AUTHOR’S NOTE: To be read in the hushed, fascinated cadence of a classic David Attenborough wildlife documentary, preferably over sweeping aerial footage of Ottawa and the distant sound of a government consultant submitting an invoice.
Canada...
A vast northern habitat stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic, where forests, mountains and frozen tundra have endured for millennia despite the comparatively recent arrival of approximately four million government committees.
For generations, life here maintained a peculiar but dependable rhythm. Canadians carved communities from an unforgiving landscape, built industries from its enormous natural wealth and somehow developed the ability to endure six months of winter while remaining genuinely surprised by its return every November. They complained about taxes, distrusted Toronto from a safe distance and apologized instinctively when someone else walked into them.
It was a hardy ecosystem, occasionally absurd and certainly overtaxed, but remarkably stable.
Then, sometime around late 2015, the political climate began to shift. At first the changes were subtle. The language became unfamiliar, institutions acquired curious new rituals, and government committees began reproducing with such astonishing efficiency that researchers briefly considered listing them as an invasive species. Problems that Canadians once expected governments to solve were increasingly acknowledged, studied, consulted upon and carefully returned to the population several years later as frameworks.
It was within this changing habitat that a fascinating new political specimen began to flourish: the Modern Progressive Liberal.
There, just beyond the reusable shopping bags, we can see one now. Keep very still as we observe it in its raw, natural form.
Our specimen has detected an opinion and approaches cautiously, examining the unfamiliar thought for approved terminology, appropriate context and evidence of correct intent. For a moment, it seems merely curious.
Then it realizes the opinion belongs to somebody else. The creature freezes, and around us the habitat falls strangely silent. Somewhere in the distance, a diversity consultant stops grazing. This could be dangerous.
We should move carefully. If startled, the Progressive Liberal may attempt to organize a panel discussion.
SPECIMEN ONE: THE IDENTITY SORTING RITUAL
Our first specimen possesses an extraordinary ability rarely encountered elsewhere in nature. Upon entering a room filled with individual human beings, the Progressive Liberal can almost immediately sort the population according to race, sex, gender, ancestry and relative position within an intricate hierarchy of privilege and oppression, including several classifications researchers believe were discovered approximately fifteen minutes ago.
For generations, Canadians were taught that judging people according to the colour of their skin was prejudice. Our specimen, however, has evolved beyond this primitive understanding. It may now contemplate skin colour almost continuously, provided it does so in the service of not caring about skin colour.
It is here that we encounter a particularly fascinating subspecies: the Guilty White Progressive.
Observe carefully. Though this individual may personally have arrived in Canada from Poland in 1993, it nevertheless appears to carry an extraordinary burden of responsibility for the British Empire. Scientists remain uncertain how this guilt is transmitted between generations, although mounting evidence suggests university orientation may play an important role.
When its privilege is questioned, the creature performs an elaborate submission ritual, acknowledging, reflecting, listening and learning before solemnly promising to do the work. Precisely what this work entails has never been conclusively established, although field researchers have observed that it frequently involves a workshop, several earnest conversations and, among mature specimens, the seasonal changing of a social-media profile picture to whichever flag or colour scheme is currently required.
The ritual completed, the creature retreats to its preferred habitat and restores its depleted moral energy with an $8 ethically sourced coffee, free from slave labour. It appears noticeably calmer now. The immediate danger has passed.
Researchers have searched carefully for evidence that any measurable social condition improves as a result of this extraordinary display. Thus far, the findings remain elusive. The specimen itself, however, emerges refreshed and morally reassured, revealing the ritual’s remarkable evolutionary advantage: it allows the participant to experience all the satisfaction of having accomplished something without the considerable inconvenience of actually having done so.
And within the modern progressive ecosystem, this is not regarded as a failure of adaptation… it is considered progress.
SPECIMEN TWO: THE GREAT MIGRATION EXPERIMENT
We now travel to one of the most rapidly changing habitats in the developed world. Canada has always been shaped by immigration, but even the most welcoming ecosystem remains subject to an inconvenient law of nature: a growing population requires somewhere to live and enough doctors, schools, jobs and infrastructure to sustain it. Ecologists call this carrying capacity.
For generations, Canadian governments appeared vaguely familiar with the concept. Then, sometime after 2015, the governing Liberal discovered the immigration dial. Observe as it turns it steadily clockwise.
Permanent immigration, roughly 272,000 people in 2015, rises beyond 470,000 annually by 2023, while the temporary-resident population expands dramatically alongside it. For some time, the creature seems remarkably unconcerned that the habitat is not expanding at anything like the same rate.
Perhaps it believes houses reproduce naturally. They do not. Even when left undisturbed throughout the mating season, the Canadian bungalow has never been observed producing so much as a duplex. Nor do family physicians emerge spontaneously from the boreal forest when summoned by ministerial announcement.
Soon, the habitat begins showing signs of stress. Housing becomes scarcer, rents climb and public services strain. Ordinary Canadians notice and begin suggesting that perhaps population growth should bear some relationship to available housing and services.
The Liberal regards these alarm calls suspiciously and continues on its way. Eventually, however, even Ottawa notices the habitat.
And it’s here we witness a remarkable evolutionary event: the governing Liberal discovers carrying capacity.
Immigration must now, it announces, return to more sustainable levels to relieve pressure on housing and public services.
Canadians who had spent years making substantially the same observation emerge cautiously from the undergrowth, perhaps expecting some acknowledgement.
None occurs.
Instead, the Liberal performs one of Canadian politics’ most remarkable survival manoeuvres. It adopts the formerly troublesome observation as its own, reverses direction and carries on as though this had been the plan all along.
Researchers have observed this phenomenon before. An idea can migrate from irresponsible and vaguely suspicious to responsible government policy without ever passing through the intermediate stage known as “we were wrong.”
And so the creature moves confidently onward, already preparing to explain how it intends to solve the problem it has only just discovered.
Truly, remarkable.
SPECIMEN THREE: THE LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT CALL
Listen carefully as we approach a gathering of institutional progressives. Before proceedings can begin, the dominant specimen performs its distinctive territorial call:
“We acknowledge that we gather today on the traditional territory…”
Once relatively uncommon, this call has spread rapidly through universities, government offices, corporate conferences and public events. Remarkably, it has even adapted to the digital environment, where participants scattered across the country may solemnly acknowledge the traditional territory beneath the bewildering network of fibre-optic cables, server farms, cell towers and assorted electronic wizardry that has somehow brought them together on Microsoft Teams.
The ritual itself is fascinating. Having formally acknowledged that the land traditionally belonged to somebody else, the entire colony remains exactly where it is.
Not one specimen leaves. No keys change hands. Nobody relinquishes a building, a parking space or even the good chair near the electrical outlet. The territory remains entirely undisturbed.
There is a respectful pause. Then someone advances the PowerPoint. There are usually muffins.
Canada unquestionably has serious obligations arising from its treatment of Indigenous peoples, and genuine reconciliation requires difficult things: honouring commitments, improving living conditions, creating opportunity and producing measurable results.
But here we witness one of the institutional progressive’s most ingenious adaptations: ceremonial reconciliation.
By reciting a carefully prepared acknowledgement, the creature can demonstrate considerable awareness of an historical injustice without experiencing the inconvenience of materially altering its present circumstances.
Researchers believe this explains the ritual’s extraordinary reproductive success. It costs virtually nothing, can be performed almost anywhere and leaves the participant with the warm sensation of having contributed to reconciliation before returning immediately to the agenda.
And so the call continues to spread across the Canadian institutional habitat, a remarkable example of symbolic action successfully evolving all the desirable characteristics of actual action, while avoiding the exhausting requirement of producing a result.
Extraordinary. The land has been acknowledged. And the land, apparently satisfied, requires nothing further.
SPECIMEN FOUR: THE DEI BUREAUCRAT
Deep within the fluorescent interior of the Canadian institution lives a creature seldom observed outdoors.
The DEI Bureaucrat.
Its habitat is remarkably consistent: ergonomic furniture, government-issued laptops, reusable water bottles and walls decorated with reassuring words such as Belonging, Inclusion, Equity and Allyship. Here, protected from the harsher conditions of the productive economy, the creature survives primarily on meetings.
Its only known natural predator is the measurable result.
When confronted by one, the bureaucrat rarely attempts direct engagement. Instead, it deploys an ingenious defensive mechanism known as the framework.
Watch closely.
A problem has entered the habitat. Almost immediately, several bureaucrats gather around it and form a working group. The working group determines that further consultation is required, from which a strategy eventually emerges. The strategy, being far too important to implement casually, requires an implementation committee, which soon discovers that successful implementation will require additional resources.
And there, almost imperceptibly, something extraordinary has happened. The original problem remains completely unharmed, but three new bureaucrats have appeared.
This remarkable reproductive cycle can continue almost indefinitely, nourished by consultations, action plans, progress reports and meetings to discuss the scheduling of subsequent meetings. Unlike most organisms, the DEI Bureaucrat does not appear constrained by the availability of measurable accomplishments. Indeed, researchers suspect the absence of measurable accomplishments may actually encourage further population growth.
Eventually, an institution can become so devoted to inclusion, accessibility, reconciliation, sustainability, equity and climate objectives that someone, usually a frightened junior employee, raises an ancient and dangerous question:
“What was this department actually supposed to do?”
The colony becomes very still. No one has heard this call for generations. Somewhere beyond the protected habitat, an ordinary Canadian has been waiting eleven weeks for a passport. A recorded voice reassures them: Your call is important to us!
SPECIMEN FIVE: THE PERSONAL-TRUTH DEFENCE
Leaving the fluorescent safety of the bureaucratic habitat, we venture deeper into the progressive ecosystem, where survival depends less upon committees and considerably more upon the ability to defend one’s beliefs from their most persistent natural predator: contradictory evidence.
Here we encounter perhaps the most remarkable evolutionary adaptation of all: the Personal-Truth Defence.
For thousands of years, humans relied upon an extraordinarily cumbersome process for determining whether something was true. They gathered evidence, made observations, consulted history, measured results and subjected their conclusions to argument and debate. It was slow, frequently unpleasant and carried the ever-present danger of discovering that one was wrong.
The modern progressive activist has evolved a far more efficient method.
It simply feels that it is right.
Observe what happens when another human introduces contradictory evidence. Our specimen becomes immediately alert, but rather than waste precious energy examining the information itself, it turns its attention to the individual carrying it.
The inspection is remarkably thorough. Their politics are examined, their followers studied, their terminology checked for irregularities and their social-media history combed for ancient droppings. A questionable remark from 2011 is considered an especially valuable find.
Within moments, the transformation is complete. Evidence that initially appeared troublesome has become problematic, the person presenting it is now unsafe, and the original argument can be abandoned entirely.
Researchers call this defensive behaviour the Ad Hominem Peacock Display.
Its evolutionary advantage is considerable. By spreading the magnificent plumage of moral indignation, the creature can repel an unwanted argument without ever coming into physical contact with its substance.
Most remarkably, the defence becomes stronger as the evidence becomes more threatening. Facts that support the creature’s worldview are welcomed enthusiastically. Those that contradict it are examined for signs of incorrect intent.
And so, after thousands of years spent developing reasoned inquiry, our species has achieved an extraordinary breakthrough: a method of determining truth in which being wrong need no longer interfere with feeling right.
Magnificent.
AND SO THE SUN SETS OVER THE CANADIAN ECOSYSTEM
And so, as evening settles over Ottawa, our journey through the progressive ecosystem draws to a close.
Across the capital, fluorescent lights flicker out and government-issued laptops are gently folded shut. Our specimens retreat from their conference rooms, exhausted after another demanding day of progress.
The physical landscape appears remarkably unchanged. No new house has materialized. No emergency room has acquired another doctor. Grocery bills remain stubbornly attached to arithmetic, and Canada’s productivity problem has survived the day entirely unmolested.
But progress has occurred in other, more delicate forms. Fourteen people attended a three-hour meeting on inclusive terminology, two committees were established, a consultant was retained and, somewhere deep within the bureaucracy, a framework is now being developed.
The colony can rest.
Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that Canada arrived here because Canadians ceased caring about immigrants, minorities, Indigenous people, disadvantaged citizens or the environment. Quite the opposite. These are serious concerns, deserving serious policy and measurable results.
The transformation was subtler.
Over time, compassion began to acquire the characteristics of performance. Good intentions became increasingly difficult to distinguish from good outcomes. Identity competed with individuality, immigration targets acquired moral significance independent of the infrastructure required to sustain them, reconciliation developed ceremonial rituals, diversity accumulated departments, and disagreement gradually evolved from an ordinary feature of democracy into evidence that something might be wrong with the person doing the disagreeing.
It is perhaps the strangest adaptation we have encountered on our journey: a political culture devoted to diversity becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the one form of diversity that requires no government funding whatsoever.
Diversity of thought.
And there, through the upper window of an Ottawa office tower, we glimpse our Progressive Liberal one final time.
It has survived.
Tomorrow it will emerge once again to consult, acknowledge, amplify, centre and develop frameworks for problems that Canadians outside the habitat have been experiencing in considerably less theoretical ways.
Should one of those Canadians venture too close and suggest that perhaps the country has gone slightly mad, our specimen will not become alarmed.
It knows precisely what to do.
It will listen sympathetically, acknowledge the Canadian’s lived experience and patiently explain that the Canadian is the problem.
The lights go out and The habitat falls silent. High above Ottawa, the camera slowly pulls away, leaving our specimens undisturbed until morning.
Far below, Canadians continue the less ceremonial business of keeping the country alive: working, raising families, searching for homes, waiting for doctors and wondering how a nation so abundantly supplied with strategies, frameworks and consultations became so desperately short of results.
Yet in one government office, a single monitor still glows. An urgent meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow. Its purpose is to determine why Canadians have become increasingly frustrated with government bureaucracy.
Twenty-seven officials will attend, a consultant will facilitate, and be assured that public consultation will follow.
And should the process fail to restore public confidence, researchers believe the department will respond using the only survival mechanism it has left. It will create another department. Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.
And with that, we leave the Canadian Progressive Liberal undisturbed in its natural habitat.
For now.
Melanie in Saskatchewan