Build vs. Endure: The Credibility Problem of a Big, Optimistic Word

How "Build" became the most politically successful single word in Canadian public life, and the saturation point that risks its failure.

Note from MMI Founding Director, Mike Moffatt: Until today, every post at the Missing Middle has been authored by one or more MMI staff. For the first time, we’re posting a guest submission. The author, Mike Colledge, is the Executive Insight Lead at Ipsos Canada; we’ve been following Mike’s work closely for years, and are delighted to share his insights.

MMI is now accepting guest submissions of 700-1200 words on topics relating to young, middle-class Canadians. Submissions can be submitted via e-mail to [email protected].

In Canada today, the word “build” has shifted from being a simple verb to something approaching a national ideological posture.

The word is everywhere. It was a pillar in Mark Carney’s leadership campaign. The federal government’s infrastructure legislation was formally named the “Building Canada Act,” and its housing initiative is branded “Build Canada Homes.” We’ve seen an open letter from the country’s largest energy companies titled “Build Canada Now.” The Ontario government has a website and advertising campaign focused on building Ontario. There’s even a think tank called Build Canada, dedicated to, well, building a better Canada. There are many more examples of how the word’s been woven into a new Canadian agenda. While not a coordinated effort, this does seem to be a deliberate linguistic ecosystem.

“Build” works very well in today’s Canada.

It invokes Canada’s nation-building mythology: the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Trans-Canada Highway. It reminds us of a time when governments made big, physical things happen and changed the nation’s course.

It responds to the perceived threat from the south. If Donald Trump wants to absorb Canada, then “building” becomes an act of defiance. It’s creating something tangible he can’t take away and gives Canada agency and a defence of our sovereignty.

It is cross-ideological. “Build” is used by the federal Liberal government and the provincial Conservative government in Ontario. It’s embraced by both energy companies and housing advocates.

And its resonance with Canadians is real. For a decade, many felt like nothing in the country could get finished. Pipelines were blocked; housing approvals dragged on. For a public exhausted by process and consultation, “build” is an emotional bullseye. It implies outcomes, not just intentions. It’s concrete.

“Build” may be the most politically successful single word in Canadian public life right now because it occupies the intersection of nostalgia, urgency, and cross-ideological appeal. But “build” may be becoming too successful. It’s now so saturated across government, industry, and civil society that it risks becoming a word that signals nothing because everyone says it, and it means everything.

It’s also a word on a clock. It’s so laden with expectations that it risks falling short no matter how much actually gets built.

The predecessors to “build” were words like “hope” for Barack Obama and “sunny ways” for Justin Trudeau. They were emotive words that didn’t describe a policy, but a feeling. The implicit contract was: “Trust me, and I will change how you feel about your country and your future.” That language worked when the public was open to it. In 2008, America and 2015, Canada, there was enough latent optimism for these words to rally citizens. Those words asked nothing of citizens except their sentiment.

“Build” asks for something different. It’s not an emotive word. It’s an operational one. It doesn’t say “feel something.” It says: “expect something.” The implicit contract is: “Hold me to account for physical outcomes and real change.” “Build” is the natural evolution from hope, moving from emotion to action at the exact moment the public has been burned by emotional promises.

But for all its practicality, “build” carries hope’s original vulnerability. Hope failed when the feeling wasn’t matched by facts. “Build” will fail if the rhetoric isn’t matched by cranes in the sky, keys in front doors, and a better life for Canadians. Some critics are already noting the gap between words and reality. While Canadians have so far bought into the concept, they have a well-developed antenna for promises that never turn into results.

“Build” is also being pressured by what Ipsos calls the “Endurance Economy”. This concept describes a period where households operate under sustained pressure from structural high costs and uncertainty. It reflects a fundamental mindset shift from optimism and expansion to one of coping, adaptation, and resilience. Affordability is no longer a temporary crisis but a chronic condition with no clear endpoint.

Canadians are exhausted, but exhaustion is not indifference. Many are enduring precisely because they believe something better should be possible. They’re carrying deferred hope, and “build” speaks directly to that deferral. For someone in financial or psychological survival mode, this promise carries a near-visceral appeal, not because they trust it automatically, but because they want a reason to.

There’s also alignment at the material level. Many pressures of the Endurance Economy like housing costs, infrastructure decay, and energy insecurity are problems of things not having been built. In this light, “build” names the cure for the chronic condition.

However, people have recalibrated their lives around managing reduced expectations in the Endurance Economy, in part because they stopped trusting big promises. They’re not so much cynics as they are adaptive realists. “Build” is a big, optimistic word, and for them, such words have a credibility problem.

The disconnect runs deeper. “Build” today is a word said by institutions; endurance is lived by individuals. The Endurance Economy is a ground-level experience that shows up in household budgets, in the decision to delay having a child, take on a second job, etc. “Build” is being proclaimed by governments, think tanks, and CEOs. The people doing the enduring are not the people doing the building, at least not yet.

Furthermore, endurance thinking is short term: “Get through this month.” “Build” implies a long-term payoff. Infrastructure takes decades. Housing takes years. For someone in survival mode, being told the future will be great may feel like being told to keep enduring.

Canada’s leaders likely can’t build fast enough to provide immediate relief to those enduring. To maintain support and momentum for a “building” agenda, they must bring Canadians into their narrative. The licence to “build” must be framed as emerging from the public’s own resilience. The “build” movement cannot be imposed on a weary public from above; it must be seen as growing from the strength they have shown.

The risk of not making that connection is that “build” remains elite vocabulary, while the Endurance Economy is an unacknowledged mass experience. If that happens, the clock on public support for “build” will strike midnight long before the cement sets.

Michael Colledge is Executive Insight Lead, Ipsos Canada.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missing Middle Initiative or its affiliates.

MMI accepts guest submissions between 700 and 1200 words; they can be submitted via e-mail to [email protected].