Cause Before Effect: Why National Unity Is Canada’s Foundational Issue

Every time something like this happens, the public debate follows the same pattern. People immediately argue over whether they had it coming, whether it was justified, whether the rules were followed, or whether the wrong call was made in the heat of the moment. The entire conversation collapses into blame, defenses, and legal semantics.

That debate is missing the point.

When a society reaches a place where federal agents are operating among the civilian population in camouflage, face masks, and carrying military-style weapons, the deeper issue isn’t the individual incident alone. The shooting itself is serious and tragic, but it is also a symptom. The more important question is how we got to a point where that level of force feels necessary, accepted, or normalized.

If a civilization has reached that stage, the problem is no longer just one action or one decision. It is a failure of leadership, culture, and social cohesion.

Here in Canada, the circumstances are nowhere near the same, but the underlying pressures are familiar. We’re seeing our own forms of fragmentation, our own breakdowns in trust, and our own debates hardening into camps where people talk past one another instead of working through problems together.

We have to resist falling into this pattern. We have to relearn how to look at each other as neighbours, not threats. That means walking out our front door, looking across the street, and smiling or waving at the person we see, regardless of who they voted for or how they feel politically, and understanding that our differences are part of what make us who we are.

We may not be facing identical scenes or identical outcomes, but the social dynamics are recognizable. When polarization deepens, empathy thins out, institutions lose credibility, and every issue starts to feel existential. That’s the common thread worth paying attention to.

This is why national unity matters more than any single policy debate. It isn’t an abstract concept or a patriotic slogan. It is foundational. If national unity is 1A, then housing affordability and cost of living are 1B and 1C. You cannot effectively address those secondary problems if the primary one is deteriorating.

You cannot fix housing.

You cannot fix affordability.

You cannot solve long-term structural problems.

Not if the country itself is fractured.

When unity breaks down, every issue becomes ideological. Every discussion turns into a zero-sum fight. Governments stop addressing causes and start managing symptoms. It’s like treating pain without ever addressing the illness that caused it.

If one wants a glimpse into where unresolved polarization leads, it's enough to look to Canada’s southern neighbour. Observing what happens when a society remains locked in permanent conflict, endlessly arguing about outcomes while ignoring the conditions that produced them, offers a clear warning. The lesson is not that one country must become another, but that division follows predictable patterns when left unchecked.

National unity is the prerequisite for solving anything else. Until we are willing to confront why we are divided and how we come back together, every other debate is just noise.

That’s the part too many people are still missing.

Where the United Canadian Centrists fit

The United Canadian Centrist Party exists because this problem keeps being treated backwards.

We talk endlessly about housing, affordability, healthcare, and productivity, but we try to solve them in a country that is increasingly divided, mistrustful, and angry. That approach doesn’t work. It never has. You cannot build durable solutions on a fractured foundation.

The UCC starts from a different premise. Unity comes first. De-escalation comes first. Understanding the cause comes before reacting to the effect. Just like in health, you don’t fix a chronic condition by endlessly treating symptoms. You change the conditions that created it.

That means lowering the temperature, rejecting tribal politics, and restoring the idea that Canadians can disagree without becoming enemies. It means rebuilding trust between neighbours before demanding sweeping policy outcomes from institutions that no longer command confidence.

This is not about left or right. It’s about order. Unity first. Solutions second.

If we get that sequence right, the rest becomes possible. If we don’t, nothing else will stick.

That is the choice in front of us.