At the end of 2025, it feels less like we have lived through a single year than through a stress test. Politics, business, culture, sport, and identity were all put under load, and some of the theories we’d been carrying around finally snapped. What emerged instead were lessons less elegant, more practical, occasionally uncomfortable, and darkly funny.

1. Politics is now judged less by ideology than by basic competence.
This became painfully obvious as the gravitational pull of U.S. President Donald Trump reasserted itself south of the border. Loathe him or not, Trump’s enduring challenge for us isn’t just what he says, but how badly institutions struggle to respond with coherence. The daily disruptions, Truth Social streams, licence for fibs, and bald self-indulgence made it impossible for us to stay in the relationship. Canadians weren’t asking for moral perfection. We were asking whether any adult appeared to be in charge.

2. Mark Carney’s early advantage was tone, not policy.
As prime minister, Carney benefited from arriving as that adult who spends more time reading the briefing notes than practicing his signature on executive orders. His calm, bankerly seriousness contrasted with years of performative politics on both sides of the Commons aisle. It was partly who he was, partly who he thankfully wasn’t. Whether that holds is an open question, but in 2025, projecting control felt like a reform agenda.

3. Provincial politics........

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