Alright, settle in, folks. Pour yourself something strong, because you’re about to get a peek behind the curtain. You see, you all think government is a majestic cathedral of democracy. It’s not. It’s a damp, beige-carpeted church basement where the coffee is always burnt and the committee meetings never end.

What you’re about to read is a transcript. Don’t ask me how I got it. Let’s just say there’s a mole in the hive, a brave little field mouse in the great Victoria grain silo, who’s tired of watching the good wheat of your tax dollars be processed into the tasteless, nutrient-free cracker of government policy.

This transcript, let’s call it the “Coquitlam Conundrum,” took place just last week. The players: Premier David Eby, the six-foot-seven embodiment of earnest intentions; Shannon Salter, the Head of the BC Public Service and the woman who actually runs the province; and our mole, a mid-level policy analyst we’ll call “Brenda,” who was taking the minutes.

DOCUMENT: Leaked Transcript - Project Nightingale - TOP SECRET (Apparently)
LOCATION: A windowless boardroom, somewhere under the Legislature.
ATTENDEES: D. Eby (Premier), S. Salter (Clerk of the Privy Council), Brenda (Minute Taker, Ministry of Redundant Acronyms)

D. EBY: (Pacing, radiating energy) Shannon, this is it. The big one. We’re going to solve the housing crisis. Not manage it. Not mitigate it. Solve it. I was in Coquitlam last week, talking to a lovely couple who are living in their parents’ converted solarium. The passion, the urgency! We need to act. I’ve drafted a plan. I’m calling it “The BC Home-Run Initiative.”
S. SALTER: (Without looking up from her tablet, a device that seems surgically attached to her hand) David, we’ve workshopped this. Legal says we can’t use “Home-Run” due to potential trademark infringement with Major League Baseball and a mid-tier frozen dinner brand. The approved name is the “Provincial Framework for Coordinated Residential Supply-Chain Acceleration.”
D. EBY: (Sighs, the sound of a deflating hot air balloon) Fine. The P.F.C.R.S.C.A. The important thing is the action. We announce it next week. We’ll stand in front of a half-built condo tower in Burquitlam, hard hats on, and promise 100,000 new units by 2030.

(This, my dear readers, is Step One: The Grandiose Announcement. It’s not a policy; it’s a press release. It’s designed to make you feel warm and fuzzy for exactly one news cycle.)

S. SALTER: (Swipes on her tablet) Mmm. About that. According to the Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Aspirational Timelines, a jurisdictional scan of similarly-scoped undertakings suggests a more realistic delivery window would be Q4 2042.
D. EBY: 2042?! Shannon, I’ll be a contestant on a seniors’ edition of a reality TV show by then! What’s the hold-up?
S. SALTER: Well, first there’s the stakeholder consultation phase. The municipalities need to be brought onside, which requires a 24-month series of symposia. The development industry has requested a blue-ribbon panel to study the impact on their profit margins—that’s 18 months. The environmental groups have already pre-filed an injunction against any theoretical shovels hitting any theoretical ground. And, of course, the Ministry of Finance has flagged that the initial budget only accounts for the cost of the press conference and the catering for the symposia.

(And here we have it, Step Two: The Process. This is how a simple, beautiful idea is lovingly and meticulously strangled to death with red tape. It’s not malice; it’s procedure. The goal of the bureaucracy isn’t to do things; it’s to ensure that if things are done, they are done in the most defensible, documented, and glacially slow way possible.)

D. EBY: Can’t we just… build? Use the new provincial powers? Override them? Be bold!
S. SALTER: We could. And the resulting 37 simultaneous lawsuits would tie up the initiative in court until, according to our legal department’s Gantt chart, roughly 2041. Just in time for the 2042 delivery window. The process works.

(See? The system is a perfect, self-licking ice cream cone.)

D. EBY: (Slumps into a chair) So what are you telling me? We announce the P.F… the framework… and then what?
S. SALTER: We announce the framework. We launch a public-facing website with stock photos of smiling families. We form a task force. The task force will commission a study. The study will recommend further consultations. In two years, just before the next election, we release the interim report from the task force, celebrating the progress made on the study. It’s the British Columbia way. The voters get to feel like something is happening, and we get to continue governing. Everyone’s happy.
D. EBY: But the couple in the solarium…
S. SALTER: We’ll send them a link to the website.

A NOTE FROM “BRENDA” THE MOLE (Scrawled on a napkin and stapled to the transcript): Heard that? That’s the sound of your government. And you know who’s to blame? You are. You scream for solutions but you don’t read past the headline. You want a 30-second fix for a 30-year problem. You elect people who promise you the moon, and then you get angry when they hand you a brochure for a timeshare on a sub-orbital rock. You vote for the announcement, not the outcome. They’re not afraid of you because you’re not paying attention. You’re too busy arguing about the colour of the new recycling bins in Port Moody. Do your homework. Read the reports. Go to a council meeting. Understand that for every David Eby with a big idea, there are a thousand Shannon Salters with a binder full of reasons why it can’t be done that way. They’re just giving you the government you deserve. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go draft the terms of reference for the sub-committee that will select the catering for the symposia. We’re leaning towards Nanaimo bars.

Contributed by Guest Author Wanda Fuca.