When will we come to our senses and seek a more consensual approach to problem solving?
Have you noticed that our ability to converse seems to becoming supplanted by a slavish devotion to argument and divisiveness? There is a letter in today’s local newspaper (Okanagan Saturday) from what appears to be a teacher. The letter is entitled The future of children in BC? (sic). There are at least eleven [11] questions asked starting with Why do we have the highest child poverty rate in Canada? They then range through what may be more akin to attack ad commentaries – questioning the Premier’s decision to send her child to a private school, the presence of special needs children in her (the teacher’s) classroom, the raises for senior bureaucrats, the support for mental health, the acceptance of corporate donations by the Liberal party, giving away parkland to industry, allowing fish-farming (the latter upsets her because a Norwegian scientist and pediatrician states that consuming Atlantic salmon is dangerous for pregnant mothers and children (sic)). Obviously this individual is upset about something (or some things) but how does one have a conversation with someone so angry and, because she didn’t give her e-mail address, unapproachable? For example, if the scientist is correct does this explain why the Maritimes are not as economically self-sufficient? Because Atlantic salmon (which are of the trout family) are a mainstay of many a family’s diet in that region. And why does she not raise the fact that the reason we have classrooms filled with many people with diverse needs is because early generations of teachers were among those who claimed that segregated classrooms were unfair to children – that we all should grow up knowing and working with people of many abilities? She also doesn’t mention that many of us in an earlier generation actually attended schools with multiple grades in each classroom (sometimes all eight [8] of what is now the elementary/middle school span) and the age range was even more significant because some kids failed a grade or more and only were in school because the law said they couldn’t leave until they were sixteen (or had their grade ten [10] in some local instances). How can we find a real solution to today’s educational quandaries if we aren’t also willing to discuss how we fund all this?

If we are serious about wanting to improve our economic lot (so as to have more funds to pay for more services) then ought not we to also converse about how we can make more wealth? And if we want to have a better environment, ought not we to enter into conversation with ALL sectors who can help pay for that? It strikes me as the height of irony that the Aboriginal community seems overwhelmingly against pipelines through their territories and yet these same communities claim there are insufficient revenues for their own communities to even educate their children? Why is there no conversation about channelling resource transport revenues into education support? And note I am not, at this point, bringing up the debate about the INAC/AFM First Nations Education Act (that will be for another day).

We have so many opportunities today for full engagement of the community yet there seems to be more appetite for mud-slinging, paranoia, partisanship and pejorative attacking of our neighbour. Why can’t we have more straight-forward, reasonable conversation that actually seeks a solution – knowing from the outset, that each of us will have to give a little? It would be great if our national or provincial or even local governments would take the lead, but that may be too much to ask. So what are some first steps that we can take?