What you give, not what you get

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/07/2023 (1165 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The day has passed for another year.

The fireworks have been set off, the free concerts have shut down their amplifiers and cleared their stages. O Canada has been sung and politicians have issued their treacly statements about how great this country is and how much they love it.

The curious small handheld Canadian flags — with their rolled-paper staffs and virtually-rigid paper “fabric” that would barely manage to flap in a hurricane— have been set aside, if they were brought home at all. Stick-on maple leaf tattoos have been washed away, and exhausted children put to bed.

Another Canada Day in the books.

Perhaps it’s a particularly good time to think about Canada, and how it seems to be changing.

Since humans started walking this Earth, we’ve realized that we do better in social groups. We survive and thrive by teamwork, with everyone contributing their particular skills to the whole.

We surrender some things — yes, even some much-vaunted freedoms — in order to share in the benefits that come from the co-operative power of community.

But community sometimes seems like a forgotten concept: more and more, we’ve been taught to focus on the personal good of ourselves and our direct families first, our neighbourhoods a distant second, and our role in our civic society either last or not at all.

Involvement, all too often, is seen as a financial transaction — we pay our taxes, and then expect municipal workers to do things as simple as keeping catch basins clear in heavy rain for us. Heaven forbid we actually step out into the rain to clear away leaves and trash before the streets begin to flood.

That, of course, isn’t true of everyone.

There are plenty of Canadians who understand the meaning of citizenship and the need to contribute, and step up, day after day, month after month. But not enough.

Volunteer groups regularly point out that they are having a harder and harder time finding new volunteers as stalwarts with their different view of civic duty age out. (Once again, there are those who buck that trend.) As Brent Bellamy points out in his July 4 column, “The community centre model in Winnipeg is unique from other Canadian cities in that they are owned by the city but governed and operated by volunteers. It’s estimated that each year, 17,000 volunteers devote over 1.2 million hours to running Winnipeg’s community centres. As important as they are to us, they are facing significant challenges, including the ability to maintain this level of volunteer support.”

It’s truly a shame — on many fronts.

Those who don’t involve themselves in the community will probably never know that even the smallest forms of public service have their own integral benefits: beyond the clear benefit of the common good, there’s the satisfaction that comes from honest, hard, selfless work, even if no one recognizes your effort or even sees you do it.

Sadly, social responsibility just isn’t trendy or top of mind. And it should be, because, once lost, the cohesion of community isn’t just picked up off the shelf like the newest model of cellphone.

On July 1, we celebrate Canada.

On July 2 and 3 and 4 — and, in fact, for the rest of the year — we should also consider the commitment, responsibility and yes, hard work, necessary to make this country what it can be.

Being a citizen of this country isn’t just celebration of the unbelievable good fortune of being here; it includes what you give, as well as what you get.