Political Hell #3: Yes, 'Everything' is Broken

Struggling social programs and public services rely on the support of a system that’s uninterested in their survival

“So much is broken and not working, and I think there’s a real frustration that things have been brought to this point by the government.”

It is a familiar talking point for Canadians. But the source, this time, wasn’t Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who for months has repeatedly lamented that “everything feels broken” in Canada; it was instead UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer. Starmer was talking about the UK – specifically about the state of that country’s National Health Service (NHS). The NHS is currently suffering from similar problems as health services across most Canadian provinces and its staff are striking. Meanwhile, as in Canada, the cost of living and inequality in the UK are increasing.

But for Starmer, the source of the problem is essentially opposite to what Poilievre would point to. In the UK, it’s been a Conservative government at the helm for 13 years that Starmer argues has destroyed Britain via its perennial underspending – on social programs, health care, and so on (not to mention the whole Brexit calamity, which, while introducing many new issues, also made all previous problems worse). Here in Canada, Poilievre would contend that it’s been Liberal over-spending that has “broken” things by creating an inflationary environment that’s made life more expensive for Canadians.

Taking this cross-Atlantic rhetoric at face value leads us to a perplexing conclusion: that if the UK were to become more like Canada, and Canada were to become more like the UK, both would be simultaneously better off and worse off. But while both party is happy to say that things are broken because of opposing political stewardship, neither are willing to admit what’s really going on, which is that what’s broken isn’t so much their respective nations, but the ability to think through solutions to the real problem. What’s really not working is our imagination.