Where best to serve the common good - Calgary Herald

March 20th, 2006

At the public town hall session of the seventh annual LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture held March 11 at Artspace, about 100 citizens gathered to discuss the core issues framed by George Elliott Clarke in his Friday evening lecture, entitled City of Justice. 

Out of these round-tables emerged several themes which centred on the role of citizens in preserving the public good. 

As John Ralston Saul pointed out in his opening comments at the town hall, this notion of common weal in large measure originated for Canada in the 1848 francophone-anglophone pact authored by LaFontaine and Baldwin. Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin were lawyers from Montreal and Toronto who formed a government in 1842 that fused French- and English-Canadian reforms, and in 1848, achieved responsible government in what might be termed proto-Canada. 

Their championing of responsible government set the stage for the Canadian traditions of public administration, common law, the development of municipalities, public schools and universities. 

Saturday’s round-tables struggled with the reality that much of what LaFontaine and Baldwin achieved in government is in fact maintained by non-governmental organizations today. Participants questioned whether our NGO labours are deleterious to the role of public government. 

For instance, should nongovernmental food banks deal with the community issues of urban hunger and neglect? Or are they properly the responsibility of the governments we elect to maintain the common good? Several participants pointed out that to the degree the NGO food banks are successful, the government is let off the hook. 

Would it not make more sense to follow the markers laid out by LaFontaine and Baldwin, and clearly define the duties of government on the one hand and NGOs on the other? Does the blending of duties among NGOs in civil society and government ministries achieve a better end than just the efforts of one sector? 

Or do they just muddy the waters of the declared responsibilities of the public sector in the realm of maintenance of peace, order and good government?  

A further consideration in this debate is the degree to which bright young people with opportunities sign up for NGO employment instead of government work. Canada has a very strong tradition of recruiting young graduates into the NGO workforce in faithbased communities, environmental groups, social service agencies and international development organizations. 

A young PhD working for the David Suzuki Foundation as an advocate is a young PhD not employed by a government department to prepare public policy. One must ask, “Where is the common good better served?” 

Ultimately, the answer must be given by the individual, but we all must reckon with herd instinct as well. Once again, the LaFontaine-Baldwin model argues for the primary concentration of talent in the realm of government service. 

The same arguments apply to running for public office. Does the elected politician not truly control the levers of state power? What is the point of the best and the brightest avoiding public elected office? Should they not be eagerly contesting the ballot and advocating the best interests of us all? 

Would LaFontaine and Baldwin have signed up as executive directors of NGOs instead of pursing public office? Of course not. In fact, they would probably view the NGO elites as courtiers and courtesans; people who curried the favour of the elected in order to gain influence and prestige. 

So ultimately we must, as Canadians, think carefully about where power truly lies, and what institutions best convey the common good that most of us aspire to share with one another. 

As a person who has spent 20 years leading NGOs, I am forced by the example of La-Fontaine and Baldwin to question the role of service and advocacy outside of the democratic institutions they promoted in 1848, some 158 years ago. In Saul’s words: 

“The line from them to us, tonight in Calgary, is now the unbroken thread of one of the world’s oldest continuous democracies. Unbroken, remarkable, yet unfulfilled, as any healthy organization must be.” 

Where best to be a citizen is the question we must ask in the cause of fulfilling our national dream. There are many roles for us to play, and all of them involve choice. 

Informing that choice is the first duty of the citizen. We do that by exercising doubt, common sense, moral balance, creativity and imagination.

And by harnessing our values to our work. Come to think of it, that is just why I work at the Glenbow! MICHAEL ROBINSON FOR THE CALGARY HERALD MIKE ROBINSON IS CEO OF GLENBOW MUSEUM