Understanding government key for engaged society
Watching with dismay the threeweek occupation of downtown Ottawa that ended finally on Feb. 20, I kept thinking there’s a huge lack of understanding about the role of government.
It wasn’t just about Covid precautions and Justin Trudeau’s success or lack thereof as prime minister, you don’t arrest 191 people and tow 76 vehicles when a citizenry is educated about civics.
Victor Hugo said he who opens a school door, closes a prison, so I got to wondering how much training kids get in civics in the classroom anymore.
The late Raymond Jefferson of Wolfville was super keen to teach the subject — maybe that was because his father-in-law and brother-in-law were both members of Parliament. But every year, Raymond would take his senior class at Wolfville School into Halifax on the Dayliner to see government in action at Province House. (The House sat longer then.)
Not only that, for 25 years, Raymond served as clerk of the Maritime Youth Parliament. Eight provincial parliaments met in Ottawa for about 10 years until the late 1980s when funding ran out. There were often more than 100 delegates at those mock parliaments. Youth played all the leadership roles without allegiance to any political party, which entitled them to vote according to conscience. Those sessions must have been good training.
Our children weren’t fortunate enough to get Raymond as a teacher. They do recall classroom learning on topics like informed voting and good government, but those memories are vague. It wasn’t until they got closer to voting age, they tell me, that the topic gained any relevance. But we talked enough around the dinner table that they never came to view individual freedom as more important than the personal safety of others.
Looking at curriculum notes for a current Ontario-based online civics course, I understand students explore issues like healthy schools, community planning, environmental responsibility, and the influence of social media. They also work to develop an understanding of the role of civic engagement and of political processes in the local, national, and/ or global community.
Current Horton High School teacher Renata Verri has a great reputation due to her courses in global geography and global history. Examining economic disparity, societal change and geo-political power involves learning multiple perspectives in her classroom. Her students also learn to step up and volunteer in the community.
The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn, according to Alvin Toffler, who wrote Future Shock back in 1970.
Many at the occupation in Ottawa had not learned fact from fantasy. Social media had a big role to play in the misinformation that fed the socalled protests.
Writing in the Globe and Mail last week, former Supreme Court Chief
Justice Beverley McLachlin said: “As we move forward from the pandemic into the future, we need to understand the true nature of freedom under our Constitution.”
Government has to be accountable, McLachlin explained, in terms of what is reasonable in a free and democratic society. But if the citizenry doesn’t know how government works and what level of government has responsibility for say — housing or foreign affairs — tempers will flare.
Around the time of the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre declared that the secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. We have certainly observed the tyrant Putin suppressing the truth in his ill-advised invasion of Ukraine.
On the provincial front, Stephen MacNeil’s government acted without consultation in 2018 on a report that called for the end of elected school boards. As legal expert Wayne MacKay said that while the decision to centralize power could have been taken more democratically, government acted on its right to do so. That kind of imperious action, no doubt, led to a change in government last year.
That kind of action, and others, I am also sure led to teachable moments in classrooms across the province. Another occurred last October when the new PC government announced plans for a fixed July date for provincial elections. Many were not impressed by a mandate for summer voting.
There have been several challenges to the voting age of 18 that we have in Canada, and late last year, NDP MP Taylor Bachrach, from British Columbia, tabled a private member’s bill in the House of Commons hoping to extend the voting franchise to 16-year-olds. Young Canadians certainly have a huge political stake in the future of Canada’s climate action. They need to be empowered and engaged.
Many at the occupation in Ottawa had not learned fact from fantasy. Social media had a big role to play in the misinformation that fed the socalled protests.