Collapse Canadian Style

The end comes – as it always does – from within

Jaspar, Alberta

While recuperating from my almost 3 month road trip to BC – where we were supposed to visit Jaspar – I read a trashy novel about WWIII. The quote above is from it and has aligned with my newsfeed about Canada which I surmise comes from a mood induced by the road trip. It is possible that being so long out of my normal rut that I am seeing life in a new way. My objective in sharing a few headlines with you to get us at CACOR to include the social collapse that is unfolding in parallel with the ecological collapse. My attitude, as an Engineer, is that any external physical problems can be solved by a team of well supported smart people. So, for me, the physical problems we mostly talk about are mostly a result of unhealthy internal human factors. Unhealthy family dynamics. Addiction. Denial. Lazy thinking. Frayed social connections. The list goes on and on. Enough of this short introduction. Here are a few headlines that, to me, paint a picture of a society that is destroying itself from within. Once we can see that Pogo’s famous edict: “I have found the enemy as he is us” applies to Canada today I hope we can give more of our attention to these non physical, internal and social challenges. If we don’t we risk being unable to face the huge ecological challenges coming our way as end not with a bang, but a whimper.

A hazardous waste processing facility owned by the Alberta government was granted permission by the same government to operate without mercury monitoring equipment for years, despite such monitoring being a condition of its operating permit. The facility, which opened in 1987 on a site 10 kilometres northeast of the town of Swan Hills, has a history of malfunctions and explosions that have resulted in environmental contamination. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-hazardous-waste-plant-allowed-to-operate-for-years-without-continuous-mercury-monitoring-1.7311722

Only ten countries had a worse GDP per hour worked growth between 2015 and 2022 than Canada. Canada’s labour productivity crisis is worsening and has been growing at a much slower rate than its southern neighbours. The USA’a labour productivity has grown around 100% since 1985 while Canada’s has only grown 40%. https://tnc.news/2024/08/31/canadas-productivity-crisis-getting-worse-and-lagging-behind-u-s-report/

Carbon emissions from logging would be the third highest emitting sector of Canada’s economy, if the federal government reported them out separately. They would only be behind emissions from oil and gas production and transportation. However, because Canada doesn’t break out those emissions, logging is unfairly portrayed as a sustainable industry. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/logging-emissions-forestry-trees-wildfires-1.7309504

Canada’s insurance sector faces climate catastrophe claim deluge. Over the last 10 years, the number of Canadian claims tied to extreme weather events has risen to more than 1.3 million, up 93% from a decade ago, according to the IBC. “I remember when I would only get one catastrophic event a year… now we’re looking at a dozen of them a year,” https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadas-insurance-sector-faces-climate-catastrophe-claim-deluge-2024-09-03/

Canada’s cannabis use has become a serious problem. We were told pot was harmless, the black market would disappear, we’d have a gusher of tax revenue, and the kids would be OK. All of that was wrong. Instead: “legalization [in Canada] was associated with marked increases in hospitalizations for cannabis poisoning in children.” Drugged driving is now a significant factor in serious car accidents, according to a recent study published by the University of British Columbia. Canada has the second highest rate of marijuana use in the world, just behind Papua New Guinea. Cannabis use disorder in 18-to-24-year-olds has increased since legalization. https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/johnson-canadas-cannabis-use-has-become-a-serious-problem

Cannabis Use Linked to Epigenetic Changes. Multiple epigenetic changes associated with cannabis use had previously been linked to things like cellular proliferation, hormone signaling, infections, neurological disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and substance use disorders.

https://www.sciencealert.com/cannabis-use-linked-to-epigenetic-changes-study-shows

A couple of weeks into September, Dara was driving her son home from his new middle school, happy he seemed to be settling into Grade 7, when the 13-year-old made a startling confession: He was petrified of using the school washroom. “There are bullies in there; there are kids vaping,” the Mississauga mom recalls him telling her in the car last fall. The teen had already witnessed several fights. He described damaged toilets and sinks, deliberately clogged and overflowing. Data from four of Ontario’s largest school boards reveals reasons for kids to be scared. Teachers say problems are even worse than they appear. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/vaping-assaults-culture-wars-how-the-school-washroom-has-become-a-battleground-where-many-students/article_1829495e-3e10-11ef-81d6-abb224f001f9.html

Quebec short 5,700 teachers for coming school year: education minister. Quebec’s education minister says difficult choices have been made, such as cutting some pre-Ks in favour of francization classes for newcomers https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-needs-another-5700-teachers-for-the-coming-school-year-drainville-says

The UN Special Rapporteur retains the view that Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery. https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g24/120/97/pdf/g2412097.pdf

Foreign students paid billions amid austerity measures. Over the six-year period covered by the data, more than 1.5 million study permits were issued for students to attend some 1,300 colleges and universities. That translates into international students paying tens of billions of dollars into Canada’s post-secondary system — at a time when provincial governments were imposing austerity measures on public universities and colleges. In Ontario, the data shows foreign students recruitment has spiked significantly since 2018, when Premier Doug Ford took office. The following year, Ford’s government froze post-secondary funding, cut domestic tuition by 10 per cent and launched a program explicitly designed to attract international students and their lucrative tuition fees to public colleges. [note – due to housing shortages the federal government has now capped the nunmber of foreign students with 35% reduction, but so far even fewer students than that have even applied] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/international-student-study-permits-data-1.7125827

The Terrifying Rise of Ransomware Gangs

A new generation of ultra-sophisticated cybercriminals are targeting governments, corporations, hospitals and libraries—and laying bare how ill-equipped Canada is to fight back. Canada has rapidly become a favoured target. We’re the second-most-attacked country in the world, after the U.S. https://macleans.ca/society/technology/the-terrifying-rise-of-ransomware-gangs/

Polyamory is becoming the New Normal. Polyamory, a relationship structure in which three or more adults form a long-term, committed relationship, suddenly seems to be everywhere. A 2019 survey of Canadian adults by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto found that one in 10 respondents were or wanted to be in an open relationship. Another survey by researchers in Canada and the U.S. showed that one in five respondents, especially younger ones, have practised “consensual non-monogamy”—an umbrella term including polyamory and non-monogamous lifestyles like swinging and open marriage. https://macleans.ca/society/how-polyamory-became-the-new-normal/

That’s enough for now. I could go on and on but there I hope you get this point: how is a social fabric so weakened by internal contradictions supposed to pull together in one direction to stop the ecological collapse we are doing to the non human and human worlds?

Here is a little side bar to give a bit of weight as to why these internal signs of social weaknesses are important. I took the graduate course from MIT on System Dynamics and the computer software language that expresses it. One of the main insights into complex systems emerged from that course that stuck with me is that real solutions to problems within systems are ENDOGENOUS [ie. Internal] to the system, not external [EXOGENOUS]. A good example is our Doctor and Nurse shortage. Most politicians and regular folks have been convinced that the solution is having more immigrant Doctors and Nurses. For the sake of example let’s look for Endogenous solution. Only relying on external people is wrong because it is is at best at temporary solution, which often undermines the real solution by diverting resources from the deeper issue which has at least two dimensions: retention caused by burn out and part time work with no benefits [Nurses] and getting students who grew up in more ‘remote’ areas to work outside of the big cities because more of them will be happy there by not basing entrance only on exam marks. So, once again, what I am trying to say is that we must stop looking for external quick fixes and look within for the causes of our current challenges.

As always, the punchline is this question: What can you do about this? First, don’t be in denial thinking that Canada is a rich country that has its act together and thus is capable of dealing with the ecological collapse underway. In theory, we could, but until we get a lot more realistic about how self centered and short sighted we have become I see no way that resources will be diverted to a problem that is global and long term. Second, interact and support others – especially the young people in your life. As I assume most people reading this are older I will also assume that it’s tough for you to talk with and support the young people you know. Don’t lecture them – just find out what they consider help – and make it’s real help and not enabling – and then help them. As you do so I think you will find that your life AND theirs will both improve!

“This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.” – T.S. Eliot