Canada is unraveling, but not in the noisy pantomime style of Britain. Its fragility is quieter, bureaucratic, and brittle. For decades, the country held together by scaffolding rather than stone — institutions, slogans, and borrowed myths that looked solid but were never deeply believed.
The Rise and Fall of the Canadian Foma
1. The Birth of the Story (1867–1945) Confederation stitched together east and west under Britain’s umbrella. The founding foma was simple: Canada is a nation, bilingual, polite, and different from America. The glue was empire, church, and the frontier myth.
2. The Peak (1945–1995) The postwar boom delivered prosperity. Immigration enriched cities, resources funded growth, and the middle class believed the bargain was real. Hockey, healthcare, and bilingualism were lifted as national glue. The foma of the multicultural mosaic worked — or seemed to. But the 1995 Quebec referendum nearly ended it all; belief held, but only just.
3. The Fraying (1995–2020) Prosperity narrowed into a housing bubble, which became the new national religion. Quebec kept its suitcase by the door. Alberta muttered “Wexit.” Immigration surged, but newcomers often plugged into global diasporas or U.S. affinities rather than a Canadian myth. Ottawa performed competence; citizens performed belief. The mosaic began to look like scaffolding.
4. The Fall (2020–?) Pandemic queues, unaffordable housing, falling productivity, and GDP per capita stagnation revealed the fragility. The foma of Canada as a safe haven no longer matched lived experience. Vertical ties to the U.S. deepened; provinces questioned the bargain. The scaffolding groaned: if one province bolts, the collapse will be sudden.
Vertical Ties, Not Cohesion
Socially, Canada runs north–south, not east–west. Vancouver looks to Seattle and California; Alberta feels closer to Texas than Toronto; the Maritimes lean toward New England. These vertical affinities are stronger than any sense of shared Canadian identity. Ottawa may project “one nation,” but the lived reality is regional and continental.
Quebec’s Packed Suitcase
Quebec has always been the permanent exception. It never fully bought into the Canadian myth, carrying a parallel narrative rooted in French language and Catholic tradition. The 1995 referendum nearly split the country; since then, Ottawa and Quebec City have managed a marriage where one partner always keeps a suitcase by the door. Yet Quebec also relies on $29.3 billion in equalisation transfers this fiscal year — a dependency that makes the threat of departure both dramatic and self-destructive.
Alberta’s Alienation
On the other side of the map, Alberta feels exploited. Its oil wealth props up Ottawa’s budgets, while eastern provinces treat it as a cultural outsider. Talk of “Wexit” surfaces whenever resentment peaks. Alberta’s identity runs through pipelines south, not east to Ontario. Like Quebec, it is a province half-in and half-out.
Immigration Without Cohesion
Canada once sold itself as a multicultural mosaic. That worked when immigration was smaller and prosperity larger. Now, newcomers often affiliate vertically — to global diasporas or U.S. hubs — rather than horizontally to a Canadian story. Trudeau’s massive immigration push has collided with inadequate infrastructure in housing, healthcare, and transit. The mosaic myth was never thick enough to hold under today’s demographic scale and economic pressure.
Economics as Scaffolding
For decades, prosperity disguised fragility. A housing bubble became the national religion, resource exports carried the economy, and “safe haven” status papered over low productivity. Now the cracks are visible everywhere: condos in the GTA are in free fall, cottages languish unsold, and young people openly say they cannot buy until their parents die. Within fifteen hundred yards of a single Toronto neighbourhood there are two Michelin-star restaurants, a homeless encampment, and a food bank thronged daily. Income inequality has become rabid. The fiction that Canada was built on stable prosperity no longer holds.
A Quiet, Polite Collapse
Unlike Britain, Canada’s decline isn’t performed with theatre and headlines. It is quiet, polite, and bureaucratic: more waitlists, more rules, more apologies. But the scaffolding is brittle. If one province — Quebec or Alberta — bolts, the rest will follow quickly. The plates spin until the first one falls, and then the collapse is sudden.
Canada is not sinking with a band playing, like the UK. It is dissolving softly, its cohesion slipping away in silence. A vertical nation, still upright for now, but with a suitcase always ready by the door.