Mindfulness, awareness and the move from confusion to aporia to resourcefulness in the Cynefin framework.
I’m here in Columbus, Ohio doing my annual gig with the Physcians’ Leadership Academy. Every year I get to run a half day complexity workshop for local physicians. It’s a fun gig and gets me a chance to see friends in this region and make a stop in Toronto on the way.
Today was a weird day to cross the border though. For the past month, and especially the past weekend, the conversation that almost everybody in Canada is having is about the US tariffs that came into effect at 12:01 this morning. Blanket 25% tariffs on everything that crosses the Canada-US border. The US tariffs instantly triggered a trade war and Canada retaliated with about two thirds of a full tariff schedule which will rise to 25% retaliatory tariffs on about 1200 US products. It’s anyone’s guess whether this is a permanent state of affairs or not. The tariffs were imposed – under dubious legal authority it must be said – through a Presidential executive order which is nearly unheard of in US governance. It is usually Congress that does these things, but the President has the power to impose tariffs for national security reasons if these are the result of a declaration of a national emergency. Donald Trump made 23 pounds of fentanyl and some unknown number of migrants crossing from Canada to the US into the national emergency that has allowed him to by-pass Congress and impose tariffs, and threaten the future of our country.
So naturally in Canada, everybody has been talking about this. It is the single topic of conversation. American liquor is being romped from store shelves. “Buy Canadian” website have popped up everywhere. Premiers are talking about cutting of electricity to millions of Americans. And while we have had trade spats with the USA in the past, Trump has also signalled his intention to annex Canada, if not militarily then certainly economically. You just have to watch what he is doing to Ukraine to see what the plan is.
But the moment you cross the border, nothing. No one is talking about this. Very few people even really know about it. A few might have seen Justin Trudeau or Doug Ford on CNN today but hardly anyone has any context for what they are saying or how it might affect them.
So it’s a bit like those weather moments when it’s pouring rain on your side of the street, but your neighbours are in full sunshine, enjoying the afternoon. I don’t blame Americans for this state of affairs. Unless you follow politics closely and these kinds of things interest you, your average Ohioan is probably not giving more than a few minutes thought to this. The President is giving a State of the Union address tonight, so it’s unlikely that any of the protestations from north of the border will show up in the news cycle.
This is a feature of North American society, by the way. Americans are no more ignorant or apathetic than Canadians when it comes too politics, economics or global trade. I mean, Doug Ford got elected to a four year majority mandate in Ontario with only 19% of the electorate voting for him. There is, however, an asymmetry to this situation that leaves us booing at the US national anthem being played in our hockey and soccer arenas in response to naked threats against our sovereignty, while Americans wonder what bee got into our bonnet.
Now my friends and colleagues here know I’m Canadian, and so our conversations are sprinkled with a bit of humour and maybe some teasing back and forth, but while I love banter generally, my heart isn’t in it. The existential threat is the thing that keeps it serious. And most of my friends here are either solidly progressive or at least thoughtfully conservative and hardly anyone thinks picking a trade fight with Canada or Mexico is a good idea. Still, the words I hear most out of their mouths are “I’m so sorry.” Despite what you read on social media, most Americans are not red-hatted MAGA dupes running around yelling nonsense into the void. Life just seems to go on.
It’s just that, for us, it feels like life has changed quite profoundly. we are certainly facing a recession, we may be facing many years of recession that leaves us economically vulnerable to annexation and it’s unclear if anyone in the US or elsewhere really cares about that. I don’t know what the future holds holds for us. So we wait, because there isn’t anything else to do right now. We are in the dumbest of times and they don;t look to be getting any smarter.
Links and reading, listening and viewing recommendations for February 2025
If you scour the pages of LinkedIn, it won’t take long before you begin running into folks from the corporate sector who are attempting to rationalize Elon Musk‘s current approach to organizational change within the US federal government. Many of them are drawing on their experiences, or their veneration of, startup culture, and I have seen posts lately, that I’m not going to bother to link to, which talk about the principle of “move fast and break things“ being worth a shot when it comes to government. Treat it like a startup. That way you get more innovation.
It shouldn’t even require a response. But here we are.
Governments are not businesses. They don’t resemble businesses in any way. From a business perspective, the job of government is to provide a stable social substrate of policies, and predictable regulations and legislation that makes it possible for businesses to operate. On top of that government picks up the costs that businesses externalize onto society as a whole, like education and safety and health care and basic research and infrastructure.
A few blunt examples for these corporate shills.
- When companies are starting up, Society provides them with educated talent, and serviced environments in which they can establish their operations. Companies never have to pay for the investments that all of us make in an educated workforce.
- Companies largely don’t have to worry about how their employees get to work. Roads, public transportation, and a well-regulated telecommunications system provides the predictability and ease that companies require for their employees.
- When economies change or companies go bankrupt, governments are the one that care for the aftermath. Workers are paid compensation, communities who are suffering, are provided resources and local governments take on the work of creating climate for sustained economic activity.
The many functions that governments provide to communities and regions, require them to operate with a continuity of care, especially to those that are the most vulnerable and require special assistance, like children, folks who are ill or disabled, elders requiring long-term care and others. Governments take on the collective responsibilities that are beyond the scope of any of us to care for on our own, including regulating our food supply, managing, and protecting the environment, and our natural resources, ensuring that we have a stable and predictable dispute resolution systems.
It is absolutely ridiculous to me that I’ve had to repeat these points to people that should otherwise know better.
A government‘s obligations are to provide stable and predictable continuity of care to a citizens. A business’ obligations are to provide an ever-increasing return to its shareholders. In fact, many of those advocating for a startup mentality to be applied to “government efficiencies“ don’t even see the irony of the fact that a startup’s purpose is to generate nearly unlimited growth. “Move fast and break things“ is a principle used to maximize profits and expansion in the early years of a startup. And yet some folks are unironically, wanting to apply this principle to government operations, where the thing that gets broken is people and communities and where moving fast threatens the very stability upon which businesses rely. And the cost of repairing those things arenot going to be covered by shareholders.
For my whole life, and especially during the years in which I work for the public service in Canada, I have had to constantly make this argument. It is so simple to understand the differences between business and government, and yet it is those who should know better but who like to project airs of confidence and confidence who seem so willing to conflate the two. I now look upon these folks as pure charlatans.
Understand the difference. The same nonsense may be coming to Canada again too. The metaphors of managing government like a business or, God forbid, a household budget, are not only unhelpful, but they are fundamentally dangerous, and if used to guide actual policy making will result in long-term damage from which people, communities, businesses, and countries may be unable to recover.
A report today from Bowen Island’s marine steward extraordinaire, Adam Taylor:
2025 Herring Spawn started today in Squamish accompanied by Whitesided Dolphins feeding.
Herring spawn in Snug Cove was last observed in the +/- 1960s but you never know when nature decides to return.
Please keep an eye out for enthusiastic seabird or marine mammal activity along Bowen’s shoreline.
Will report back when I hear from folks monitoring Coal Harbour as that’s a bit closer to us.
A sure sign of spring! Slhawt’/Herring spawning season is the first big ocean activity to take place after the winter. So although it is cold and there is an Arctic outflow blowing for another few days, spring is just around the corner.
I did hear reports of about 20 dolphins way up the inlet yesterday. The first thing I thought of was that they were after the herring. The herring population in our inlet has made a remarkable recovery over the past 25 years. Well worth paying attention to.