Canada Needs a Culture Shock

By Caroline Downey

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

 

On Sunday, Team USA’s men’s hockey team defeated Canada in overtime to win their first gold medal since 1980, when America’s underdogs pulled off an upset against the Soviet Union. The victory was sweeter because we beat the Canadians in their flagship sport — and not just their men’s team but their women’s team as well. Many on X joked that if there was ever a time for annexation, it’s now.

 

There was some (probably justified) online outcry after the White House tweeted a picture of a bald eagle attacking a Canada goose, responding to former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement: “You can’t take our country, and you can’t take our game.”

 

But national pride is the point of the Olympics. America has been relishing in ours, not just because of our excellence on the ice but because Canada has been getting so much else wrong. The idea of absorbing Canada, a breeding ground for some of the worst political ideas, is just as ill-advised now as it was when it was first floated. But Canada’s leaders should seriously contemplate why their nation is losing prestige — and that loss has little to do with hockey. Culturally and economically, Canada is slipping.

 

Perhaps our northern neighbor’s biggest blight is its mainstreaming of euthanasia. A couple of months ago, during mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, the celebrant talked about the case of a 26-year-old Canadian man who had considered Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), the current euphemism of choice, after losing vision in one eye and struggling with seasonal depression. Instead of advising him to move to a sunnier climate and helping him accommodate his disability, Canada euthanized Kiano Vafaeian on December 30, 2025, in British Columbia.

 

This is how little dignity Canada thinks its citizens deserve. And where does Canada draw the line on who should be ineligible for assisted suicide? Clearly, any level of mental anguish qualifies.

 

Once Canada opened the door to medically assisted dying for the terminally ill and elderly, it was only a matter of time before it was administered to people in their prime, and even children, as has been proposed.

 

Canada’s health care is nationalized, so the taxpayers bear the cost of killing citizens the country deems to be too heavy of a burden on the system. While there’s room to criticize America’s health care, which can disproportionately empower insurance companies, Canada’s has patients waiting many weeks and months to receive care. But same-day or next-day MAID are possible there. Canadian law no longer requires that a person’s natural death be on the immediate horizon to undergo MAID, nor must people exhaust all available options to relieve their suffering. It was inevitable that the publicly funded nature of Canada’s health care would make euthanasia go from a last resort to a positive recommendation, as it saves money on intensive, expensive, end-of-life care.

 

Canada’s reputational problems long predate the Olympics. Dark humor on social media these past two weeks invoked them: “If Jack Hughes lost those teeth playing for Canada they would’ve just euthanized him,” Stephen L. Miller tweeted. One user on X tweeted a picture of a sarco pod, a euthanasia machine that dispenses liquid nitrogen to cause asphyxiation, with the caption: “Canadian bobsled.”

 

Supposedly the politest nation in the world, Canada is neglecting its citizens at all stages of life. Compared with the United States, it’s poor — and is doing little to change its trajectory.

 

Examining income across all 50 U.S. states and the ten Canadian provinces, a 2024 study found that the provinces ranked at the bottom. In other words, every U.S. state has higher per capita median earnings than Alberta, the wealthiest Canadian province. Canada rejected Pierre Poilievre, who promised to bring a renaissance of free markets, fiscal responsibility, and tax reform to a country crushed by regulation and anti-growth policies. Unfortunately, the United States’ trade war against Canada galvanized the Liberal Party and dampened Poilievre’s once-promising prospects.

 

Canadians keep electing progressive leadership that can’t deliver prosperity, they just lost an international title for their national pastime, and they seem to quite literally have a death wish. A sorry situation.