A Sense of Purpose
When I started writing on Substack just over three years ago, I had been looking for a way to express things that I believed needed to be said, but were being danced around in public discourse.
It was also born of a desire to document the stories from the four fleeting years I spent holding federal office, and the two facets are very much related.
In politics, there are two main types of people: those who want to do, and those who want to be. Like the worst people in any office hierarchy often rising to the top, politics favours the be category, because they are the ones that put themselves in front of the cameras and the crowds and court adoring fans, who build the profile and reputation needed to stay in the public imagination, who say the things that get the headlines. The be-ers do enough actual work to have a reason to find another camera and receive another accolade, rather than for any intrinsic value or sense of accomplishment.
The do-ers only do the public relations necessary to allow them to do the actual work they want to do. They don’t seek public attention, they show up early, go home late, and don’t rest until they achieve their objectives.
Writing here has been a way to draw attention to the work that needs to be done, and to reference realities that we do not want to acknowledge. In eschewing the public profile of office beyond what was necessary to build name brand recognition within my local community, I did not do the public relations work necessary to continue the grunt work I enjoyed, avoiding rather than chasing cameras, having no larger profile, no capture of the wider imagination.
I wanted to solve specific problems, to have some modicum of positive impact on my community and the world from this one opportunity to be at the table. I saw caucus and committee meetings as the places I could do those things, but the electors don’t see those. As Catherine McKenna or Steven Guilbeault might tell you, having a seat at the table may get you heard, but it doesn’t necessarily get you listened to.
Busy with a young family and the daily grind of real-world work in a gruelling but interesting 24-hour-on-call environment where I now find myself in the post-political world, this substack has become my primary outlet for participation. I write primarily for myself, to say what I feel needs to be said, and just hope that someone somewhere who needs to hear it does.
I have always detested marketing, growing up believing that if a product needs to be advertised it is because it cannot stand on its own merits, in a household where Adbusters was core reading material from its first issue.
In my writing, which I try to maintain the discipline to do twice a week, the results, the readership, the sharing, speak directly to how politics works and how politicians rise — or don’t. The most-read and most-shared articles I have written here are also the most partisan. Colourfully sharing my especially dim view of Pierre Poilievre gets read and spread like nothing else.
Discussions of policy ideas, paths to solve the problems I see, how to address unpopular issues or take unpopular positions? Decidedly less interesting.
The least-read piece I have published here so far in 2026 was an honest and pragmatic assessment and nuances of fair pay for those holding elected office.
The most popular piece was warning that Canada is not safe from American attack.
Both are important, but sharing ideas and visions and goals should be what drives us.
We have so many problems to solve. Canada and the United States share much in common, and not all of it is positive. We are living the third generation curse of national generational wealth — the third generation being the ones that had no part in building it and are most prone to squandering it.
We have spent my entire lifetime ripping out or squandering our national infrastructure and resources. We have missed untold opportunities to look centuries ahead and plan for the well-being of our grandchildren’s grandchildren instead of our own individual stock portfolios. We lack ambition across the entire anglosphere, trading the future for the present.
Meanwhile, countries we culturally deride and see as some sort of rival like China are modernising faster than we can even begin to comprehend, building out infrastructure and decarbonising while we fight over control of the world’s dirtiest oil.
There are conversations to be had, there are visions to pursue, there are ideas to share, and this little corner of the Internet will continue to be my little folding chair at the edge of the very large table of public discourse.
It is the public platform necessary for me to pursue the work I want to do, to the benefit of the grandchildren of my eventual grandchildren.
