Richmond Hill community members help build a liveable Ontario
On Tuesday, June 24th, I participated in a Connecting the Community event in Richmond Hill organized by Marj Andre. It included over 20 community members actively involved in a wide variety of issues.
After a brief presentation by me about the tough times we are in and what actions we can take to get us through them, we had an hour long conversation about what people were feeling and hearing in their networks and neighbourhoods.
Not surprisingly, many said they are feeling despair. They pointed to what was happening in Ontario and how the Premier was using Trump to justify policies that would only make things worse. But many also said they feel hope because of the energy and activism they see around them. Almost everyone agreed that to make things better, we need to create more support for our solutions. And that means connecting with people who aren’t part of our networks.
Near the end of the meeting, Marj warned me she would turn to me to sum up what I heard and suggest what we could all do. As I was thinking about what to say, four thoughts swirled around my head:
-If I focus on my issues, many will feel as if they hadn’t been heard. It would also not reflect the diversity of issues that had been raised.
-We need to convince many more people to support the solutions we propose.
-We all want to reach people outside our networks.
Any actions I suggest must be simple and easy to remember.
Below is a roughly what I said:
As a parent we’re taught to model the behaviour we want our children to follow. The same applies to our activism. We build the world we want by behaving the way we want governments and people to behave. So, model the behaviour we want to convince others to follow.
The issues mentioned by all of you have one thing in common: a lack of resources. Many of you spoke about how they’re aren’t enough private and public dollars for the things we need. Yet there has never been more wealth in the world. And that got me thinking about another key lesson we’re taught as children: share. Unfortunately, we’ve created rules that reward people for being greedy and punish people for sharing. We can change that by sharing when we have extra and telling our governments to support actions that promote sharing.
We need people outside our networks supporting our issues. Reaching outside our networks shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should be a priority.
I believe these three actions speak to what I heard in Richmond Hill. I hope they inspire everyone who wants to build a liveable Ontario.
