-- Download Will 2011 Be the Year of Service With Integrity? as PDF --
“Honour House is a refuge, a place of unity and composure for Canadian Forces personnel, first responders and their families to stay while healing occurs.”
Think of all the people who selflessly serve our country and citizenry, often involving risking their lives. What is their healing worth to us when they suffer in the line of duty? And I’m not talking about Don Cherry building a career raging against what he feels to be the inferior Quebecois while hypocritically visiting the Vandoos, a Quebecois regiment in Afghanistan, over the Christmas break.
I have some small affinity with Romeo Dallaire and the emotional suffering he endured as Canada, the UN and the world abandoned Rwanda to its 1994 genocide. What kind of respect and commitment from Canadian society do our Canadian Forces personnel deserve when they encounter difficulties including PTSD, which is significant if not rampant in the Forces.
What kind of emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological and financial support do our first responders [police, fire fighters, ambulance paramedics] deserve when they encounter some of the most brutal circumstances humans endure.
Last night I watched a short clip from The Daily Show from a few weeks ago pointing out the hypocrisy of the US Republicans holding up financial support for health treatments for the 911 first responders suffering brutally ill health. This is just tragic, but sadly not very surprising. Canada’s treatment of our Forces personnel is less than dignifying as well.
Last night I also watched episodes 4.14 and 4.15 of the West Wing. They aired in February 2003 in a month when millions of people around the world protested the Republican invasion and occupation of Iraq, which was launched 6 weeks later, under cover of the lie that Saddam Hussein was connected to Osama bin Laden.
The episodes revolved around the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, humanitarian intervention and what the fictional president would do with his own Rwandan genocide. He stepped up, in case you missed the episodes.
This was also pretty much my final year teaching high school after some disturbing years of new educational policy by the BC Liberal government and Education Minister and Deputy Premier Christy Clark designed to undermine universal access to high quality education, part of the government’s multi-sectoral privatization agenda.
This was also a time when I was about to start a couple political science degrees culminating in my thesis on how Canada contributed to the Responsibilty to Protect doctrine, then demonstrated how to scuttle it with our participation in the kidnapping of Haitian President Aristide on 2.29.04, particularly galling after our contributions to restoring his presidency a decade earlier. Another contributing factor in the Haitian case is Canada’s neoliberal economic occupation of that struggling nation which has had economically crippling effects similar to the Duvalier eras. And I won’t even go into Canada’s shameful behaviour in Haiti since the earthquake almost a year ago.
February 2003 civil society exercises in democracy, my views of Romeo Dallaire and the preventable Haitian genocide and these poignant West Wing episodes contributed to my desire to explore the idealism of the responsibility to protect, to promote freedom from fear and want, and to enshrine human dignity as a core motivation on our planet and in BC. And sadly, exploring idealism is often matched with understanding how it falls short.
So today, so early in 2011, I think we all ought to reflect on what service means, what integrity looks like, what gratitude demands and how commitment to the human community calls us to act. Honour House is an important but nowhere near complete response to selfless sacrifice. It deserves our support. As does the One in a Million Fund and the Hire Canadian Military initiative, among other programs.
And the BC NDP and BC Liberal parties are spending the first few months of this year rebranding themselves. Service, integrity, gratitude, community and selflessness are appropriate benchmarks to consider when watching this process.
Will 2011 be the year of service with integrity?
I know as individuals we can support programs that have merit. We can also support political movements that reflect these benchmarks because if we do not demand commitment to high standards we will all accept an inferior society. And that would be our fault.
Let us lead by example and participate in society by acting with integrity and service to those in need, particularly those who selflessly serve us.
More from my site
March 13, 2014 How the Conservative Government Dishonours the Military
October 11, 2013 We Support The Veterans Transition Program
October 10, 2013 PTSD Update!
September 24, 2013 PTSD Service Dogs: Not Widely Known, But Critical
September 23, 2013 Medric Cousineau: Walking for PTSD Support
September 20, 2013 PTSD: Transitions Are Weighty
Stephen Elliott-Buckley
Latest posts by Stephen Elliott-Buckley (see all)
- Goodbye, Politics, Re-Spun! Hello, WePivot.net! - October 21, 2016
- Fixing the Cleveland I*****s Racist Team Name - October 19, 2016
- What the BC Premier’s Reconciliation Smells Like - October 18, 2016
There is not one lick of integrity, within the BC Liberal government. In all my many years, I have never seen, such blatant corruption. Campbell’s election lie, the BCR wasn’t for sale, was one of the dirtiest events, in BC history. The election lie, the HST wasn’t on Campbell and Hansen’s radar. The HST radar papers, were on Hansen’s desk, before the election. Those same radar papers, went to Harper, faster than the speed of light. Where are the hundreds of dollars, Campbell and Hansen said we would save,on the merits of the HST?? Oh well, they LIED AGAIN. The HST is costing the BC people hundreds of dollars more. The HST has forced, the small business community to close their doors. Because of Campbell’s corruption and lies, the people don’t even have enough for the basics of life. How in the hell, can we support any businesses? Because we know, BC is a province of natural resources, the HST does bugger all for the people. Besides which, BC’s HST goes, directly to Campbell’s best buddy Harper, as was colluded on, before the BC election. Canada is a huge morass of corruption and greed.Big business calls the shots. Politicians, are merely a figurehead. We have heard about Global Governance, from Harper’s, none stop preaching about it. Oh!! We must have Global governance. What in the hell for? Many of us have read about, the Bilderberg group. Mr. Harper, are they your Global Governance? Smells like it.
I’m afraid, what our first responders receive, are cutbacks. Canadians see a $1 billion fake lake. In BC, there is a, $495 million retractable stadium roof, that doesn’t work. Paramedics, get $2.00 per hour on standby. We see governing officials expenses, going through the roof. Ida Chong, a BC mla, ate her way through, $6,000 for her fine dining. That is more than, BC people have to spend, on their entire family, for food. Our Federal government, wastes our tax dollars. On top of that, our provincial governments thieve and misspend our tax dollars. The answer is, tax the people more. We citizen’s pay nine months of our years salary to, direct and indirect taxes. As we see going on, right now in some countries. When there are not enough people working to pay for, all of the corruption, country’s crash. Corruption, causes recessions.