A sense of community, a common narrative, and a common struggle is what is missing from society, and it is something I have realized in different ways over the years as well. My father grew up in isolated rural Canada in the 50s and did not have it easy.

The stories he told me conveyed a sense of real purpose in his community, as it turns out when you need to rely on one another to not die of hunger or exposure, you tend to value other people. The Dicken's quote "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" I think expresses it well.

Our politicians are grifters, and they do have ill intent. They don't work for us, they work for their own gain by selling out our social institutions. They import the third world both as a voting base, and as a means to wedge apart Canadian communities that bind us together with a shared cultural and social history.

This makes us weak as a nation. We are unable to identify with one another, and we are vulnerable to divisive politics. That's how they carve out the vote, and it is how they drive up housing prices (increased demand) in our inflated economy and drive down wages (abundance of cheap labor), both which satisfy the corporatists that they are in league with.