I like to celebrate Canada Day by volunteering at Abbotsford’s Canada Day celebration. It is the spirit of volunteerism, sharing and caring that sets Canada so strongly, so clearly apart from our neighbour to the south. This volunteer spirit, in its mix of manifestations, I see as a key to addressing the major social issues and problems facing us as a community, province, country – as a people, a race.

And if you are going to open your mouth and comment on the behaviour of your community one had better be willing to practice what you preach. Fortunately for me, in this instance volunteering is easy, rewarding enough to bring me back year after year.

I like to get my volunteer registration in ASAP so I will get to work? play? in the zone of my choosing. There is something therapeutic in watching kids enjoying the day, playing games, listening to stories and doing crafts.

Some kids think carefully and only then take action while others are a frenzy of crafting activity. Watching them, helping them recharges one’s positive attitude battery even as the day in the sun outside leaves you physically tired.

Finished and packed up at the Canada Day celebration I had just enough time to grab a bite to eat, a shower and open the shelter for the night. Quite a thought provoking contrast between these two very different groups of people I spent my Canada Day with.

The kids full of energy and bright promise, the decisions that will affect the course of their lives ahead of them. For the clients of the shelter some of those life altering decisions have been made – poorly made, with to some extent, appalling outcomes and consequences. But like the kids out celebrating Canada Day every client’s future still holds more life affecting decisions ahead of them, holding out the promise of making wiser choices.

One of the harsh truths of our world is that some of those happy children out exploring and enjoying Canada Day are going to make bad choices and end up struggling with addiction, mental illness, misfortune, homelessness or some combination thereof. There can be no doubt that on past Canada Days some of our clients too had spent the day exploring and enjoying the day as happy children, their life altering bad decisions and poor choices in the future.

Looking across the sea of young people on Canada Day it is impossible to know which young people will make good decisions and wise choices and which ones will make bad decisions and unwise choices. All you can know is that some will end up clients in need of help.

The point of this train of thought, this musing, is that at some point in their lives shelter clients were young children full of life and promise. They were, and are, somebody’s children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters and friends.

There is no way to tell which children, whose children will suffer the fate and fallout of bad decisions and poor choices. All you can do is make sure that the housing, programs and support for those in need of the help to start making better decisions and wiser choices, to begin the road to recovery, are in place.

Ensuring that when those unfortunate, unlucky kids from Canada Day July 1, 2007 make their bad decisions and choices their road to recovery will not run into the barrier of indifference. And all the barriers and obstacles that indifference throws into the path to recovery; those barriers and obstacles that deny prior generations of children who made bad choices – recovery.

Ending homelessness, supporting those in recovery from mental illness and addictions are a matter of choice. We can choose and commit ourselves to accomplishing these goals. We merely need the will to DO IT, the willingness to change from sticking Band-Aids on these wounded fellow citizens to actually dealing with the issues and needs.

We need only commit ourselves to these goals and demand that our elected representatives do what we elect them to, but they loath risking, providing leadership on addressing difficult issues and problems. We have to exercise the patience of “one day at a time” and “progress not perfection” ever remembering we are dealing with people problems, guaranteeing a certain messiness.

If we as Canadians so choose, Canada Day 2008 can hold the promise of a brighter, healthier future for our children and all Canadians and our country – Canada, whose day we celebrate.