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Mike RobinsonCanada has a distinct culture of volunteer participation and governance.

Our culture is broadly accepting of diversity of gender, ethnicity, language, economic and political beliefs, sexual orientation and age. It is tolerant, basically polite, reverential of its heroes, committed of both wallet and mind, and it searches for creative solutions in times of need.

It is a radical thesis but it is shaped by 35 years of volunteer service on national boards in Canadian civil society. Let me explain why.

Canadians enjoy being with archetypal Canadians. We like to hear Newfoundlanders speak. We like their insular sense of humour. We know they think we are from ‘away,’ but they tolerate us with grace. They’ve taught us the outport culture of not being a ‘hard ticket,’ and sharing the work and the wealth.

We are challenged to differentiate among Prince Edward Islanders, Nova Scotians and New Brunswickers, but we make an effort to remember where Anne of Green Gables comes from, who the Irvings are, and what a Bluenoser is. We know one of these provinces has an Institute of Island Studies, one has St. Francis Xavier University, and one has the Bay of Fundy. We know these things because we’ve had a good public schooling. Most of us graduated with student loans, but not of the crippling kind.

Our education also taught us to celebrate our differences. We have accommodated all three founding nations: Indigenous Nations (themselves First Nations, Metis and Inuit), England and France, in the central homelands of Lower and Upper Canada, now Quebec and Ontario.

Today their individual and collective contributions to the arts and sciences are celebrated in institutions as varied as the Musee des Beaux Arts, the Canadian Museum of History, and the Perimeter Institute. The Montreal Jazz and Stratford festivals add music and drama to the mix.

The Prairies have contributed the historic experience of the Treaty First Nations, the market vagaries of the beef, potash and grain economies, the price-tormented oil patch, and the icy eastern slopes of the Rockies. Throw in long, cold, and unforgiving winters, and you have the recipe for what Wallace Stegner opined in his epic memoir Wolf Willow: “All that remained after the awful winter of 1906–1907 was the will to cooperate.”

British Columbia has a unique position in this analysis, in that the Rockies nearly fenced it off from Confederation, it is a continent away from Newfoundland, and its winters are among the mildest in Canada. Its environmental ethic is legendary, and its otherness often is apparent at board meetings. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it causes thought; kind of like having David Suzuki to dinner at every board meeting.

And then there is the splendid North – from the Labrador land of the Innu, to Nouvelle Quebec, Nunavut, the Inuvialuit and Dene homelands of the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon. John Parker, Commissioner of the Northwest Territories (1979–1989), used to describe it as “Canada’s backbone – from which the provinces are suspended like ribs.” In this sense, the North holds the whole show together. Northern board members often have this same function. By their presence, they lift up the discourse from the mundane, the provincial, and the urban to the national.

These are the distinct qualities of sharing, an educated understanding of diversity, accommodation, cooperation, thoughtfulness, and togetherness – the attributes I discern in Canadian volunteer boards after participating in literally hundreds of meetings over 35 years. Individually and collectively, they contribute to a national culture the world recognizes as Canadian.

None of the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, climate change denial, or lack of civility that Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. has championed would find a home in the face-to-face association of a Canadian board in civil society. How has Mr. Trump crafted victory from such dross?

Mike Robinson has been CEO of three Canadian NGOs: the Arctic Institute of North America, the Glenbow Museum and the Bill Reid Gallery. Mike has chaired the national boards of Friends of the Earth, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. In 2004, he became a Member of the Order of Canada.

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culture of volunteers

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