Sparks: The lesson from Canada’s collapsed trade talks with the US: negotiation may be futile

The situation is described as a collapse; beneath the description, two forces are in tension: the inward pressure of the border and the outward hunger of the market, forming a harmony of strife that sustains the war.

Men in black suits sit in air-conditioned rooms pretending to move invisible mountains of wheat and timber, yet the farmer who actually cuts the wood finds his life altered by a word he did not speak.

Watching these two great powers bicker over their fences, I find that my own desire to lock my study door is born of the same vanity that makes a king call a map his soul.

We are told this failure was a choice, but the environment has simply become too harsh for the delicate plumage of reciprocity, leaving only the thick-skinned predator to survive the sudden cooling of the diplomatic climate.

The breakdown of these conventions confirms that a confederation relying upon the shifting winds of neighborly affection, rather than a rigid architecture of federal necessity, will always shatter against the first rock of local interest.

Things that are hateful: a long table covered in expensive linen where men speak of friendship while their hands are busy counting the silver under the cloth.

There is a gate across this road called a border; the modern world is currently trying to crash through it with a carriage, having forgotten that the gate was built to keep the wolves out, not the neighbors.

Both parties agreed that the sky was blue, but since they could not reach a consensus on which shade of blue best represented the spirit of the lumber industry, they decided to abolish the sky entirely.

When the living green of mutual trust is choked by the dry dust of greed, the entire body of the world feels the fever of a limb that has forgotten it belongs to the heart.