We were all told that the pandemic would end, that life would go back to normal. But as the months dragged on, “normal” became a distant memory, a ghost we couldn’t seem to reach.
Canada, once a beacon of peace and freedom, now finds itself a prisoner of its own response to COVID-19. It’s like we’ve been living in a darkened tunnel, endlessly searching for an exit that never appears.
The measures that were supposed to protect us—lockdowns, mandates, and forced isolation—were sold to us as temporary, necessary steps to “flatten the curve.” But those “temporary” solutions turned into permanent shifts. Slowly, we lost ourselves.
It’s easy to point to the physical changes: stores shut down, businesses folded, families fractured. But the real damage isn’t always visible. It’s in the lingering fear, the paranoia that still hovers over every interaction. In some places, people still wear masks outdoors, as though the virus could spring from thin air at any moment. It’s as if we’ve become trapped in an endless loop of caution, too afraid to even breathe freely.
We didn’t just lose our sense of normalcy—we lost something deeper. We lost trust. Trust in our leaders, trust in the systems that were supposed to protect us, and trust in each other. The fear that was instilled in us has become a part of our DNA now. It’s a reflex. We’re conditioned to think the worst, to wait for the next disaster.
And the worst part? We haven’t fully recovered, not physically, not mentally, not socially. We’ve been left with empty streets, empty businesses, and even emptier promises. The long-term effects of lockdowns and restrictions aren’t something that can be erased with a few months of “recovery.” We’re scarred—psychologically, financially, emotionally.
The worst aspect? The sense that we don’t know who we are anymore. We’re no longer the country we were before the pandemic, and there’s no guarantee we’ll ever get back to what we once were.
For many, it feels like we’ve crossed a line—a point of no return. And as we stand in the ashes of our past, we can’t help but wonder if we’ve been trapped in fear so long that we’ve forgotten how to live without it.
But here’s the chilling truth that still lingers like a shadow: even today, those who orchestrated this chaos—the fearmongers, the ones who enforced the harshest restrictions, who pushed for policies that destroyed livelihoods and tore apart families—have yet to see the light of a courtroom. They haven’t paid for the lives they ruined, for the freedoms they stripped away, or for the deep wounds they inflicted on an entire nation.
As time passes, it feels as though the reckoning we deserve is never coming. These figures, whose decisions have left us broken, continue to walk free, while we are left to pick up the pieces of a shattered country. The fear they caused still holds us in its grip, and yet they remain unaccountable. How much longer will we allow this? How much longer will we stay trapped?
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As time passes, it feels as though the reckoning we deserve is never coming. These figures, whose decisions have left us broken, continue to walk free, while we are left to pick up the pieces of a shattered country. The fear they caused still holds us in its grip, and yet they remain unaccountable. How much longer will we allow this? How much longer will we stay trapped?