Fact Check Me:You Don’t Get to Shrink My Kid’s Dream
Education isn’t a factory.
It’s not a conveyor belt feeding workers into whatever corporate machine happens to be humming the loudest this quarter. It’s not a sorting hat for “useful” and “useless” degrees. It’s not a discount warehouse where we slash philosophy because the market says we need more coders.
It’s supposed to be the engine of possibility.
But lately, listening to Doug Ford talk about education, you’d think the only acceptable dream is one that clears payroll efficiently.
Apparently, if you “pick the wrong course,” that’s on you.
Apparently, if you study something that doesn’t translate neatly into a corporate job posting, that’s your mistake.
Apparently, the solution is to tighten funding until everyone funnels into whatever field the government has decided is economically obedient.
Let’s talk about that.
Who decides what’s “wrong”?
Seventeen-year-olds?
Parents?
Markets that change faster than degree cycles?
Politicians who didn’t finish college but now want to lecture students about practicality?
A province that starves its humanities produces fewer critics.
A province that starves its arts produces fewer storytellers.
A province that starves philosophy produces fewer people asking uncomfortable questions about power.
Funny how that works.
And then there’s healthcare.
We’re told private clinics can “help.”
They’ll be more efficient.
They’ll clear backlogs.
They’ll cost less.
Corporations don’t exist to cost less.
They exist to extract profit.
Public systems reinvest surplus.
Private systems distribute it.
That’s not ideology. That’s structure.
So when procedures start shifting to privately run facilities while public hospitals remain “underused” because they lack funding — people notice.
When nurses are encouraged into debt-heavy degrees only to find themselves negotiating wages in increasingly privatized environments, people notice.
When the logic of the market creeps into spaces that were built on public trust, people notice.
And when leaders tell protesters to “get a job,” people notice who had the luxury of stepping into family businesses instead of filling out entry-level applications.
But here’s the part that matters.
This isn’t about one man.
This is about identity.
For decades, Canada defined itself — in contrast to our neighbours — by a belief that you didn’t need to be born rich to:
See a doctor.
Get fed.
Get educated.
Chase something improbable.
That was the deal.
You don’t have to come from money to matter.
Now we’re told education must align with market efficiency.
Healthcare must align with private delivery models.
Students must align with “labour needs.”
What happens to dreams that don’t align?
My kid has one.
So does yours.
Maybe it’s medicine. Maybe it’s music. Maybe it’s teaching. Maybe it’s design. Maybe it’s something that doesn’t even exist yet.
Education isn’t just about jobs. It’s about expanding what’s possible — culturally, scientifically, philosophically.
If we reduce it to workforce supply, we don’t just shrink funding.
We shrink imagination.
And once imagination shrinks, democracy follows.
Because a population trained only to serve markets stops questioning who controls them.
You want to call it dramatic?
Look south.
Waves of protest. Anti-elite rage. Political fracture. Public distrust. Institutions hollowed out by decades of deregulation and corporate capture.
You think flags protect you from that?
They don’t.
Institutions do.
Engaged citizens do.
Voters do.
If education and healthcare begin answering more to shareholders than to the public, don’t be surprised when public faith erodes.
Values don’t vanish overnight.
They thin out.
They get “optimized.”
They get reframed as inefficiencies.
Until one day you realize the promise changed and nobody announced it.
A country is defined by what it guarantees its children.
If we guarantee them access only when it’s profitable, we’re not defending Canadian values.
We’re auctioning them.
And if enough parents decide that’s unacceptable?
That’s when governments remember who they answer to.
Not corporations.
Not donors.
Voters.
My kid’s dream isn’t a line item.
And it sure as hell isn’t yours to shrink.