“In response to growing concern over Canada’s capacity to welcome more newcomers,” the Toronto Star reported last week, “the federal government says it will incorporate housing, health care and infrastructure planning with provinces and municipalities when setting the country’s annual immigration targets.”

We’re in annual performance review season so this is a great opportunity to return to the basics—like, for example, how it’s generally not ideal to volunteer that you haven’t been doing your job, by suggesting that you’re going to start doing your job.

This is either a communications blooper or a confession from a country that’s hitched both it’s economic well-being and feel-good national identity to something it hasn’t put even an idle thought toward. This is serious: failing to set those who want, or need, to come here up for success, while undermining the hard work of those who’ve come before, can only feed a populist backlash. I’m reduced to quoting, out of context, an enduring meme from the otherwise excellent animated series Archer (2009-2023): “Do you want ants? Because that’s how you get ants.”

Here’s a thoughtful definition of creativity from John Cleese’s wonderful book, Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide (2020), which I re-read last week: “Wherever you can find a way of doing things that is better than what has been done before, you are being creative.”