Private interest; Public will.
1. The
Canada Food Guide has been revised toward encouraging consumption of
plant vs. animal protein. The beef and dairy industries are protesting,
saying this will hurt their industry and their workers’
livelihoods, and argue in their defense that absorption of Vitamin
B12 from lentils as opposed to from meat and dairy is a health
problem.
2. Albertans
are rallying in support of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline, urging the
federal government to “build that pipe,” its arguments including
the substantial blow inflicted on the Alberta economy by current
realities in the oil marketplace, the loss of jobs and revenue, and
asserting that it is a Canadian, not an Alberta dilemma so the
federal government must act.
3. A group
of physicians are lobbying for an exception in Medical Assistance
in Dying legislation that would allow physicians to refuse giving
such assistance (or referring patients to doctors who would be
willing) for conscience reasons. (Echoes of an earlier clash of
values during woman’s- choice/right-to-life conflicting views.)
4. Although
largely settled now, the inclusion of a Christian prayer in a public
school classroom was discontinued in response to arguments of
church/state separation and a rights argument, i.e. that all faith
and non-faith persons need to have a home in public education
institutions.
5. Although
seemingly absurd, would those who made their living by selling weed
in back alleys have a legitimate complaint to make about the
legalizing of pot and its negative effect on their livelihoods?
Coming back from three years abroad in
voluntary service for my church in 1989, I was experiencing months of
frustration trying to find employment again in a saturated
public-education marketplace. It never occurred to me to carry a
placard insisting that the government solve my dilemma. On the
contrary, I accepted that my own choices, my own values, my own
ingenuity or lack thereof stood between me and satisfying employment
at the moment. I worked hard at refocusing my efforts and landed a
job-retraining position with the Alberta government. It turned out to
have been a good choice—gave me a rewarding ten years of work,
albeit with adjusted expectations.
This observation is not meant to be a
reiteration of the “when I was a kid, I had to walk five miles to
school and back, uphill both ways” story, nor do I mean it to
denigrate the anxiety felt by Albertans with no jobs, doctors with
convictions that clash with the public majority, people who believe
that public schools in Canada are bound to uphold a Christian
viewpoint, and not pot-smuggling/retailing gangs. It’s not about
“tsk, tsk, kids these days.”
What it is about is finding the right
balance between the application of the majority public will over
against the significant individual needs and wishes of minority
groups and individuals. We suck at this, some would say; just watch
the news with this thought in mind and you’re bound to agree.
Some days I think it’s impossible to
find a “smooth politic,” a way of living together that prevents
the public will’si
invariably raising outrage in one or the other of its scattered
pockets and sub cultures. On other days, I compare what we have
achieved to what has historically been the case and what we see in
other places in the world and I conclude that our national
tranquility has found a level that’s probably “as good as it
gets.”
Perhaps the problems we see in the
news are being viewed dimly, as in a mirror (to channel the Apostle
Paul) and we need a refresher course on the basics of governance,
particularly on the impulses that led us to believe that everyone
should have an equal input into our choice of leadership and that
that theoretically leads to “the greatest good for the greatest
number.” (And—importantly—when our choice of leadership proves
to have been mistaken, we can peacefully show them the door at the
next election.) Perhaps its not the basics of our governance that
are faulty, but rather the degree of our indignation at and response
to choices that respond to the public will, but not to our individual
preferences.
It’s always been the case: we as
citizens have had to adapt in our individual lives to circumstances
not of our choosing or preference. The option to live lives not
contingent in every respect upon the public will is safeguarded by
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; if you want your child
definitely to begin every school day with the Lord’s Prayer, you
are allowed to innovate by getting together with the like-minded and
establishing a school where that happens. The protest that everyone
in the country ought to intone the Lord’s Prayer is misplaced; the
very aspect of the public will that defends atheist’s right not
to recite the Lord’s Prayer guarantees another individual’s right
to do so. How could it do better than that?
Are the Alberta protests really cries
of lament more than the expressed indignation of a people wronged? Is
it the reality that adding another fossil-fuel pipeline is a
rearranging of the deck chairs on a sinking ship and the sorrow that
accompanies such a doomed task? Is the anger and frustration being
directed at the federal government because no other “distant”
cause comes to mind and self-blame is not on? Is Alberta in a retool
and innovate mode as it will undoubtedly have to be?
And you ranch and dairy corporations
and individuals, do you really expect governments to protect the
status quo indefinitely in a rapidly changing world where the very
environment is at stake, where healthcare consumes the greatest
portion of tax dollars? Are you really determined to defy the public
will in this, to refuse the challenges of innovation, of re-tooling,
of redirecting what you do and the way you do it? Are you planning to
force-feed the public your overstock of product if necessary?
Doctors of conscience, have you
considered your position as individuals and as a group if the
national public will determines that a physician acts in the
expressed interests of patients from birth through death, or forfeits
his/her license to practice? Is there any possibility of medicine
going the route of the private school or home schooling in order to
function effectively and legally as an enclave of dissenting values?
Are you planning for that likely eventuality?
And you back-alley drug pushers, have
you considered getting a job??
The public will in a democracy like
ours will always feel a bit like an insensitive juggernaut,
especially if you’re part of a minority on substantial issues. At
the same time, Canada has worked hard at making it possible for
minorities to succeed economically and to share basic human rights .
. . if not always successfully. Perhaps it’s time we all put down
our placards and began dialogues, took civics classes and generally,
determined how we live with our realities without abusing and
threatening each other.
iBy
“public will,” I mean as expressed in the democratically elected
leadership and the legislation and action coming out of that
leadership. In Canada today, there is no other legitimate definition
of “public will.”
