Just click on the audio button below to listen to the five-minute podcast.

Just click the audio button below to listen to the five-minute podcast.

Say what you like about globalization and free trade, for our communities such supposed advantages left them with fewer options. When prospects like the potential Canada/Europe Free Trade Agreement, for all of its advantages, mean that we might not even be able to use our own local labourers to construct our buildings, then an even more difficult era for local communities is in the offing. We never did get the deal we had hoped for – an odd result, given that 80% of our population now lives in towns or cities.

The longer someone stays in politics, the more remote they become from their home constituencies. The throb of political life these days occurs at the centres of power, not in our scattered communities. The farther away power gets from those places where we live, the more irrelevant it becomes – a natural consequence. Colonial America had to deal with a British government that was centred across an ocean. In Canada, it feels like a similar chasm exists between Ottawa, even our provincial capitals, and our home communities. It’s time we fought for some recognition.

We might very well be walking the road to greater independence of our respective communities if the more senior levels of government don’t stop treating them like distant cousins. None of us wants this. We would prefer a place at the table, maybe even some constitutional reform that would recognize that some 80% of Canadians now live in cities and it’s time that reality took on deeper resonance in our form of federalism

A surprising call from a Conservative MP out West. Political theatre that is becoming increasingly remote. A partisanship that cripples our democratic estate. Yet despite such realities, Canadian communities, like those American ones just prior to the American Revolution, are teeming with new ideas for arresting their decline. Some of the brightest lights of democracy are working at local levels, below the radar screen of most media, but paving a path forward for how our communities can become more inclusive, diversified, and, yes, prosperous.

it becomes an increasing difficult reality when more senior levels of government swoop into our communities during campaign seasons in hopes of securing our votes, then disappearing back to their capitals as though we didn’t factor into their policies. Prior to America’s early Revolution, the home government in England continued to manipulate the activities of the various colonies, making them more difficult to govern. Sometimes they only thing you can do is fight back, or ask for a seat the table.

Desperate times cause politicians to do desperate things. It’s tough enough for our communities to face difficult times, but when we take on the process of undermining our efforts at building for the future by attacking one another, then there is no hope for rebuilding. Being at the receiving end of government dysfunction doesn’t mean we have to adopt the politics of negativity to succeed.

Emerging entities – globalization, mass culture, the transcendence of money over meaning – have arisen in recent years to lay something of a choke hold on citizens and their ability to come together for greater purposes. Despite impressive efforts by communities and citizen groups, more of a critical mass needs to be developed that can tackle these global forces head-on and fight for our respective communities.

Communities are feeling increasingly abandoned. Funding formulas among senior levels of governments have left our cities and regions on the outside looking in. But the effects of poor policy and an under-performing economy have left communities themselves bearing the overall brunt of such performances.

London, Ontario is going through a significant city engagement process titled ReThink London and so far some 10,000 citizens have taken part – pretty impressive stuff. My new book – Studies in Community Engagement – is dedicated to John Fleming and his staff in the Planning Division of the City for putting together such a great ReThink enterprise. You’ll hear the dedication in this introduction to the book. Just click on the player below to listen to both the dedication and the introduction. Both together last about five minutes.