Consider

Saying Thank You.

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We all to often forget how important it is to say thank you to others, forgetting how good it feels to us when someone expresses thanks for something we have done.

I did not realize, did not appreciate at the time, the gift my mother and father gave me when they made me sit down during the Christmas holidays and write thank you notes for gifts received. At the kitchen table it was “Please pass …” and “Thank you.” In public it was “What do you say? Please or Thank You.”

It left me with a set of manners that is an integral part of my nature. I was reminded of this today by feedback on how pleased a note of thanks had made the people who had given me a much needed and treasured helping hand.

I am not good at asking for help and sometimes struggle to find the right words to say “Thank you” appropriately. But give me a pen or keyboard and I produce a thank you note grounded in those Christmas holiday (wasting) notes of my youth.

So I was glad that taking a little time to express my thoughts and feelings about how much I valued the help and friendship I received pleased those who I wrote the note for.

Ii also got me to thinking about what would happen if we all took the time to ask “Please…” and say “Thank you”. I would certainly disperse a great deal more civility into our society. Which begs the question of what would flow from this civility? Courtesy, consideration, concern, caring, compassion, contemplation, consequence?

We are always going on about how bad society is getting, all the problems in the country and world and… and… and …

What if part of the solution is as simple as an increased level of civility? I see no reason not to experiment with this propitious proposition – join me?

Please and Thank You.

Federal, Homeless

Tragically …

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… the irony of earmarking $105 million to help children in Africa and Asia, is lost on Mr. Harper and his fellow Ideologues in the Conservative party.

A government that vigorously refuses funding to provide the support and programs Canadian children need to get them off to a good and healthy start to their lives and schooling.

This refusal to do our best for ALL Canadian children results in a privileged class of children gaining a decided and unfair advantage from the start of their lives over their less wealthy peers. Adding to the growing imbalance and unfairness of Canadian society.

To add insult to the injury Mr. Harper is doing to these most vulnerable young Canadian citizens, he also vowed to double aid to Africa by 2008-09. This promise of increased aid to Africa comes on the heels of the UN report censuring Canada for the number of citizens living in “3rd world living conditions”.

When a government chooses to pursue fiscal and economic policies that promote the transfer of wealth to a privileged class favoured by government policies, the government has a moral responsibility to ensure that those Canadians forsaken by government policy do not find themselves living in “3rd world conditions”.

Given the federal government’s pursuit of policies that result in the creation of an ever faster growing class of Canadians unable to afford basic shelter, the federal government must either change policies or formulate ways to ensure the availability of affordable housing for all Canadians, not just those privileged to be economically enriched by government policies.

Affordable housing is a necessity, not just for the fairness and balance of Canadian society, but for the continued growth and health of the Canadian economy. Similarly programs that promote the wellness, health and education of all Canadian children promote the Canadian economy. Both are part of the infrastructure needed for Canada to compete and prosper globally.

In an increasingly integrated world, Canada simply cannot afford the ideological blindness of our current government policies. Indeed, Canada cannot afford the competitive disadvantages contained in the policies espoused by any current national party.

Federal political parties and politicians must formulate policy based on what is needed for the long-term health and growth of the Canadian economy not on ideology. Otherwise Canadians must look elsewhere for the leadership needed to thrive in a fast changing world.

Or we may well find ourselves looking for foreign aid, as more and more Canadians find themselves living in what we think of as “3rd world conditions”. The conditions far too many Canadians, and a shaming number of Canadian children, currently live in.

Provincial

You know you might be an Ideologue if …

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… Your first reaction to a report from your own handpicked advisers is to make excuses rather than consider and address the issues they highlight as needing action. Exactly what happened with the report released December 13, 2007.

The BC Progress Board – 18 business executives and academic leaders handpicked by Gordon Campbell – named BC the second-worst province in the country on a number of social indicators.

“The most troubling social indicator is the proportion of British Columbians living below the low-income threshold,” says the report, which calls the social condition category “one of the most compelling considerations” for judging a society.

The report says the proportion of people living on low incomes in B.C. has been greater than other provinces through much of the past decade.

The government’s response came in the form of Minister of Employment and Income Assistance Claude Richmond making excuses and offering explanations of why the board was wrong. Together with the old political standby, vague promises that the government will take the report seriously and see where improvements can be made.

It is this type of “what problem, I don’t see a problem, sorry not in my ideological world view”, non-responses that explain why this is the second year in a row for BC’s unacceptable rating and position on the list. As long as the man at the wheel sees only what his ideology allows him to perceive, excuses and denial will be the response to issues lying in the blind spots imposed by ideology.

Mr. Campbell needs to ponder the words of Robert Frost, or if preferred, George Bernard Shaw.

Mr. Frost warned that donning the blinders of purpose will, like the blinders on a horse, inevitably lead to narrowness of point of view. Mr. Shaw cautioned that the moment we WANT to believe something, one becomes blind to arguments against it.

If Mr. Campbell fails to shed his ideological blinders, stop making excuses, listen to his own hand-picked experts and address the social issues existing in our cities and province …… his hand-picked Progress Board will continue, year after year, to find increasing social problems and inequities.

If you are going to hand-pick experts to report, it would be prudent to listen to them and address the issues they bring forward as requiring attention.

Rather than blindly saying “Neigh”.