I ENJOYED seeing Tommy Douglas win CBC’s “Greatest Canadian” contest a few weeks ago.
Not because I’m living in Saskatchewan. I’ve actually spent most of my life in Alberta and have closer connections to other candidates. But I think he was an outstanding choice precisely because he wasn’t the greatest Canadian in the “solo artist” sense that the contest implied.
Tommy Douglas was great because he knew how to arouse communities to do great things. He uncovered the greatness in Canadian people.
He reminded me that the memory of how to build or rebuild strong communities is still alive in our western soul.
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It may not always seem that way as we watch one rural town after another disappear. Machine thinking has pushed some of those skills into the background.
You know what machine thinking is? It treats communities as factories and people as producers. It measures their value by size and efficiency. How many people do they have? How much in goods and services do they export into our cities?
The truth is, the best communities are inefficient and often small. They are full of unnecessary, not necessarily productive, but delightful, supportive, life-giving connections. They have a surplus of possibilities, a reservoir of caring relationships. It allows them to weather disasters and move into the future with hope and confidence in each other.
An increasing number of studies indicate that it is this ability to form social networks that distinguishes vital communities from those that are dying.
Bruno Jean, one of the Canadian New Rural Economy researchers, says communities revive as they become receptive to a wide variety of people, ideas and forms of behaviour. They know how to mobilize these diverse resources and work together. And they can draw in support through connections with people outside the community.
The report of the Saskatchewan Action Committee on the Rural Economy discovered that the single most important factor determining whether outsiders joined a rural community was how the community felt about themselves and their future.
Hopeful, connected communities attract new people because they can see a future there. Depressed, divided communities discourage investors and fall into a “death spiral” of depopulation.
How do we recover the dimly remembered skills of building community self-esteem, arousing greatness in small places?
Leadership is key. Tommy Douglas was a prime example of that.
One of my personal passions is to provide rural clergy with the skills to foster hope and healthy relationships in their communities. The Saskatchewan Council for Community Development is doing some excellent work. Its Leadership Saskatchewan program teaches the skills that rural leaders need to start building great Canadian communities. The council makes available consultants who draw regional rural leaders together to dream and plan for a common future. There are similar groups in other provinces.
Their numbers are small in the face of the need. Governments hesitate to put money into groups that build the social infrastructure of rural communities.
Perhaps we need to remind them that what makes Canada great is not its economy, but its people.
Cam Harder is associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Western Producer.
