If Canada wants to remain competitive on the global stage, it must establish a commitment to excellence

On June 12, 2026, the eyes of the nation were fixed on a stadium in Toronto where Canada met Bosnia in a soccer game; the result was a 1-1 tie. Great was the rejoicing in the tents of Canadian fans of the sport. Never before had Canada gained a point in a World Cup tournament!

In two previous tournaments, we had lost all six games we played and only managed to put the ball in the opposing net twice. Clearly a tie with Bosnia was a massive improvement. The CBC reported that it “should be a point of pride for Canada…a huge confidence booster for the co-hosts.”

Colour me unimpressed. Celebrating a tie against a nation of three million ranked 65th in the FIFA rankings seems to be setting the bar at a very low height.

The problem is not soccer. The problem is that lowering the bar has become a habit across Canadian institutions.

Consider the case of recruiting to the Canadian Armed Forces. The military has struggled for years to fill thousands of vacant positions. Our government discovered that, despite the generous provision of tampons in male bathrooms, a life of low pay, substandard housing, and obsolete equipment was not appealing enough. To woo troops, it was deemed necessary to lower standards. Security screening was relaxed, fitness standards lowered and aptitude tests ditched.

How did that work out?

Well, how did you think that accepting more of the less-qualified would work out? More training resources were wasted on those who were going to fail. Allowing in those with mental health issues required more support downstream. Many recruits lacked the language skills needed to follow orders in either French or English. Some had problems adjusting to Canadian cultural expectations and resisted heeding female officers.

Need another example?

Witness the fruit of lowered standards in our educational system. A flight from standardized testing in high schools has gone hand-in-hand with a rise in grade inflation and numbers of students graduating with a distorted sense of their own accomplishments. Having been on the honour roll in high school, they believe they are prepared for success at a university level only to discover that they cannot do basic math or write an essay without the help of artificial intelligence. That sound you hear is the noise made by professors tearing out their hair and banging their heads on the wall in frustration.

Will universities respond by requiring admission tests to screen out the unprepared? Of course not. Such tests would be termed inherently discriminatory with a disproportionate effect on marginalized groups. Rather than invest in bringing up the level of those groups earlier in their education, it is deemed better to let them into university where they will fail and drop out at higher rates.

Canadian indifference to excellence is also built into the criteria for Canada Research Chairs and university professorships. Many of these positions now specifically bar healthy, white, heterosexual males from even applying, reserving them for “women, 2SLGBTQIA+ people, Indigenous peoples, racialized persons, and persons with disabilities.”

This is regrettable for two reasons. Firstly, it assumes with soft bigotry that professionals from these groups could not compete in an open market and leaves them open forever after to the condescending stigma of the “diversity hire.” Secondly, by cutting the recruiting pool in half, we have dramatically reduced the chances of finding the best-qualified candidate.

Historically, Canadians have been an easy-going people, never demanding much of ourselves. Our Olympic motto has always been “Go for the bronze!” or “It’s an honour just to compete!” Only in hockey do we care about being the best.

In the 21st century, if we don’t want other countries, more ambitious, harder-working, and better educated, to eat our lunch, that has got to change.

Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian, the author of several books on culture and European and social history, and a senior fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.