Build a Big Society

Build a Big Society

Description image by Nicholas Gafuik Managing Director of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy.
  • First Posted: Mar 02 2010 02:44 AM
  • Updated: over 1 year ago

Community, faith, and charitable groups - not big goverment - hold the key to solving the challenges ahead.

There is a school of thought that in good times people want to be left alone, but in times of economic downturn people want the safety of government action. Conservatives have no choice, so the argument goes, but to hike spending and hopefully peel it back when things improve. There is a better approach. Instead of asking: What is the government going to do for me? We should ask: What am I going to do for my neighbour?

By maximizing the space for the little platoons of society—charitable, faith, and community groups—Ottawa could open the door for Canadians to reengage in their communities and build a better Canada from the ground up. This is important for three reasons.

First, it is our responsibility to our neighbours. We don’t fulfill our obligations to one another simply by paying taxes; we should be a people who volunteer, vote, and donate to charity.

Second, by ignoring our obligations to one another we invite the state in. It should come as no surprise that the state provides for social needs when they go ignored elsewhere. This problem is exacerbated because state intervention crowds out private initiative.

Finally, civically engaged communities are a precondition for improving economic conditions, not a side effect. Researchers looking at education, poverty, unemployment, criminality, drug abuse, and health have discovered better outcomes in civically engaged communities.

The left is for big government. Conservatives across Canada should be for a big society, because we believe that we have a responsibility to one another that cannot be replaced by government programs, that we are capable of common decency without instruction from government authority, and that strong social institutions are the best providers of social goods.

TAGS: Politics

Comments

Re:Marks

rules of engagement

Dear Nicholas, As a Québécois, I would not have chosen the same vocabulary that you used in this post. Yet, I must say that I agree with most of what you are arguing. There is an urgent need for people to be more engaged in their community and to take responsibility for the way the country is evolving. We need to start talking more about individual responsibility. Thanks.

Michel Gagnon

The problem with ALL faith and charity groups is that they usually come wth very destructive strings attached. Yes the Alliance Fellowship will feed you,but first you have to be born again. Yes the Catholic Church will house you, but not if you are gay. Yes the Baptists will educate you, but first you have to give up your langauage and culture. The Manning Centre for Building Democracy restricts democracy to the religious conservative type of democracy. It goes on and on. The Big Society Mr Gafiuk talks about is a plot to use religion to bring power and influence to a few bigoted men, mostly older white ones.

Ian Cochran

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