Say It

We’ve published a series of ideas over the past few weeks outlining how Canada can be a global superpower. Several reforms can get us there: reform tax structures and capital markets to incentivize a competitive economy, win the global talent war and keep our best people, own the energy and critical minerals supply chain, build a sovereign wealth fund from natural resource revenues, develop a military-industrial complex, and reform the state for execution speed.

In addition to these changes, we’re often asked by individuals how they can contribute. How could an engaged citizen who wants progress and prosperity for all Canadian citizens actually move the needle on intractable issues? The answer is that we must all step up and lean into sharing the hard truths that are holding us back.

Compromise built this country. Avoiding hard truths is breaking it. Canada is built on compromise — between languages, regions, and worldviews. That instinct is a reason Canada exists. It is also the reason Canadian institutions mistake politeness for leadership when the moment requires clarity.

The path Canada is on, economically and culturally, is no longer sufficient to make us a flourishing world class nation. We need bold plans and real concrete action – and we need them now. In meetings, boardrooms, and cabinet rooms across the country, people know what is broken – we just need to speak up and say it. We will continue to say this aloud to our neighbours, coworkers and friends while we collectively get back to building a better Canada. 

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Canadian silence has a price.

Growth is weak. Productivity is stalled. Major projects drift for years, reforms die in committee, and strategies are retired before they are tested, because the rooms in which these things are decided will not name uncomfortable facts plainly.

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“Toward a virtuous circle for productivity”. Remarks by Nicolas Vincent, External Deputy Governor, for the Bank of Canada. Data from Statistics Canada. November 2025.

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For more than a decade, the productivity data was clear and the country was complacent. Municipal silence on restrictive zoning produced a generation of Canadians who cannot afford to own a home. The consensus on immigration levels moved faster than the absorption capacity of housing, healthcare, and public services — a mismatch that many saw but was not named sooner. 

ArriveCan is the same story in miniature: audits flagged it, public servants raised concerns, yet no one of authority was willing to name the issues and fix them, until the scandal was too big to contain. Each of these is a cost Canadians are still paying.

“Total cost of ArriveCan 'impossible to determine' due to poor record-keeping, AG report finds”. Darren Majors, CBC News. February 2024.

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The vocabulary of evasion

Silence has a vocabulary, and Canadians know it by heart. "Let's take this offline." "I'll circle back." "Interesting point." These phrases are not diplomatic. They are evasive, and every Canadian who has sat on the receiving end knows it.

We understand why. Canada has a high cultural aversion to confrontation. We value face-saving. We were raised to believe that being kind means being quiet. But politeness that hides the truth is not kindness. It is an abdication of responsibility.

This is our mindset, however mindsets must change when they no longer serve us..

The most important thing about a growth mindset is that it is malleable. We can practice it. We can train ourselves, and the people around us, to treat critique as feedback, not judgment. To see the gap between where we are and where we want to be, and say the thing that closes the gap.

Prime Minister Carney has said Canada must stop keeping the signs in our windows and start being pragmatic about what is and is not working. That is what saying the thing really means. Taking down the signs. Naming what is broken, honestly, so it can be fixed.

Build Canada has spent 18 months saying the thing — on productivity, on immigration levels, on tax competitiveness, on capital outflow. Our community does not collectively agree with every memo we publish, and our critics have publicly voiced their objections. But that is the point. The conversation is happening because we chose to say the hard thing others refused to name.

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Three things every Canadian can do right now

We do not need a new commission. We do not need a consultation process. In order to effectively tackle hard problems from company meetings to the Canadian cabinet, we need three habits to become the default:

1. Say it now. Not after the decision. Not in the hallway afterwards. Not in a follow-up email to your ally. In the room, while the decision is still being made.

2. Say it succinctly. One or two sentences, not a ten-minute preamble. Brevity forces clarity. It also forces courage. You cannot hide a hard truth inside a paragraph that apologizes for itself.

3. Say it about the thing, not the person. This is the rule that keeps saying the thing from becoming attacking the person. Critique is about the plan, the data, the proposal, not the individual proposing it. This is the rule that makes it safe for more people to do it.

Imagine what this unlocks. The marketing meeting where someone finally says the campaign is off. The board where a director flags the governance risk before it becomes a scandal. The hospital where a resident tells the head doctor the protocol is hurting patients. The cabinet where a minister tells the Prime Minister the policy will not survive contact with reality. Each one of those is the beginning of fixing something.

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Speaking hard truths is not free.

It can cost jobs, relationships, and political capital. We understand that. But the cost of silence is higher, and it is often paid by people who had no say in the room where the problem went unnamed.

Each week a bad plan goes unchallenged is a week wasted. Each reform delayed by polite consultation is a vote for another decade of the status quo. Each underperforming program nobody names is a budget line that persists. Without honest feedback, we individually and collectively fail to progress. The cost of politeness is not zero. It compounds.

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Canada has done this before.

Paul Martin, in the 1995 budget, named what previous governments had allowed to grow — a deficit that was devouring the country's future. His line, "come hell or high water," defined a decade of fiscal discipline that addressed an existential crisis. He did not consult his way to it. He faced difficulty with honesty.

Or consider Sheila Fraser. In 2004, Canada's Auditor General reported on the federal sponsorship program in language no one in Ottawa wanted to read: the government "broke every rule in the book." She was a civil servant doing the job civil servants are supposed to do — naming what was true, even when the consequences for her superiors, her own department, and the governing party were significant. Her report triggered an inquiry, reshaped federal procurement oversight, and became a durable reminder of what public accountability looks like when someone refuses to stay quiet.

We must do it again. The world is not politely waiting for us to complete another consultation or reach consensus on hard choices. Competitor economies are executing at speed, not because they are more talented or better resourced, but because they are willing to address the hard reality, decide, and act. We are talented enough. We are resourced enough. What is missing is the courage of every citizen to say the thing. 

Say it now. Say it succinctly. Say it about the thing, not the person.

Start in the next meeting you walk into.

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