I’m not excited this morning. In fact, I feel somewhat flat.
Yes, I’m relieved that Pierre Poilievre didn’t get into power last night. I’ve been worried for years that he would get elected, and his defeat is a weight off my shoulders. I supported the Liberals over the Conservatives, not because I’m thrilled with the Liberals, but because they at least defend a social safety net. That’s important. But both of these major parties are still underwriting a system that I believe is fundamentally broken: capitalism.
My opposition to Poilievre wasn’t casual; I couldn’t stand him. His endless lying, his wild exaggerations, the divisive tactics, the people and groups he endorsed, the way he campaigned—it all left me cold. His entire campaign has been based on populism, not a visible platform. Populist politics thrive on making people feel something rather than encouraging them to think critically. This is manipulation, not leadership.
Do I like Mark Carney much more? No idea. I do think he’s better equipped to deal with Donald Trump’s chaos than Poilievre ever would have been. But I’m cautious. The man has zero political experience, and while that might sound refreshing to some, I worry he’ll end up just another high-level business guy who thinks a nation can be run like a quarterly earnings report. We’ve seen what that looks like, and in Ontario, its incarnation is Doug Ford.
We absolutely need better fiscal responsibility and planning. But we also need compassion, balance, and leadership that doesn’t view citizens as numbers on a ledger. When I look at Carney’s background with Brookfield, a company that profits from crisis, it makes me question his moral compass. Maybe he has the skills to deal with Trump. But will he bring real positive change here at home beyond Trump? Or is he just another executive who thinks governing a country is the same as managing a balance sheet? He doesn’t exactly scream “man of the people” to me.
Being a good leader is not just charisma or business savvy. It’s a mix of intelligence, organization, empathy, and yes, some economic sense. A good leader understands that their job is to oversee the welfare of all citizens, not just the ultra-wealthy. Being a great leader, though, means having a vision. And these days, we desperately need men and women of vision.
The trouble is, even the best leaders can’t fix a system where so many voters have been trained to think small and to root for a side instead of thinking critically about what kind of world they actually want to live in.
Scrolling through social media this morning didn’t give me hope. What I saw was the same shallow back-and-forth, the same tribal cheerleading that politics has become. People waving their party flags like they’re rooting for the Leafs or the Habs, not thinking critically about what any of these parties will actually do for them.
No one seems to be asking, What if neither of these parties is going to save us? What if the whole system—this binary, capitalist structure we’ve been sold since birth—is the real problem?
I get why people chose Carney, especially with the threat of Trump looming again. Trump is a huge menace, not just to America but to Canada and indeed, the rest of the world. But if we stop there—if we treat this election as a finish line instead of a starting point—we’ve learned absolutely nothing.
We need to be brave enough to imagine alternatives. Systems that don’t revolve around profit at any cost. Systems that don’t treat greed as a virtue. Because most of the problems we face today—hunger, ecological destruction, the looming threat of war or collapse—aren’t natural disasters. They’re man-made. And usually made by men chasing wealth and power at the expense of everyone else.
We are capable of so much better. If we took some time to think it through, if we were fair, and if we were bold, we could build a world without hunger, without ecological catastrophe, without nuclear brinkmanship. But we won’t get there until we admit the truth: most of this suffering exists because of someone’s greed – maybe even our own.
And maybe that’s what makes me feel so flat this morning. The election is over, but the system that allows all of this to continue marches on, indifferent to the suffering it creates.
As the world around us cracks and crumbles, we cling to red or blue loyalties like lifeboats—never stopping to ask if the whole damn ship is sinking.
