Why I Think Canada Continues to Fail

I was planning to move to another subject after my last post, but I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. My thoughts were still focused on my concerns with our government and in my mind I could hear, very loudly and clearly, my father’s voice asking me “What are you going to do about it?”

In my last post (not a rule of civility) I said: Canada likes to see itself as compassionate. We point to community generosity and empathy as evidence of our values. But there is a darker reality beneath that narrative.

I want to unpack that…

Through all of my reading, listening, and conversing, I think I’ve uncovered my biggest concern which has evolved into fear and anger - Canada values compassion in principle, but is seemingly inept to prevention. 

We like to think of ourselves as caring people. Kind. Empathetic. Reasonable. We wear that identity proudly, especially when comparing ourselves to countries we see as louder, harsher, or more divided. And yet, people are drowning here. Quietly. Predictably. Repeatedly. So the uncomfortable question isn’t whether Canada cares. It’s why caring hasn’t translated into systems that actually help us and prevent harm.

We continue to govern like suffering is a surprise. When suicide rates rise, we respond with crisis lines. When addiction spirals, we scramble for emergency funding. When homelessness becomes more visible, we erect temporary shelters. Everything is urgent.

Canada is a reactive country. We wait until pain is undeniable, visible, politically inconvenient - and only then do we act. And even then, we tend to act cautiously, temporarily, and in pieces.

This isn’t because we don’t know better, but because we’re unwilling to be brave.

I often hold Finland up as contrast, and for good reason - but not because they’re culturally superior or anything. For a long time, they were doing worse than we are now. For example. in the late 80s and early 90s, Finland had one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Alcohol abuse was rampant. Isolation was deep. The social fabric was fraying. But what they did about it is the amazing thing.

They didn’t moralize. They didn’t individualize. They didn’t wait for families or charities to absorb the damage. They realized there was a need to fix but they didn’t simply react and treat the symptoms or outputs, they treated suicide, addiction, and despair as public health failures, and went after the root cause; early intervention, mental health care embedded into primary care, new alcohol policy, media responsibility, community-based supports, and long-term coordination across all of those systems. And here’s the key difference: they kept with it. For decades.

Finland didn’t just respond to a crisis. They rebuilt their culture, their approach to care.

Canada, by contrast, keeps mistaking reaction for taking responsibility.

One of the biggest differences, and one we almost never talk about, is how countries like Finland measure success. They don’t ask, did we launch a program, they ask, did fewer people die?

Canada loves outputs. We count how many calls were answered. How many beds were added. How many people were served. How many grants were distributed. We announce the numbers, hold a press conference, and move on. But outputs don’t tell you whether anything actually changed. Outcomes do.

Outcomes ask whether harm actually decreased. Whether stability lasted. Whether people returned to crisis again and again, or didn’t. Whether a system made itself less necessary over time.

Finland built its supports around those questions. They didn’t assume something worked just because it existed. They tracked whether it reduced harm year after year. And when something did work, they didn’t treat it like a temporary fix, they protected it, funded it, and embedded it into the existing system.

Canada does the opposite. Here, social supports are treated like emergency measures instead of infrastructure. 

A crisis emerges.

Funding appears.

A program is created.

Things stabilize slightly.

And then, almost inevitably, the support is scaled back, defunded, or quietly dismantled because the situation is deemed “resolved.”

As if social problems behave like broken bones that can simply be reset instead of chronic conditions that can lie dormant and resurface again. 

This has happened over and over again. Mental health initiatives. Community supports. Prevention programs. The moment pressure eases, the scaffolding is removed, and we act surprised when everything collapses again.

Finland learned the opposite lesson. When their suicide rates fell, they didn’t declare victory. They asked why, and then made damn sure the systems responsible for the decrease didn’t disappear. You don’t stop maintaining a bridge because it hasn’t collapsed recently.

This “set it and forget it” approach isn’t just inefficient. It’s cruel. It teaches people that help is temporary and conditional. It trains communities to expect withdrawal instead of stability. And it forces families and nonprofits to live in constant uncertainty.

And when those systems inevitably fail again, Canada reaches for its favourite solution: outsourcing care.

We lean on families. And historically, within those families, we lean hardest on women.

We expect mothers, daughters, partners, and caregivers to hold together what institutions won’t. We rely on emotional labour, unpaid coordination, quiet exhaustion. When systems fail, we don’t ask why the system failed, we ask why the family couldn’t cope.

We lean on nonprofits to perform miracles on shoestring budgets, treating them as permanent solutions instead of emergency scaffolding. We celebrate volunteers as heroes, when what they’re really doing is filling gaps that shouldn’t exist. This isn’t generosity. It’s abdication.

Care has been privatized in Canada, but not in the way people are worried about. It’s been pushed into kitchens, bedrooms, and overburdened community spaces, while governments applaud “resilience” and “community spirit.” Finland didn’t do this. They institutionalized care so that love wasn’t the only thing standing between people and collapse.

And then there’s our other favorite national habit: selective caring.

We care deeply, but not universally. Not consistently. Not until the suffering becomes impossible to ignore.

We care when tragedy is public.

We care when headlines demand it.

We care when there are protests in the streets.

We care when the victims are sympathetic.

We care when the solutions don’t require long-term discomfort or effort.

We care when the problem affects us personally.

But prevention? That requires admitting that the way we’ve been doing things isn’t working. It requires spending money before there’s a crisis to justify it. It requires naming failure plainly, and staying present long after the urgency fades. And that’s where we hesitate. Because Canada is polite. And politeness has become our shield.

We don’t like confrontation. We don’t like saying that some of our systems are failing people in predictable ways. We’d rather soften the edges, commission another study, and reassure ourselves that progress is happening - slowly, carefully, someday.

But while we’re being reasonable, people are falling through the cracks. Finland was willing to say: isolation kills. Poverty kills. Neglect skills. And prevention isn’t radical, it’s responsible. Unfortunately, Canada keeps saying: it’s complicated. 

This isn’t just a government problem. It’s a cultural one.

A preventative society requires shared responsibility, not silent delegation. I read an article this morning that claimed we everyday citizens need to do more for our homeless and struggling. But what more can we do when we ourselves are struggling? What we require is cohesion in a country built on division of powers. We require bravery to coordinate, to invest early, to stay the course, and to hold ourselves accountable when outcomes don’t improve.

If we want a government that cares more for people in the social realm, then we need to stop accepting a model that survives on burnout, unpaid labour, and emergency responses.

We need to stop applauding suffering as strength. Stop calling exhaustion ‘resilience.’ Stop pretending that kindness without structure is enough. 

Canada doesn’t need more compassion. We already have that. What we need is courage to build systems that work before people break, or better yet, systems that are supportive enough that breaking rarely happens. And we need the honesty to admit that caring selectively, politely, and reactively is not the same thing as caring well. And until we face that, no number of programs will save us. 

Ⓒ January 2026. Beki Lantos. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author.