucky enough — we too could cross that line. That we could step out of ordinary life and into something bigger, brighter, richer.

And the stories we were fed reinforced it.

The adoption theme was everywhere.

Not just in obvious ways like *Different Strokes*, where kids were literally lifted out of one world and placed into another — but in subtler fantasies too. *Magnum P.I.* living in a Hawaiian estate he didn’t earn, driving a Ferrari that wasn’t his, moving freely through luxury because someone had chosen him.

That was the quiet promise.

You might not be born into it…

but you could be picked.

Discovered. Selected. Elevated out of obscurity.

It’s a powerful idea — because it removes the burden of structure and replaces it with the hope of exception. You don’t need the system to change if you believe you might one day escape it.

And that belief rewires how you see your place in the world.

Instead of questioning the gap between classes, you imagine yourself crossing it.

Instead of challenging the system, you invest in the fantasy of winning it.

Because when enough people believe they might become rich, fewer people ask why they’re not.

And I know how this sounds.

A little absurd. A little conspiratorial.

That’s not what I’m saying.

But timing matters.

Because right around the same time a generation was being taught to dream — to rise above their station — the rules of the game started to shift.

We got trickle-down economics.

We got steadily lowering tax rates for the wealthiest.

We got deregulation, privatization, and a cultural push toward individualism.

And none of it was sold as control.

It was sold as freedom.

Freedom to succeed.

Freedom to build.

Freedom to become.

But underneath that messaging, something else took hold.

We started building a society that quietly accepted a simple premise:

if there are winners, there must be losers.

And if you didn’t win?

Well, that was on you.

You didn’t work hard enough.

You didn’t want it badly enough.

You didn’t take the right risks.

It couldn’t be the system — because the system was built on opportunity. That’s what we were told.

So failure stopped being structural.

It became personal.

And once people internalize failure, they stop questioning the conditions that produce it.

They stop asking why the ladder is so hard to climb.

They just blame themselves for not climbing it fast enough.

That’s how you maintain a system without needing to defend it.

You don’t have to convince people it’s fair.

You just have to convince them that any outcome within it is their responsibility.

But here’s the thing.

Today’s generation can see it.

They have the benefit of hindsight. They can connect the dots — not just through experience, but through access to information and each other in ways we never could.

And they’re different.

They grew up watching their parents struggle just to keep up. They watched people do everything “right” and still fall behind. They weren’t promised fame, fortune, or even stability.

So they adjusted.

This isn’t a generation obsessed with owning things.

It’s a generation trying to live a balanced life.

They hear what previous generations were able to achieve — homes, families, stability — and they see how far out of reach that feels now. Not because they lack ambition, but because the math doesn’t work.

Rising costs.

Stagnant wages.

Systems stretched past their limits.

So they’re not asking for MTV.

They’re not chasing endless possessions.

They’re asking for something far more basic.

Education.

Healthcare.

Housing.

The necessities required to live a stable life.

And when they hear the old lines —

“pull yourself up by your bootstraps,”

“work harder,”

“stop complaining” —

it doesn’t land the same way anymore.

Because they’ve already seen what that effort produces.

They see the imbalance.

They see the trade-offs.

They see what it costs — not just individually, but socially.

And they’re not seduced by it.

Because you can’t sell the dream to people who’ve already watched it fail in real time.

They don’t want to win the game.

They’re starting to question why the game looks like this at all.

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I didn’t waste my time in university.

I just didn’t know what I was doing while I was there.

Not too long ago, if you asked my son what he wanted to do after high school, he would’ve told you he wanted to be a firefighter.

And if he went down that path, he would’ve had the proudest dad a firefighter could have.

But like a lot of kids his age, he changed his mind.

He found something that actually interested him—something that lit him up. And from what I can tell, he found it because of a teacher. A public school teacher, of all places, who actually knows his shit.

I’m grateful he lucked out.

But this isn’t about that.

Because now we’re touring universities.

And I’ll be honest—I didn’t expect to feel anything about it.

He’s still got another year of high school, but apparently that doesn’t matter anymore. You have to start early. You have to get ahead. You have to decide what your life looks like before you’ve even lived enough of it to know what you like.

Fine.

So we go.

We walk campuses. We sit through tours. We listen to students talk about programs and opportunities and “the experience.”

And somewhere along the way, something unexpected happens.

I start to feel excited.

Not just for him—for me.

And yeah, I know exactly what that is.

I’m living through him.

Because I didn’t feel any of this when I had my shot.

I went to university. I graduated. I did everything I was supposed to do.

And I missed it.

I was burned out coming out of high school. I didn’t know what I actually cared about. I didn’t explore anything—I just followed the path in front of me.

Pick courses that match what you already took.

Pick a program that makes sense on paper.

Get it done.

So I did.

I even switched once. Almost switched again. But at a certain point, it didn’t matter anymore. University wasn’t something I wanted to experience—it was something I needed to finish.

Something to get off my plate so I could finally start my life.

And on top of that?

I was shy. Awkward. Not exactly the guy walking into lecture halls ready to take over the room.

So yeah… my “university experience” was lacking.

Not completely.

I did meet the love of my life in a Shakespeare class in Curtis Lecture Hall B.

So it wasn’t a total loss.

But the truth is, I never really understood what university was supposed to be.

Not until now.

Now I walk these campuses with my son, and I see it.

I see the energy. The curiosity. The possibility.

I see what happens when someone shows up because they actually want to be there.

And I realize—I didn’t miss university.

I missed the mindset.

Because university isn’t about the degree.

It’s about the engagement.

It’s about caring enough to ask questions.

It’s about being curious enough to explore.

It’s about being ready.

And I wasn’t.

That’s the part nobody tells you.

We don’t send kids to university when they’re ready.

We send them when the timeline says they should go.

Eighteen. Graduate. Move on.

Like there’s a right moment stamped on everyone’s life.

Like curiosity, purpose, and identity all show up on schedule.

They don’t.

So we take kids who are exhausted, unsure, and still figuring themselves out…

…and we drop them into one of the most expensive, defining experiences of their lives—

and hope they grow into it fast enough to make it worth it.

Most of them aren’t.

They’re tired.

They’re unsure.

They’re still figuring out who they are.

So they do what I did.

They pick something that fits.

They get through it.

They move on.

And then, years later, they look back and realize…

They never really showed up.

Now, standing on these campuses, I can’t help but think:

I’d be better at this now.

I’d ask better questions.

I’d care more.

I’d actually engage with what I’m learning.

There are tools now I never had back then—or maybe I just never used them.

Either way, I know I’d do it differently.

And yeah, there’s a part of me that wonders what that would look like.

But let’s be real.

Half of what I’m drawn to isn’t the education—it’s the experience.

Dorms.

Late nights.

Hanging around the quad.

Thursday pub nights.

And that part?

That’s gone.

No one wants a 50-year-old guy hanging around like he belongs there.

I remember being that age.

We tore up the 30-year-old guy for showing up at the club.

I’d be everyone’s dad.

Worse—I’d be the dad asking to borrow your notes because I never learned how to take them the first time around.

So no—I’m not going back.

But I’m also not missing it this time.

Because I get to watch it happen the way it’s supposed to.

I get to see someone show up ready.

Ready to care.

Ready to engage.

Ready to build something that actually means something to him.

And maybe that’s the trade.

You don’t always get the experience when it happens.

Sometimes you get the understanding later.

And if you’re lucky—

you get to watch someone else step into it at the exact moment you finally understand what it was.

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People love to say depression is living in the past
and anxiety is living in the future.

Cute little sayings.
Clean. Digestible.
The kind of thing people put on posters because it sounds wise.

But if that’s true,
then what is living in the present?

Everyone says the answer is peace.
Mindfulness. Presence. Enlightenment.

But I’m not so sure.

Because the more I think about it,
the more “living in the moment” sounds like just learning to accept things exactly as they are.

And if accepting everything—good and bad alike—without resistance is wisdom…

how is that not just apathy with better marketing?

Every guru says the same thing:
Accept what comes.
Let go.
Be present.
Release attachment.

But if I stop fighting pain,
stop wishing things were different,
stop resisting what hurts—

am I enlightened?

Or have I simply learned how to go numb politely?

Maybe the present is not peace.

Maybe the present is burden.

The past gives us regret.
The future gives us fear.
And the present gives us what simply is.

The scars.
The pain.
The consequences.
The things you wake up carrying whether you want to or not.

And here’s where I start to wonder if maybe all of this is bigger than us.

We are told we are made of stardust.
That every atom in our bodies was forged in dying stars.
That the matter making up our bones, blood, and brains
is the same matter that makes up planets, moons, and galaxies.

So if that’s true—
if we are made from the universe itself—

then our thoughts and emotions must belong to it too.

Because what is emotion, really?

Electrical impulses.
Chemical reactions.
Matter in motion.

How could feeling be separate from the physical world
if feeling itself is produced by physical matter?

How could emotion be anything other
than the universe expressing itself through us?

And if the universe exists in constant tension—

gravity pulling inward,
matter exploding outward,
stars collapsing,
worlds spinning,
everything dragged and stretched by opposing force—

why would we be any different?

Why do we assume creatures born from chaos
should somehow feel peace all the time?

Maybe the conflict inside us
is just a smaller reflection of the conflict that built everything.

Maybe regret, fear, and burden
are not flaws in the design.

Maybe they are proof
that we are part of it.

Because to feel the past pulling behind you,
the future pulling ahead of you,
and the weight of the present pressing down all at once—

is to feel time in its entirety.

Past.
Present.
Future.

All pulling at once
like gravity from every direction.

I have anxiety about the future.
Whether I’ll pay my bills.
Whether I’ll get sick again.
Whether the cancer comes back.
Whether I’ll ever do enough. Be enough.

I carry regret for the past—
choices made, mistakes lived, roads taken and not taken.

And in the present?
I live with what illness left behind.

The scars.
The limitations.
The permanent reminders.

I missed my son’s first year of high school because I was in a coma.
Literally. Not figuratively.

And what am I supposed to do with that?

Cry forever?
Rage at the sky?
Pretend grief somehow changes reality?

No.

I carry it.

Not because I don’t care.
Not because I’m apathetic.
But because reality does not care how I feel about it.

So maybe being present is not peace.

Maybe being present is simply accepting
that some pain cannot be fixed—
only carried.

And maybe feeling regret, fear, and burden all at once
isn’t madness.

Maybe it isn’t imbalance.

Maybe it is simply what happens
when a conscious piece of the universe
becomes aware enough
to feel time pulling from every direction at once.

Maybe that’s not broken.

Maybe that’s just being human.

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I grew up Catholic.

Church most Sundays.
Stand, sit, kneel. Stand, sit, kneel again.
Sing along with the band—yeah, our church had a band.

And for all the years I spent there, I do not remember politics ever being part of the experience.

No sermons about elections.
No lectures about how “real Catholics” should vote.
No petitions handed out after mass.
No activist campaigns disguised as faith.

The priests would often finish service by blessing all people of all faiths, not just Catholics.

Being Catholic, as I understood it, meant showing up, saying your prayers, taking part in the rituals, and trying to live your life as a decent person.

Was it perfect? Of course not.

I got bullied in catechism for being the only public school kid there.
And you could definitely tell which priests got a little too enthusiastic about the sacramental wine.

But politics?
Politics stayed out of the pulpit.

Even abortion—arguably one of Catholicism’s clearest moral positions—was barely ever mentioned.

So when I see politicians trying to drag anti-abortion rhetoric back into public life, I can’t help but ask:

Who exactly is this for?

Because it doesn’t seem to be for the average Canadian.

If you think abortion is wrong, fine.
Don’t have one.

But the idea that your personal beliefs should dictate the laws everyone else lives under is not morality—it’s arrogance.

And let’s stop pretending otherwise.

This issue has been politically settled in Canada for decades.
The public has moved on.

Yet here we are, with Conservative MPs putting forward sloppy petitions quoting Roe v. Wade—an American ruling with no relevance to Canadian law—trying to reignite debate over an issue most Canadians have not been asking to revisit.

Why?

Because when politicians run out of real solutions, they fall back on culture war theatre.

They poke old wounds.
They revive divisive issues.
They weaponize morality.
They stir outrage because outrage is easier than leadership.

No one trying to pay rent is begging Parliament to reopen abortion debates.
No one buying overpriced groceries is asking for this.
No one waiting in overcrowded emergency rooms thinks this should be the priority.

People are worried about housing.
Healthcare.
Affordability.
The future.

Meanwhile, some politicians think the best use of their time is dragging out decades-old social debates because a loud minority still wants to fight them.

It is unserious.
And frankly, it is transparent.

Because this constant attempt to import American-style MAGA politics into Canada is not leadership—it is desperation.

They see how outrage politics energizes people in the United States, and they want to replicate it here.

But Canadians are not Americans.

We do not want every election turned into a religious shouting match.
We do not want Parliament treated like a church basement debate club.
We do not want politicians playing moral crusader while the country struggles with actual problems.

We want competence.
We want solutions.
We want adults in the room.

A politician’s job is not to impose their personal beliefs on the public.
It is not to use office as a pulpit.
It is not to tell citizens what values they should have.

Their job is to represent the will of the people.

And when they ignore real issues in favour of divisive ideological nonsense, they reveal exactly what they are:

Not leaders.
Not serious policymakers.
Just people chasing power through manufactured outrage.

Because people who want to govern solve problems.

People who want power create them.

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You can’t demand lower food prices, lower energy prices, lower housing costs—
and then get angry when the government can’t just snap its fingers and make it happen.

That’s not how markets work.

If you want the government held accountable for prices,
then the government needs actual control over the things being priced.

Because otherwise what exactly are you asking for?

You want elected officials to somehow force private companies
to lower prices
without controlling production, supply, distribution, or ownership?

That’s fantasy.

If you truly want affordable essentials—food, power, housing, medicine—
then those things need to exist, at least in part, under public control.

Government-run supply chains.
Public infrastructure.
State-backed production.

Why?

Because then we, collectively, absorb the risk.

A bad harvest?
Society takes the hit together.

Fuel markets fluctuate?
We subsidize stability.

Supply chain disruption?
Margins compress instead of families starving.

That’s what subsidizing actually means:
the public shares the burden so the individual doesn’t carry it alone.

And because the profit motive is removed,
the goal changes.

The objective is no longer:
“How much money can this make?”

It becomes:
“How efficiently can we provide this necessity?”

Some years cost more.
Some years cost less.
Some years create surplus.

And that surplus gets reinvested back into the system—
improving infrastructure,
building reserves,
offsetting future losses.

That’s how public service is supposed to work.

Because in “free” market capitalism,
the consumer eats the losses
and the shareholders keep the profits.

When markets dip,
prices go up.

When supply shrinks,
prices go up.

When profits fall,
prices go up.

Funny how prices always seem to go up.

And if times get really tough?
The corporation gets bailed out anyway—
with your tax dollars.

So apparently we already socialize the losses.

We just privatize the gains.

If you want a true free market,
then stop blaming government when prices rise.

But if you want government held accountable for affordability,
then stop pretending public ownership is some radical idea.

You don’t get accountability without authority.

Pick one.

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My biggest problem with politics today

is that parties treat winning an election

like it means the public endorsed

every single thing they believe.

As if scraping together enough votes

to beat the other guy

suddenly becomes carte blanche

to reshape the country in your image.

And we attack each other the same way.

If your party wins,

you act like your worldview has been validated.

If your party loses,

you act like the country has lost its mind.

Everything becomes absolute.

No nuance.

No compromise.

No room for disagreement.

Just: “We won. Shut up.” Or: “They won. We’re doomed.”

But politics in Canada

didn’t always feel like that.

There used to be more understanding

that governing meant balancing your beliefs

with the will of the people.

Take Stephen Harper.

Harper held personal views

on issues like abortion and LGBTQ rights

that clearly did not align

with the broader will of the country.

And what did he do?

He largely left those issues alone.

Sure,

there may have been quiet efforts

to shift opinion here and there.

And maybe part of that restraint

was political survival—

touching those issues directly

would have been suicide.

But I’d like to think

at some level

he understood something important:

That leadership sometimes means

putting your own convictions aside

when the people you serve

have spoken clearly.

That just because you believe something

doesn’t mean the country gave you permission

to force it through.

That’s what governing is supposed to be.

Not ruling.

Not imposing.

Not using every victory

to push every hidden agenda.

It’s stewardship.

It’s recognizing that an election

is not a declaration of ideological purity.

It simply means: “Of the options available,

more people trusted you

to steer the ship.”

That’s it.

Not that they love every idea you have.

Not that they worship your platform.

Not that they agree with your worldview

top to bottom.

Just that, for now,

they trust you most.

And politicians have forgotten that.

They get in power

and immediately behave like the public said, “Yes, please—implement your entire manifesto,

rewrite the culture,

and reshape society to match your values.”

No.

Most voters don’t vote that way.

Most people vote based on a handful of priorities.

The economy.

Healthcare.

Leadership style.

One or two major issues.

Very few people walk into a booth

thinking, “I fully endorse every policy and opinion

of this party from top to bottom.”

That’s fantasy.

And the truth is,

I don’t wish for the total demise

of the parties I don’t support.

Quite the opposite.

I want them strong.

I want them led by intelligent people

who can see issues from different angles—

not just partisan ones.

Because weak opposition

doesn’t strengthen democracy.

It weakens it.

Bad ideas don’t get challenged.

Lazy policy goes unchecked.

Leaders grow arrogant.

Governments stop defending their decisions.

And that’s dangerous

no matter who is in charge.

I’d love to see parties

working together more.

Holding each other accountable.

Allowed to disagree—

but more importantly,

allowed to agree.

Because not every compromise

is betrayal.

Not every agreement

is weakness.

Sometimes the best ideas

come when people stop worrying

about who gets credit

and start worrying

about what actually works.

Democracy was never meant

to be one side conquering the other.

It was supposed to be discussion.

Negotiation.

Compromise.

A constant balancing act

between competing visions

of how to move forward.

Winning should mean

you get the chance to lead—

not the right

to do whatever the hell you want.

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Normally, I can’t stand stories about the problems of the rich.

Movies and TV shows built entirely around giving us mere mortals a peek behind the curtain— into mansions we’ll never live in, vacations we’ll never take, and lifestyles so detached from reality they may as well be fantasy.

We’re supposed to care deeply about the rich handsome playboy struggling to find love, or the socialite balancing three affairs while planning a gala, all portrayed by actors who are themselves rich enough that they probably have assistants to remember their kids’ birthdays.

And for those of us whose majority of problems could be solved by a modest lottery win, it’s hard to care.

Really? Your biggest issue is whether your boyfriend truly understands you while you sip wine on a balcony overlooking the Amalfi Coast?

Cry me a river.

And even when these stories try to sell us on romance, you know damn well six months after the wedding he’s cheating on her anyway. We see it in the tabloids every day.

But Your Friends and Neighbors is different.

Because underneath all the glamour, it’s not really glorifying wealth— it’s exposing it.

The show follows a successful investor, played by Jon Hamm, who loses everything: his career, his access, his place in the machine.

And in desperation to maintain appearances— to keep his ex-wife and kids in the house, the private schools, the country club memberships, the tennis lessons— he turns to crime.

Not violent crime. Not heists. Not grand larceny.

Petty theft.

He begins breaking into the homes of his wealthy friends and neighbors, not to clean them out, but simply to skim from the top.

A watch here. A bracelet there. A pen worth more than most people make in a year.

Not because they won’t miss them— but because they literally can’t.

That’s the point.

My favorite moment was seeing a luxury pen— worth an average working person’s annual salary— pulled from a drawer filled with identical pens, thrown together carelessly, used once to sign contracts worth more money than most of us will earn in a lifetime.

And the show lingers on these things.

It catalogs them. Shows them off. Names the brands. Lets the camera sit on them like a commercial.

Almost to the point where you wonder if the show is sponsored by the very luxury brands it’s critiquing.

But intentional or not, what it ends up doing is forcing the audience to stare directly at the grotesque excess of wealth.

Because while the story is fiction, the lifestyle isn’t.

People really do live like this.

There are people in this world with drawers full of watches worth more than neighborhoods. Wine collections worth mortgages. Closets bigger than apartments. Cars they forget they own.

And meanwhile, millions of people work forty, fifty, sixty hours a week just to survive.

So no— Coop isn’t Robin Hood.

He isn’t noble. He isn’t righteous. He’s selfish, broken, and desperate.

But he is something even more interesting:

He’s an antihero acting as a middle finger.

A man from inside that world ripping the curtain down and showing us what’s behind it.

And once you see it clearly, once you stop viewing that lifestyle as aspirational and start seeing it for what it is—

it stops looking glamorous.

It starts looking disgusting.