What this isHow the map is drawn, and what it claims.
The Canadian Disease is a chart of what ails Canada, built one cause at a time. It starts from complaints most Canadians would recognise, such as the cost of housing, the wait for a doctor, disorder downtown and young people leaving, and asks of each one what drives it. Then it asks the same of each cause, until the chain stops.
The rules the map keeps
- A link means cause. An arrow from one condition to another claims that the first makes the second worse. No link is drawn because two things seem related.
- Every link gives its reason. Each carries a one-line justification and is marked either verified, with a source on file, or asserted, with its source still owed. Today of links are verified.
- The defence comes first. Every policy or institution on the chart is first described as its defenders would describe it, with the evidence in its favour, before the chart says how it works in practice.
- Each condition lists only its causes. What a condition causes is read off the pages downstream, so no claim is recorded twice.
- Roots are where the chains stop. A root is a cause that nothing else on the chart explains. None was picked in advance; each appeared where separate complaints traced down to the same place.
- Loops are told apart. Some conditions feed each other. The doctor shortage, crowded hospitals and chronic illness form such a loop, but causes from outside the loop also drive it, so it counts as machinery rather than a root. One loop has nothing outside driving it: the spiritual cycle, four conditions that sustain one another. The chart counts it as a root.
- Outside forces are recorded and set aside. World interest rates, global inflation and similar forces hit every country. They are on the chart as dead ends and left out of the ranking, because they are not Canada's to fix.
- Brakes are shown separately. A few forces hold a problem back, such as the mortgage stress test on household debt. They are drawn as brakes and count toward no root's reach.
What it does not do yet
It does not prescribe. A treatment chosen before the diagnosis is complete would be a guess, so the chart names causes and stops there. The ranking will move as sources come in; the build date at the foot of each page says how current it is.
Who is behind it
Hi, I'm David Alexander. When I couldn't find work out of university in 2011, I decided to go abroad. I've lived in a handful of different countries since then, and every time I come back to Canada I find things worse off than when I left. This project is my attempt to bring some clarity to why so much has gone wrong.
How to help
Every link still owed a source is marked on its page. If you know a study, a table or a court record that settles one, or you think a link is wrong, write to contact@canadiandisease.ca.