This pandemic has provided an opportunity to reset. This is our

Host: The evening mist rolled in from the harbor, swallowing the skyline in soft gray and gold. The conference hall stood like a cathedral of glass and ambition, its walls reflecting the last dying embers of daylight. Inside, the tables were empty, the microphones still, and the air heavy with the silence that follows too many words.

Jack sat near the back, his suit jacket unbuttoned, tie loose, a half-empty cup of coffee growing cold beside a stack of policy reports. Across from him, Jeeny leaned against the window, her reflection layered over the city — towers, cranes, bridges — the anatomy of a civilization that had paused, then started again.

Jeeny: “Pierre Poilievre once said, ‘This pandemic has provided an opportunity to reset. This is our chance to accelerate our pre-pandemic efforts to reimagine economic systems, that actually address global challenges like extreme poverty, inequality, and climate change.’”

Jack: dryly “Reset. That’s a pretty word for a world that crashed and had to reboot on panic mode.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But sometimes destruction is the only honest architect.”

Jack: “You sound like someone who enjoyed the silence while the world stopped spinning.”

Jeeny: “No. But I listened to what it was trying to tell us.”

Host: Outside, the streetlights flickered on, one by one, bathing the city in a muted orange. It felt quieter than it had in years — the kind of quiet that makes you realize how loud life had been before.

Jack: “You think we really learned anything from it? The ‘reset’? The world went from applause for nurses to arguing about inflation in six months.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because we mistook momentum for progress. We were so eager to restart that we never asked what needed to change before we did.”

Jack: sipping his coffee, grimacing “Change. Another word that looks good on paper and dies in committee.”

Jeeny: “You’re cynical, Jack.”

Jack: “I’m realistic. Every politician calls it a chance to reset, but what they really mean is a chance to resume control.”

Jeeny: “Not all of them. Some people actually meant it — to rebuild differently, not faster.”

Host: The rain began softly, streaking the glass, washing the reflections of streetlights into liquid motion. Jeeny watched, her eyes following a single droplet as it slid downward — slow, deliberate, inevitable.

Jeeny: “Think about it. The pandemic showed us everything wrong with the old system — how fragile supply chains were, how invisible essential workers became, how inequality wasn’t an accident but architecture.”

Jack: “And now we’re back to building on the same foundations.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But cracks don’t disappear just because you ignore them.”

Jack: “They widen.”

Jeeny: nodding “Until one day they let the light in.”

Host: The air-conditioning hummed, the only sound breaking their conversation. Jack leaned forward, his elbows on the table, eyes sharp but weary — like a man who’d seen too much of both disaster and recovery.

Jack: “You talk about opportunity like it’s a gift. But for most people, it was grief — jobs lost, homes gone, years erased. You can’t build renewal on ashes.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not on ashes. But maybe from them.”

Jack: quietly “You sound like you still have faith in humanity.”

Jeeny: “I do. But not in systems. Systems protect themselves; people don’t.”

Host: The lights flickered again, the brief power dip reflecting the fragile rhythm of a world still healing. The two of them sat in that half-light — two silhouettes caught between fatigue and conviction.

Jack: “So what do we reimagine then? Capitalism with conscience? Climate policy that doesn’t collapse at the first profit report?”

Jeeny: “Maybe it starts smaller. Maybe it’s not about rebuilding systems but reimagining priorities. What if we stopped measuring growth by what we consume, and started measuring it by what we preserve?”

Jack: “Preserve?”

Jeeny: “Yes. The forests. The air. Dignity. Time with our families. Things we rediscovered only when the noise stopped.”

Host: The rain fell harder, drumming now on the roof, drowning out the hum of electricity. The world outside blurred into an impressionist painting — beautiful, chaotic, uncertain.

Jack: “You make it sound like redemption.”

Jeeny: “It can be. If we choose to remember what broke us instead of pretending it didn’t.”

Jack: after a pause “You really believe that — that humanity can come out stronger?”

Jeeny: “Stronger, maybe not. But wiser — if we don’t rush the lesson.”

Jack: “And what’s the lesson?”

Jeeny: softly “That growth without empathy isn’t progress. It’s just motion.”

Host: Jack looked down at his papers — charts, projections, data points — all meticulously printed to forecast the future, none of them able to predict the human soul.

Jack: “You know, before the pandemic, I thought success meant acceleration. Now, every time I see traffic back on the highway, I wonder if we’re just racing back to the same cliff.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe slowing down is the revolution.”

Jack: “You think we can sell that? ‘The world’s most profitable idea: stillness.’”

Jeeny: smiling softly “Stillness isn’t the absence of movement, Jack. It’s the presence of intention.”

Host: The rainlight shimmered across her face as she said it, her eyes calm but fierce, like someone who’d already stood in the ruins and decided to plant flowers there.

Jack: “You always make it sound poetic. But economics doesn’t run on poetry.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it should. Numbers tell you how much we have. Poetry tells you what it’s worth.”

Host: The rain began to fade, the sky clearing beyond the glass. A faint moonlight spread, revealing the distant cranes still standing — silent monuments to what could yet be rebuilt.

Jack: “You know, when Poilievre said that — the reset, the opportunity — I bet half the world rolled their eyes.”

Jeeny: “And the other half whispered, ‘Maybe this time.’”

Jack: “Do you think it will be?”

Jeeny: “That depends.”

Jack: “On what?”

Jeeny: “On whether we choose to rebuild a world that works for us — or one that uses us to keep working.”

Host: The moon broke free, its light cutting through the last layer of cloud, spilling across the city — across the cranes, the rooftops, the water. Jack and Jeeny watched in silence, both knowing that beauty and brokenness often arrive together.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny, I think what scares me most isn’t the next pandemic — it’s the idea that we’ll waste this one.”

Jeeny: quietly “Then let’s not.”

Host: They sat there, two silhouettes in a glass room overlooking a recovering world — the city still scarred, still striving, but breathing again. And though the hum of industry would return, though the headlines would shift, something in the night stayed still — a fragile understanding, a flicker of possibility.

Because maybe — just maybe — the real reset wasn’t in the economy,
but in the human spirit learning to measure progress by compassion instead of speed.

And in that quiet between storms, the future waited — unfinished, uncertain, but finally awake.