I’m Canadian, but Italian by birth. My whole working life has been spent as an employee of a government agency, first as a project engineer and finally as a policy analyst. I’m now retired and living in rural Ontario with my wife of fifty years. In 1949 George Orwell published his final novel, 1984, about a dystopian world where the government told people that war was peace, freedom was slavery, love was hate, and ignorance was strength.
This Blog is my effort to look at what’s happening in the world for signs that we are heading towards a world resembling 1984.
I didn’t set out to become obsessed with politics. It happened gradually, through firsthand encounters with the machinery of government and the way bureaucrats and politicians actually behave behind the curtain. The more I watched, the less the official stories made sense.
My interest sharpened during the 2008 and 2012 U.S. presidential campaigns that brought Barack Obama to power. What the mainstream media confidently reported often clashed with what I could verify on my own. That disconnect became impossible to ignore in 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency despite polls, experts, and media narratives insisting it was impossible. That moment exposed just how detached the commentary class had become from political reality—and likely marked the birth of what came to be called Trump Derangement Syndrome: an almost reflexive hostility that ignored policy in favouir of outrage. By 2020, Trump’s populist appeal was countered not with ideas, but with tactics that raised serious questions about fairness and transparency.
Canada has proven no less surreal. Justin Trudeau managed to win three elections despite policy failures, ethical breaches, and an economy that steadily lost its footing. His eventual successor, Mark Carney, arrived in the Prime Minister’s chair through a political sleight of hand—installed without an election, after Parliament was prorogued to buy time, boost visibility, and quietly crown a leader. Carney, long absent from Canada, newly British, and untested as an elected official, assumed power without ever facing voters.
Throughout all of this, the mainstream media—particularly the CBC, Canada’s publicly funded broadcaster—has too often acted less like a watchdog and more like a shield. Scrutiny is selective, outrage is curated, and principles like objectivity, balance, and truth seem optional unless Conservatives are involved.
This blog exists because none of that feels normal. Or sane.
Welcome to It’s A Mad World. I hope you find the posts thought-provoking—if not a little unsettling.
Thanks for visiting.
