In a clandestine document issued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the federal government of Canada has been alerted to a possible outbreak of civil unrest due to citizens’ increasing awareness of their declining economic status. This confidential report, titled “Whole-of-Government Five-Year Trends for Canada,” communicates a impending bleak economic outlook and underscores potential deterioration in living standards.
The report suggests that the impending recession will hasten the downtrend in living conditions previously experienced by younger generations. This raises concerns surrounding the feasibility of homeownership, particularly for Canadians under the age of 35, with the report predicting that they are likely never to afford a place of their own.
This document, permitted only for limited distribution within the RCMP and federal decision-makers, materialized in a heavily redacted format due to an information access request by Matt Malone, an assistant professor of law at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. Malone is recognized for his expertise in government secrecy.
The objective of the report, described as a “scanning exercise,” is to spotlight trends on domestic and international fronts that could significantly impact the Canadian government as well as the RCMP. One of the pivotal conclusions implied in the document is the probable exacerbation of Canada’s prevailing conditions in the next five years.
The RCMP further warn of uncertain weather and seasonal catastrophes such as wildfires and floods alongside increasing pressure on Canada to give up Arctic territory. A cynicism towards the government is also predicted to swell among Canadians due to misinformation, conspiracy theories, and a growing sense of paranoia.
It further suggests that law enforcement should anticipate continued social and political polarization fueled by falsified information and a subsequently adverse mistrust in democratic institutions. Among the sections heavily obfuscated by censors was one on the “erosion of trust,” barely leaving visible the initial line about increasing polarization in Western societies over the past seven years.
The government has also removed most of a segment about the rise of “paranoid populism,” leaving intact only a lone sentence about the capitalization of political polarization and conspiracy theories by charismatic populists to align with extremist movements.
In terms of living standards and home ownership accessibility, the RCMP’s warnings are consistent with existing statistics. Canadian productivity per capita, as gauged by GDP, has been on a downward trend since the 1980s. However, this declivity has dramatically escalated in recent years, notwithstanding increased per-worker productivity in many comparable nations.
In a 2023 analysis by Trevor Tombe, an economist from the University of Calgary, had Canada’s productivity growth matched that of the U.S. in the past five years, Canadians would have earned an additional $5,500 per capita. Housing affordability has also plummeted to unprecedented levels in a majority of Canada’s leading markets according to an RBC December analysis.
Ultimately, the RCMP’s assessment of the forthcoming years is pessimistic, citing French President Emmanuel Macron’s proclamation of an impending “end of abundance”.
