The Rural Voice, 1991-06, Page 10Ao•
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6 THE RURAL VOICE
WHO WILL END
ALL THE WHINING?
Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher
and playwright who lives near Blyth,
is the originator and publisher of The
Rural Voice.
A group of us were sitting around a
table at a conference on rural develop-
ment discussing how hard it is to get
the volunteers needed to run our rural
society these days. We were all peo-
ple who had spent a lot of hours vol-
unteering for things in our community
for free so there was an edge of bitter-
ness in the conversation when some-
one mentioned how there are two
classes of community service these
days: the people who still do things
for for free and the growing number of
people who serve on everything from
municipal committees to hospital
boards who feel they should be com-
pensated for their efforts.
"It's not that you feel you need
money to do good things for the com-
munity," somebody said, "but after a
while you just start wondering if
you're a sucker." I think that's what
may be affecting this country today:
the fear on people's parts that they've
been played for suckers by committing
to something, while other people go
on their merry way not caring for any-
body but themselves.
There are a lot of people question-
ing whether they should sacrifice their
own time or money for the good of the
community or the country these days.
The mood is affecting the country in a
major way just in the battle over na-
tional unity. Canadians spent nearly
30 years battling to make this country
work. Canadians outside Quebec, for
the most part, accepted bilingualism,
even flocked to enroll their kids in
French immersion schools.
But when the Quebec government
overruled the Supreme Court decision
and declared only French could be
used on signs, even though it over-
ruled the rights of non -French Que-
becers, a lot of people felt they'd been
play for suckers for 30 years.
We had a family reunion last
weekend and I got caught between
two brothers-in-law discussing the
wonderful savings to be had by going
across the border to shop. One, who
lives in the Windsor area and shops
regularly in Detroit, is a school teacher
looking ahead a few years to early
retirement. The other is a Bell Canada
employee who has more than 20 years
experience so is not going to be suffer-
ing financially.
Neither of these men felt the least
bit guilty about undermining the very
economy that helps them live so well.
They share with thousands of others
the feeling that they've been played
for suckers by the system, having to
pay too much of their incomes for
taxes and the things they want. They
look at the Americans and see lower
prices and figure that's what they have
a right to also.
It's the same kind of attitude that
has consumers resenting the supply
management system that helps farm-
ers earn a living instead of going
broke. If milk is cheaper in Buffalo
or turkeys in Detroit, people never
think that perhaps all is not what it
seems on the other side of the border,
they only think they're being cheated
because it isn't the same here.
The biggest challenge facing the
leaders of this country is restoring a
sense of relativity into people's lives.
Whoever's to blame — ranking poli-
ticians, the media, consumer groups,
unions, or all of the above — we have
come to feel so sorry for ourselves
that we can't see how fortunate we
are. We have blinded ourselves to the
fact we are the envy of most of the
people of the world. We have be-
come wimpy whiners, like the kid
who has a sandbox full of toys but
cries because a kid has one toy out
there and he wants it. We're afraid to
ever get caught giving more than we
might get back. We're a sick country
that's going to die if somebody
doesn't get us to stop feeling sorry for
ourselves.0