Gardeners vs. Designers: Understanding the Great Fault Line in Canadian Politics

Brian Lee Crowley, one of Canada’s most original political thinkers, has produced a stunning road map for how we can steer Canada into a brighter political future. 

He claims that we can divide political culture into two categories: designers and gardeners. Designers believe that they have sufficient knowledge to impose their will on others, without any unintended consequences, while gardeners are more modest and are content to work with what already exists, especially where whatever already exists has virtues or beauties. 

Crowley argues that we need fewer designers making top-down pronouncements, and more gardeners who are willing to work from the bottom up, cultivating instead of engineering. We should all aspire to be gardeners: planting, growing, appreciating the results, and building something that will thrive in the ideal political, social, and cultural soil.

Brian Lee Crowley is founder and managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa and also founded the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax. He has appeared numerous times on the list of 100 most influential people in Ottawa, is a frequent commentator on public policy in print and electronic and social media and served on the Editorial Board of the Globe and Mail. He is the author or co-author of two Canadian national bestsellers: Fearful Symmetry: The Fall and Rise of Canada’s Founding Values and The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow.