John Miedema

    We’re machines and machines are objects

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    “Dex took note of Mosscap’s phrasing. ‘So, it is correct, then? You wouldn’t prefer they or—’

    ‘Oh, no, no, no. Those sorts of words are for people. Robots are not people. We’re machines, and machines are objects. Objects are its.’

    ‘I’d say you’re more than just an object,’ Dex said.

    The robot looked a touch offended. ‘I would never call you just an animal, Sibling Dex.’ It turned its gaze to the road, head held high. ‘We don’t have to fall into the same category to be of equal value.’

    Dex had never thought about it like that. ‘You’re right,’ they said. ‘I’m sorry.’”

    ~ from “A Psalm for the Wild-Built: A Monk and Robot Book” by Becky Chambers

    Neurotechnology is the use of light, sound, vibration, electricity, magnetism, and plant compounds

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    Neurotechnology is the use of light (such as infrared or photobiomodulation), sound (as in neurofeedback or binaural beats), vibration or ultrasound, electricity or magnetism (as in EEG, tDCS, or TMS), and plant compounds (including psychedelics), sometimes combined with feedback or digital control systems, to measure or modulate activity in the brain, nervous system, and body. It is used in meditation and medicine to treat conditions such as depression or Parkinson’s disease, and to enhance learning, attention, and states of consciousness.

    It only makes sense that I will exist again —

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    There was a time when I did not exist.
    Now I exist.
    There will be a time when I do not exist.

    It only makes sense that I will exist again —
    as a person, an animal, a tree, a rock, perhaps.
    Somewhere nearby, or on another planet,
    in the future, the past, or even beside me now.

    We all feel this me-ness,
    not an immortal soul,
    but the shared current of consciousness itself.

    Derek Parfit called it a bundle:
    thoughts, memories, sensations, intentions —
    linked by continuity, not by ownership.
    Hume saw the same when he looked inward
    and found no self, only “a perpetual flux.”

    What matters is not identity but continuation,
    like a flame that keeps its shape
    while the particles pass through it.
    The I is a pattern —
    and patterns recur.

    For Ted Smith, and for his Children, now Adults

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    Divine is a short work with a larger story before its publication — and a tender real-life epilogue

    The Divine Mind is a short work with a larger story before its publication — and a tender real-life epilogue since publication.

    The book was first drafted by me in 1988, prompted by a request from my friend Ted Smith. Ted aspired to write a fantasy novel and asked me to help him by inventing a pantheon of human gods for his story’s background. It was a fun challenge. I created a collection of god-like characters loosely modelled on people I knew. The gods Sequorin and Allend were inspired by Ted and another friend, Jim. We were avid chess players, so I invented a cosmic game, Dasmark, to enrich the mythology. Other characters and their dynamics were based on vegetables in a garden and the turn of the seasons. Anticia, for example, is tall with silken hair like a corn stalk. Like the vegetables, each winter the gods retreat and renew.

    I typed the manuscript on my Smith-Corona, photocopied and bound it at a local print shop, and handed out copies to friends. Ted passed away far too early, and the work slipped into obscurity.

    Decades later, I found my only surviving copy gathering dust on a bookshelf. I scanned it into digital form—and in the process, destroyed the last printed copy. I dropped the file into a cloud drive, assuming that was where it would rest. But life has its own turns. Since my Parkinson’s diagnosis, I’ve felt a growing urgency to publish the writing I’ve carried for years. To that end, I founded Snail Books, an independent digital imprint for my original works. All I needed was a first release.

    Lately, I’ve been writing essays about chess, and the connection with Dasmark resurfaced. The playful manuscript was already complete, so I revived it, gave it a thorough refresh, and—in a turn Ted would have relished—collaborated with AI on both text and images. The image of the god Sequorin looks strikingly like him.

    Reading the original text again, I realized how much the times have changed. The gods reflected my own white bias and gender binaries. In this new version, I’ve spiced things up. The characters now show much more diversity in name, appearance, and gender identity. They are far more interesting.

    As I mentioned, Ted passed away too early. I still have newspaper clippings from his obituary: Edwin C. Smith, born February 11, 1968, in St. Thomas, Ontario, to Robert and Mary-Ellen of Iona Station. It noted that he was the father of Scott and Tyler. I knew them both when they were young. Years later, when they were teenagers, we met and spoke about their connection with their dad through fantasy role-playing. I dedicated the new edition of The Divine Mind to Ted and his boys.

    As I prepared this post, I reached out to Ted’s family to reconnect. Clearly, I had let too much time pass. I learned that Scott now identifies as Evelyn. I’m proud of her courage and was glad to tell her about the gender updates I had already made to the text. I learned, too, from their mother that both children, now adults, are brilliant. I updated the dedication to read:

    For Ted Smith, and for his children, now adults, Evelyn and Tyler.

    As an e-book on a digital publishing platform, anyone who has the old version will be invited to download the updated version. All future downloads will show the new dedication.

    About John Miedema, Author and Publisher

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    The story behind Snail Books and a life of writing at a human pace

    John Miedema, Photo by David Irvine

    While some people find careers and callings they love, many of us compromise—taking jobs to make a living, then finding time in the quiet hours and retirement to practice our art and satisfy the soul. Such is life in a capitalist society, where every act must be counted in dollars.

    At 59, I have not quite finished my day job, but I’ve begun what will become my retirement passion: writing and publishing. I recently released a book, The Divine Mind, the first title from my own small press, Snail Books. This essay introduces me as an author and publisher.

    My name is John Miedema. I live with my wife in Alcove, Quebec, a lovely rural village in the Gatineau Hills. We share our home with two dogs and love tending fires in our wood stove. I take cold plunges in the river with Wakefield locals throughout the winter. Our adult children live nearby.

    I have been writing all my life. I grew up in my father’s print shop, and as a boy I started a family newspaper writing neighbourhood stories. In school I wrote plays and kept journals. I’ve often joked that university ruined me as a writer, forcing me into an academic style. Still, I published several research articles, a patent, and a book.

    That first book was a small success. But let me back up. After completing an undergraduate degree in psychology, I worked in social services. The work was meaningful, but the pay was too low to raise a family. I pivoted to information technology, where I spent the next decade. Mid-career, I used a corporate tuition program to pursue a Master of Library and Information Science part-time, hoping to move into library work.

    As part of that program, I researched the benefits of reading at a voluntary and reflective pace. I published them as a book, Slow Reading. It came out just as the Kindle was hitting the market and it became a modest hit. I was interviewed by international publications and invited to speak. I did not leave IT but was surprised that the library degree made my technology work more interesting —more on that below.

    What finally cured me of academic writing was when I stopped writing altogether for a few years and took up illustration—painting, life drawing, and comic art. It taught me to think more visually and creatively. I attempted several graphic novel projects, but I’ll admit, I was never very good at them. Writing is my stronger art.

    I still want to complete what I call a “worthy work of art.” Eighteen months ago, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. My health is good, but the diagnosis was a memento mori—a reminder to get moving. It sharpened my sense of purpose. I realized I no longer wanted to postpone what mattered most: to create something lasting, honest, and fully mine. I set aside illustration and returned to writing. This past year I’ve written many online essays on politics, philosophy, and technology. I began to consider what books I still wanted to write, which ones I could finish, and how I would publish them.

    This is where my library degree and technology career come together. After completing the degree, I worked with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, digital humanities, and language models—tools that now seem perfectly suited for independent authorship and publishing. That’s why I launched Snail Books, with The Divine Mind as its first title.

    I plan to keep doing this part-time until I retire, and then continue as a retiree. I’ll still spend much of my time enjoying life with my family and in the natural beauty of Alcove and the Gatineau Hills. For years I counted hours, projects, and pay. Now I count pages, walks with my dogs, and the turns of the seasons in Alcove. Perhaps that’s the truer arithmetic. Snail Books is my attempt to live by it—to make art at a human pace, where the soul can finally catch up with the clock.

    Climate Collapse, Fascism, and a Chance to Evolve with AI

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    The race between destruction and renewal, and the power still left in our hands

    I worry about how slowly we are changing. The world is moving fast, but culture is not keeping up. The climate crisis is no longer something we talk about in the future tense. It is here. Fires, floods, and storms come harder and more often. Emissions still rise. Species vanish. Forests, reefs, glaciers — breaking down before our eyes. After decades of warnings and empty pledges, almost nothing has shifted. Whatever hope there was in politics collapsed with the election of Donald Trump, who tore up agreements, stripped protections, and put fossil fuels back on top.

    This is not just hotter summers. It is a chain reaction. Forests drying, coral reefs dying, glaciers shrinking, weather lurching. Scientists call it the sixth extinction. Five times in Earth’s history life has been nearly wiped out by asteroid strikes or volcanic fire. This time it is us.

    Collapse does not stay in the natural world. It spills into politics. Scarcity and fear drive people to strongmen who promise control, purity, and exclusion. Fascism thrives in crisis. It offers easy enemies where the truth is complicated, force where cooperation is required. The climate demands solidarity, but what we see are walls and scapegoats. Fascism is not separate from climate collapse. It grows out of it.

    These twin crises — collapse and authoritarianism — show us how badly our systems have failed. Politics is short-sighted. Economics is built on endless extraction. Culture is distracted by spectacle. Delay only makes it worse. And yet, crisis also opens space. When old ideas break down, new ones can take root.

    You can see the same story in our information systems. Web 1.0 was static, tied to journalism and institutions that still checked their facts. Web 2.0 gave everyone a voice, and for a moment it felt democratic. Then came the flood: memes, gossip, conspiracy. Disinformation spread faster than truth. In 2016, it helped carry Trump to power. In 2024, with climate fear and conspiracy everywhere online, he returned. At that point, any hope that institutions might turn us toward real climate action was gone.

    Now comes Web 3.0, the age of artificial intelligence. This is not a small step. It changes how humans use information, how we speak, how we organize. For the first time, ordinary people have tools once reserved for elites: the power to analyze, to strategize, to write at scale.

    But I am not naĂŻve. AI was built by corporations for profit and by governments for control. It is already used for surveillance, for extraction, for power. Left in their hands, it will deepen inequality, entrench authoritarianism, and make the climate crisis worse.

    And yet there is a crack in that system. By replacing people with machines, corporations hollow out their own base. No jobs means no consumers. The same short-sightedness that wrecked ecosystems now threatens to wreck the economy itself. In chasing efficiency, they destroy the conditions for survival. The weapon cuts both ways.

    That gives us a chance. AI can be reclaimed as a tool for people, not power. Used wisely, it can sharpen how we think, how we plan, how we connect. It can link neighbours into networks, and networks into global movements. It can amplify intelligence at the grassroots, not just at the top. AI can be a weapon, or it can be a commons.

    The danger is obvious. AI is not ethereal. It runs on vast data centres that devour energy and water. A single large model can emit the carbon of many human lifetimes. The same tool that could help us resist collapse is already feeding it.

    The window is narrow, but it is open. We cannot wait for politicians. We cannot expect corporations to change. What remains is us — people willing to learn, to organize, to resist collapse, and to build new forms of resilience. AI is not a saviour. But it can be an amplifier. Used well, it might give us just enough intelligence, just enough speed, just enough connection to evolve faster than our destruction. It is a race.

    Seekers of the Glimmer

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    Reading as hunger, vision, and the path to knowledge

    Seekers

    Every reader carries a different hunger to the page. Some skim quickly for ideas, others linger and savour every word. Some want escape, others want information, still others a spark of recognition. There are solitary readers and social ones, rereaders who return to favourites, and seekers who are always searching for something new.

    Seekers read with curiosity as their compass. They are less loyal to authors or genres than to the promise of discovery. For them, every book is a trailhead, and they rarely take the same path twice. Their shelves are eclectic—science beside poetry, memoir beside myth—because what matters is the taste of the unfamiliar, the chance to glimpse another landscape of thought.

    Seekers are restless. They may abandon a book halfway, not out of disrespect but because they’ve already found the morsel they needed. They often read in clusters, chasing a theme across disciplines or following a footnote into another book. Unlike collectors, they aren’t after completeness; unlike devotees, they aren’t bound by loyalty. What drives them is the thrill of orientation in unknown terrain, the small exhilaration of not knowing what they will find.

    Glimmers

    The glimmer is what keeps the seeker reading: the sudden flash when a sentence, an image, or even a stray aside illuminates something inside them. It might not be the author’s main point, but a shard of insight that shines like mica in a streambed. Seekers read loosely, scanning for brightness rather than mapping the whole terrain.

    A glimmer doesn’t demand completion. A novel may be abandoned after one striking description; a dense theory text after a single idea that reframes the world. To outsiders this looks like impatience, but for seekers it is economy. Why pan the whole river once you’ve found gold?

    Glimmers also accumulate. One may be small—a metaphor in a line of dialogue. Another may be large—a concept that reshapes how one thinks about time, memory, or love. Together they form a constellation, not a linear argument but a scattered pattern of lights guiding the seeker forward.

    In this sense, the glimmer is not just discovery but connection. It resonates with something in the reader, affirming that reading is not mere consumption but a dialogue between mind and text.

    Existential Depth

    There is existential depth to these glimmers. At their strongest they feel like recognition, a sudden clearing in the thicket of words where something essential shows itself. They arrive not as arguments but as presences. A fragment of poetry may strike like déjà vu, as if it remembered us rather than the other way around. A philosophical aside may feel less like learning than recalling what we already half-knew but could not articulate. In such moments, the book seems to read the reader.

    For seekers, glimmers often point toward the ungraspable—mortality, freedom, the mystery of consciousness, the sheer strangeness of being alive. That is why they do not mind leaving books unfinished: the goal was never the book itself but the window it opened. Glimmers remind us that meaning is not under our control. It appears unexpectedly, as a gift.

    Shamanic Reading

    The seeker’s pursuit of glimmers has something shaman-like about it. Not ritual or trance, but movement between worlds. Reading becomes a passage into another realm, the text, where the seeker searches for signs and sparks of insight hidden in unfamiliar terrain.

    The glimmer is like a vision. It cannot be summoned; it arrives luminous, often in the margins. When it does, it feels like a message from “the other side”—the unconscious, the author’s imagination, or the shared well of human experience.

    The seeker, like a shaman, returns changed. They may carry back a fragment—a phrase, an image, a half-formed thought—that works on them like a charm. These fragments are portable revelations. They don’t explain the world but re-enchant it, reminding us that meaning lives in flashes, not systems. And seekers are willing to get lost. They don’t fear disorientation, knowing that only by wandering can they be open to visitation.

    The Summit of Knowledge

    Books are not just companions on the journey—they are the path itself, cut through the wilderness of ignorance by countless others before us. No individual could reconstruct the discoveries of medicine, mathematics, philosophy, or art alone. Through books, we inherit them.

    Reading is a species-level augmentation. A fragile, short-lived creature can stand at the summit of human knowledge because others left their traces in words. To open a book is to walk into the company of the dead and the living, to borrow their vision for a moment.

    For seekers, this makes the glimmer more profound. It is not only a private flash but the recognition of standing in a line of seekers stretching back centuries. Each glimmer is transmission: a spark passed hand to hand, book to book, mind to mind.

    The existential depth is doubled. On the personal level, a glimmer pierces the fabric of daily life. On the species level, it reveals that we are never thinking alone. Each reader is a node in humanity’s ongoing conversation, granted access to the farthest edge of what we know, and perhaps even to the hint of what comes next.

    Books for Seekers

    Some books seem written for seekers, scattering glimmers like breadcrumbs and resisting neat closure. A few landmarks:

    David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous. An exploration of perception, language, and ecology that invites us to sense the world as if for the first time.

    Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths. The patron saint of seekers. His stories and essays are miniature labyrinths of mirrors, infinite libraries, and philosophical puzzles, each page a spark.

    Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A naturalist’s observations that become a metaphysical quest, ranging from creek bed to cosmos in search of meaning.

    Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A modern classic that elevates disorientation itself into a method of discovery.

    These are not books to be read straight through once, but to be dipped into, revisited, abandoned, and returned to—perfect terrain for those who seek the glimmer rather than the map.

    Hungry for More

    Seekers read to feed a hunger that never quite goes away, a hunger not for answers but for flashes of meaning. Each glimmer is a morsel, enough to nourish the spirit for a while, yet always leaving room for the next encounter. Books make this banquet possible, passing fragments of vision from one generation to the next. And so the path remains open, lit by sparks left behind for us to find.

    What books have offered you glimmers along the way? Fellow seekers are always eager for new titles to add to the trail.

    Disentangling from Globalization

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    Trump’s Tariffs offer Canada a Window for Change

    Canadians need to fall back from globalization. We need to disentangle from American economics and culture, reinhabit our own geography, and rebuild a local economy and culture that reflect who we are.

    Resistance Fails with the 1988 Election

    Canada’s deep integration into the global economy began with the 1988 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Brian Mulroney’s government and the United States. It marked a turning point. For the first time, Canada committed to binding trade rules that prioritized corporate cross-border interests over national economic autonomy. This paved the way for NAFTA in 1994, then the USMCA in 2020, accelerating Canada’s embrace of globalization.

    The 1988 federal election was fought primarily over the FTA. Liberal leader John Turner, like Mark Carney, had inherited the role of prime minister without a general mandate. Turner opposed the deal, In the televised leaders’ debate, he accused Mulroney:

    “We built a country east and west and north. We built it on an infrastructure that deliberately resisted the Continental pressure of the United States. For 120 years we’ve done it. With one signature of a pen you’ve reversed that… and will reduce us, I’m sure, to a colony of the United States.” He lost to Mulroney, and with him, the last serious resistance to American economic integration faded.

    Since then, Canada’s economy has become deeply embedded in both North American and planetary systems of trade, finance, and information. Our manufacturing supply chains n auto, agriculture, and energy are tightly synchronized with U.S. markets. Cultural imports dominate our media and entertainment. Our market reacts not just to decisions in Ottawa, but to Washington, Beijing, and Frankfurt. Over time, our economic, political, and cultural autonomy has quietly eroded.

    The Cult of Cheap

    Free trade brought Canada a range of benefits. Export markets opened. Some industries modernized. Consumers got cheaper goods and greater variety. For the urban middle class and corporate sector, the gains were real. But these gains were not evenly shared. Rural economies were hollowed out. Factory towns disappeared. Wages stagnated. Cultural industries struggled under the weight of American content. In exchange for efficiency, we accepted precarity. For abundance, dependency.

    And then came the more difficult truths. “Globalization is slave labour making things for the unemployed,” said Marine Le Pen (a name I invoke only for the words, not her politics). An indecent formulation, but one that reveals the indecency beneath the system. In pursuit of cost savings, corporations outsourced production to wherever wages were lowest and protections weakest. Sweatshops. Child labour. Unsafe factories that collapse on their workers. Supply chains engineered to maximize opacity. Accountability became a public relations issue, not a moral one. While human rights frameworks were drafted and conferences held, the basic ethic remained unchanged: profit first.

    Globalization didn’t just make goods cheaper; it made desire cheaper. Fast fashion, disposable gadgets, novelty without function. Things to be bought and discarded, not repaired or cherished. Marketing became the true engine of consumption, turning manufactured abundance into perceived need. Our homes filled with items we didn’t ask for but somehow couldn’t resist.

    The environmental costs are everywhere. Forests cleared to make way for export crops. Rivers polluted by synthetic dyes. Oceans choked with plastic waste. And all of it moved by fossil fuel—across oceans, over highways, through the air—because distance, once a deterrent, became irrelevant to the logic of capital.

    Globalization is an Extension of Colonialism

    Globalization is an extension of our colonial past. Where empires once used flags and armies, corporations now use contracts and debt. Control by other means. Former colonies remain stuck in extractive roles: raw materials out, cheap goods in. Infrastructure still follows the colonial blueprint—roads and rails designed not to connect communities, but to move resources out efficiently. Multinational corporations behave like modern imperial agents, profiting from labour and land in the Global South while evading responsibility.

    Canada, a settler colony, remains both beneficiary and captive of this system. We extract, export, and import culture at a loss. We profit from exploitation while absorbing the dislocation it causes.

    The Future of Globalization

    The world is, undeniably, interconnected. When governed justly, global cooperation can spread knowledge, contain pandemics, mitigate war, and address climate breakdown. Trade, done well, can lift people out of poverty. Cultural exchange, approached with respect, can deepen understanding.

    If globalization is ever to redeem its potential, it must be rooted in fairness, accountability, and restraint. Labour standards must be binding. Environmental protections must be non-negotiable. Trade must be reciprocal, not extractive. Cultural sovereignty must be protected, not flattened. We need not abandon the global—we need to reimagine it.

    Tariffs and a Window to Rethink

    Trump’s tariffs—erratic, politically motivated, economically disruptive—may nevertheless offer Canada a narrow window. The impulse to disentangle is rarely rewarded in a global system that punishes local initiative. But tariffs shift the calculus. They create space.

    Yes, there will be costs. Prices may rise. GDP may dip. But GDP is a poor compass. It counts wildfire reconstruction as growth, but ignores the trees lost. It values speculation over community well-being. It is a tally, not a measure of health.

    The deeper question isn’t whether we grow—but whether we grow wisely.

    The Wisdom of Contraction

    There is an ecological intelligence to contraction. Forests regrow after fire. Bodies heal in rest. Civilizations, too, need intervals of reflection and repair. The past few decades have been a phase of rapid expansion—for capital, for technology, for consumption. We have reached the limits of what this phase can sustain.

    Falling back is not regression. It is rhythm.

    To fall back now is to begin again with intention. It is to shorten supply lines and reconnect producer and consumer. It is to value durability over disposability. It is to invest in local industry, food systems, arts, and energy—all the things that make a place livable and resilient. It is to make room for silence in the cultural din, and listen to the stories that rise in its absence.

    Re-entering the World Differently

    This is Canada’s chance—not just to recover what has been lost, but to think beyond what was. To step out of the trance of inevitability, to remake our global connection.

    We must name what globalization has externalized: the extraction of labour without rights, the erosion of ecosystems, the destruction of cultural diversity, the hollowing of local economies, the amplification of inequality, the soft tyranny of scale. These are not accidents. They are outcomes. And they can be reconsidered.

    Imagine a future where nothing crosses a border unless it honours both human dignity and ecological sanity. Where corporations are taxed not only on earnings but on impact. Where communities are empowered to define their own development. Where technology is shared to solve shared problems, not to hoard advantage. This is not utopia. It is a matter of design.

    And so, let us fall back—not to withdraw from the world, but to re-enter it differently.

    The Most Consequential Election in the Nation’s History

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    I Urge You to Vote for Something Hopeful

    Canada heads to the polls on Monday, April 28, 2025, in what many deem the most consequential federal election in the nation’s history, shaped by rising tensions with the United States, deepening economic challenges, and an urgent climate crisis. This election offers a stark choice between cautious adaptation and the real risk of democratic backsliding. Poilievre’s conservatism, driven by populism, nationalism, and a rollback of environmental and social protections, stands in contrast to Carney’s renewed liberalism, offering stability, institutional resilience, and continued action on climate. Poilievre taps into economic anger and cultural resentment, mirroring Trump’s populist messaging and downplaying threats to Canadian sovereignty. Carney presents a steadier, if cautious, vision of Canada’s future, openly criticizing Trump as a destabilizing force and emphasizing the need to strengthen democratic institutions and international alliances.

    A record-breaking 7.3 million Canadians cast their ballots during advance polls held from April 18 to 21, marking a 25 percent increase from the 2021 election. This surge does not necessarily indicate a higher overall turnout or favor any particular party, but polling shows the Liberals under Mark Carney on track to secure a modest majority government.

    The Liberals Are Not What They Used to Be

    Over the past decade, Canadians have elected three consecutive Liberal governments under Justin Trudeau: a majority in 2015, followed by minority governments in 2019 and 2021. Securing a fourth term would be a significant achievement, given that until recently, a Conservative victory under Pierre Poilievre seemed almost certain.

    Many Canadians say they want governance from the political centre. But the centre has shifted dramatically over recent decades. Traditional Liberal centrism focused on building strong public institutions, regulating markets to serve the common good, and protecting Canadian sovereignty through cautious engagement with international trade.

    In 1988, Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives negotiated the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA), aligning Canada with Ronald Reagan’s free-market revolution. At the time, Liberal leader John Turner strongly protested, warning it would erode Canada’s sovereignty and make it a satellite of the U.S. economy. Today’s Liberal centrism prioritizes globalization, free markets, and deregulation, defending cross-border economic integration even as they fight against tariffs imposed by Republican President Donald Trump—measures that disrupt the very trade structures earlier Liberals once feared.

    Under Justin Trudeau, the Liberals positioned themselves as global climate leaders, introducing carbon pricing, committing to net-zero by 2050, and investing in clean energy. A key achievement was the 2018 Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which included a consumer carbon tax and regulations for large emitters. By 2025, however, public backlash and economic strain, amplified by Poilievre’s ‘Axe the Tax’ campaign, forced a shift. After Trudeau’s resignation, Mark Carney took over as Liberal leader and promptly scrapped the consumer carbon tax, citing affordability concerns. While Carney has retained emissions caps and supports green investment, he has also pushed for expanded oil and gas projects, prioritizing economic resilience over climate ambition—a marked shift from Trudeau’s approach.

    Strategic Voting Is a Maladaptive Feedback Loop

    If Canadians elect a fourth Liberal government on Monday, it will be a significantly different Liberal government than in the past, one increasingly compromised on sovereignty and climate. This shift reflects a defensive response to the rise of the far right. The Conservative Party has moved sharply away from the political centre, embracing populism, nationalism, authoritarian tactics, and conspiracy theories. Their rhetoric pits ‘us versus them,’ scapegoating immigrants, minorities, and dissenters, echoing historical patterns of fascism and posing serious threats to democratic pluralism and social cohesion. To block the far right from power, the Liberals have edged rightward themselves, hoping to contain extremism even at the cost of diluting their own progressive commitments.

    Liberal policy keeps shifting right, and voters reinforce it by voting for them—a maladaptive feedback loop. Strategic voting happens when citizens cast ballots not for the candidate or party they most support, but for the one most likely to defeat a greater threat. It makes sense on the surface, blocking immediate dangers like Poilievre forming government. Unfortunately, it carries hidden consequences. By repeatedly choosing the ‘lesser evil,’ voters unwittingly become agents of the very shift they fear, pushing mainstream parties further right. Over time, this maladaptation hollows out genuine alternatives, erodes progressive ambitions, and normalizes compromises that once would have been unthinkable.

    The Far Right Has Called Out the Wolves

    In information theory, systems often settle into stable but suboptimal patterns, avoiding change because it carries risk and uncertainty. Strategic voting reflects this dynamic: voters choose major parties, not because they match their values, but because they fear losing to worse alternatives. In doing so, they entrench political compromises that cannot meet urgent crises like climate change. Today, the Liberals’ rightward shift is a clear example—stabilizing around survival rather than renewal, while deeper problems continue to worsen.

    Theorists suggest introducing ‘wolves’ into such stable systems—disruptive forces that compel adaptation. Wolves raise the stakes, making the risk of staying put greater than the risk of trying something new. On the political right, wolves manifest as populist demagogues like Trump or Poilievre, spreading misinformation, stoking fear, and eroding democratic norms. The far right understands disruption. Their wolves frighten voters, pushing them into reactionary politics.

    The far right has called out their wolves. Progressives must match that urgency. What might wolves look like on the left? To start, a correction: the wolf has long been used as a cliché for evil, but this view is misguided. Wolves are not inherently malevolent; they are essential parts of healthy ecosystems, balancing populations and maintaining natural cycles. There is nothing healthy about Trump.

    Vote for Something Hopeful and Transformational

    The climate crisis is certainly fearful. It poses existential threats that render cautious incrementalism irrational. Catastrophic wildfires, floods, and heatwaves scream urgency, making safe, incremental policies obsolete. Yet progressives hesitate, reluctant to risk bold action, continuing to vote strategically rather than for transformative solutions.

    Another correction is required. Fear-mongering is not the right approach to inspire climate action. While fear can grab attention, it often leads to paralysis, denial, or despair rather than the sustained hope, courage, and collective effort needed for meaningful change. Animals that symbolize hope include doves, representing peace and renewal; swallows, harbingers of spring and safe return; and deer, symbols of gentle resilience and new beginnings.

    Symbols aside, the left must call out visions of hope for which voters will take risks. I can give you a personal example. I live in Alcove, Quebec, through which flows the Gatineau River—the Tenàgàdino Zìbì in the Algonquin language. The river is central to community life, and residents have taken up a growing movement to recognize the river as a person with rights. Not surprisingly, this issue never surfaced in the federal election. I was very close to voting Liberal when I heard my local New Democratic Party candidate speak on it. Gilbert Whiteduck, a respected Algonquin leader and former Chief of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, described the river as a living being, teaching that it be respected and cared for, and advocates for its legal personhood to protect its cultural, spiritual, and ecological integrity. At the ballot box, I made a last-second decision to vote for Whiteduck.

    I urge you to vote for something hopeful. Think local and transformational. It is a risk. If enough people stop strategic voting, there is a risk of losing your riding and the election. But we must be willing to take risks, supporting candidates who advocate genuine, transformative change. It will signal politicians the direction to change policy. Strategic caution may feel safer, but in the face of planetary emergency, caution itself becomes irrational. If we continue to stabilize around survival instead of renewal, we risk losing not just elections, but the future.

    Break the Pattern Before It Breaks Us

    At this moment, we are not simply casting votes. We are shaping the patterns that will define our future. Fear urges us to cling to what feels safe, to compromise a little more, to delay real change a little longer. But the cracks in our world are widening. Climate collapse, democratic erosion, and rising authoritarianism are not distant threats—they are already here. If we vote only to survive today, we will lose tomorrow. Now is the time to vote with courage, to break free from decaying patterns, to demand bold action, and to take the risks that true renewal requires. Our future depends on it.