National Post (National Edition)
Crisis brings out the best in us
Canada, and indeed the world, has not faced an emergency like the current one since the Spanish flu epidemic of just over 100 years ago. So it is extremely natural that people share considerable anxiety over its present and future impact.
We know we have greater technological and medical resources now, and we also know the world has shrunk, making the possibility of the virus’s transmission both more swift and more difficult to contain. Modernity, in this, as in so many other things, is a coin of two faces.
We can rely on our medical professionals to give us their best advice, and most of us will heed it. From governments, while there will be initial stumbles — how could there not be at the beginning of something so momentous and affecting so many? — we can, with reasonable trust, anticipate that they will do their best for the citizens they are there to serve.
We all have the right to expect that the normal shouting and sniping of day-today politics will be put quite aside. There should be a full exorcism of the ridiculous excesses of partisanship. When people are anxious on a matter so vast and serious as a pandemic, party politics as such should completely clear the stage. The best people of all parties should, formally or informally, be invited to engage in the response, and questions of credit or blame left till the crisis ends.
Debate can still be sharp and hard, but it should absolutely be drained of the urge to “score points” or conducted merely to “win” the news story of the day. In tough times, Canadians expect their politicians to be like them — ready to help, reasonable in their language, and united in the attempt simply to make things better or easier for those most in peril.
A fine example of this I recently read on Twitter. There are perhaps no two politicians in Canada more philosophically or ideologically opposed than Kathleen Wynne and Doug Ford. Politically, they are each other’s anti-matter. Premier Ford had come under fire for earlier urging people to go ahead with March Break travel plans and “have a good time” (this was before COVID-19 swelled to the emergency it is now).
Here’s how she responded (I think it was from radio host Jerry Agar’s feed, but I lost the source citation): “He was trying to do that out of the goodness of his heart. I could hear it in his voice. He was trying to calm the waters.”
I like that very much. One former premier to the premier who replaced her, speaking of the “goodness of his heart” and “hearing it in his voice” and acknowledging his benign intent … “he was trying to calm the waters.” How fine is that?
If I had points to give, and if anyone cared to whom I would give them — neither of which is the case — I would swing them all over to Kathleen Wynne for her so-fine defence of her opponent/successor. “A little touch of kindness makes the whole world kin.” Just this little touch of understanding demonstrates quite keenly that being a politician is not a surrender of your passport of being a human being.
Courtesy and tone are important always in life, but in times of anxiety and fear they are necessary. These virtues contribute to the diminishment of both fear and anxiety. Fortunately, and this is said without any chauvinism, Canadians have large reserves of courtesy and regard for others. And crises have given us many illustrations of how we act when stress is greatest.
I recall during the inferno in Fort McMurray, the long cavalcade of cars and trucks shooting down the highway, within yards or feet of the flames. I remember, too, the large cavalcade of cars and trucks going up the same highway, bringing water, or food, or whatever might help those fleeing the flames. This is how fellow citizens in our once Dominion act. The impulse to help when help is needed is embedded in Canadian character. It is our pulse.
I recall, too, the great icestorm in Quebec, another moment when the best aspects of Canadian character manifested themselves. Jean Chrétien’s reflections on that crisis is worth the telling: “You see the best of the people in circumstances like that. The people of Canada, they care about their neighbours. We’re not the type of people to say to everybody on a five-minute basis, ‘I love you my dear,’ but we do what is needed. And it is the best way to show that you have respect for your neighbours and your part of the community. … That is the Canadian way.”
And then there was that wonderful episode in Newfoundland when Gander, N.L., and the smaller towns around Gander, gave the world an inspiring story of Canadians ready, able and eager to give support to non-nationals. The heart is a great muscle and it is at its best when given exercise in the relief of others.
I am not sentimentalizing here. There is very little of Dickens in me. But these occasions from our fairly recent past demonstrate resilience, kindness, selflessness — elements of character all, which are deeply lodged in what Mr. Chrétien called “the Canadian way.” And these elements will again be operative as we wander the next days and weeks, and they will do, perhaps as much in their way, to relieve stress and anxiety, as the practical measures being urged upon us by our medical guides and political leaders.
There are some miserable people out there. Idiots trying to corner the toilet-paper market. Weasels grabbing masks and sanitizers and hoping for a profit. Looking to gain from others’ pain. But then again, they are, as said, weasels and idiots. There are vastly more of other and finer stature.
This is a time to recall the character of our nation. It works on the notion of neighbour: The person next door, who helped with the snow shovelling; the farmer who came over to help with the harvest; the person in the apartment building who checked on the elderly lady; or the guy who gave you a drive when you had no car. There are more helpers than exploiters; more fine people than weasels; more kind than indifferent; and as always in all these provinces and territories, more people of bigger character and larger hearts than their opposite.
It is not just a matter of calm. It is a matter of opening hearts to each other, as a balm in a time of anxiety; and the route to calm is an appreciation of simple human exchange in every opportunity we have to make that exchange. Past generations of Canadians knew terrible woes and hardship and more than prevailed. This is a day to recall their example, and exercise in this our day, the same modalities, courage and cheer we so much and rightly honour in our progenitors.
HE WAS TRYING TO DO THAT OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF HIS HEART. I COULD HEAR IT
IN HIS VOICE.