Thank you so very much.
We in Calgary wish to influence the spirit of 2017 by example, by giving gifts to Canada. What we are is a group of people who are completely unauthorized by anybody other than ourselves. A couple of us are retired and are able to give two or three days a week. There are others who are still in business and give less time but still significantly. We've raised some money. We have an office courtesy of the chamber of commerce. We have a part-time staff. We have glowing relationships and the beginning of what we think will be examples--both good and unsuccessful--for the rest of the country should people wish to build off them. We also, as I said, want to give gifts.
The framing we're proposing, at least for ourselves--and we hope it will be picked up in some version nationally for 2017--is that it's Canada's birthday. We will all be there. What gifts are we bringing? What does the nation need? It's our opportunity to offer leadership from wherever we are, whoever we are, to the nation. That means there will be all kinds of projects and all kinds of perspectives and points of view. But that's what we hope to influence, that spirit.
I think it's self-evident that we as human beings care about that which we help create. We had an unfortunate example of the reverse, to my mind, at least, in Alberta's centenary a few years ago. That anniversary was very much top down. The province, the provincial government, essentially threw a party and invited the citizens. It was flat. It was small. It was not generative. It's really not remembered.
I should just pause for a second and say that's the only example I know of Alberta ever getting it wrong in public policy. I thought I'd allow at least a moment of humility.
So having learned from being tangentially involved in that centenary, I and others are even more convinced that this needs to be something that activates citizens broadly and activates what might be unrealized leadership in the country. I can come back to that.
So we have this small organization. We have growing relationships, and I'll give you some examples of some of those relationships. We want to understand better as a city where we've come from since 1967, where we are now, and where we aspire to go. We intend to do that not simply by phone surveys but through conversation, through living research. The University of Calgary is working with us to undertake that. We have a website that really at the moment is very rudimentary. It allows people to post their wish for Canada, but it isn't iterative. It doesn't do what the website will eventually do, which is to be an aggregator, where people can post what they're doing, connect with somebody doing something similar elsewhere in the nation, be encouraged, and learn from each other.
To get to that next level of website, we're in close conversation with one of the major newspaper chains, the deal being that they're prepared--and they are so far--to do this as a gift, not as a proprietary project of their own but rather it's their gift to Canada. That's in the spirit of what we're speaking to.
There are all kinds of small projects being talked about. This one actually is not in Calgary, but I was in conversation two days ago with a high school teacher from Quebec, and he was observing that the students coming in now will be graduating in 2017. He is dead keen on how he can, with his colleagues, put together an ark for those students, so that when they graduate in 2017 there's something special about their connection to the sesquicentennial, to Canada, something particular about how they are engaged. Again, it's very early. It's unclear yet what that will be, but it's that thinking, that here's an opportunity.
I was speaking about other forms of leadership. Again, when I speak to these different organizations or individuals, I'm in no way committing them. We're in conversations and its very early days. But the Canadian chambers of commerce and the chambers of commerce in the various locales can step forward to offer a leadership role--ours in Calgary already is--in thinking through what kind of community, municipality, city, province, or country we wish to have. Do well for the chamber by doing good for others.
There are various faith communities. I'm in conversation with Cardus and with some Ismaili associations, and there are many others, too, that have networks across the country that have a care for who will be coming from a faith perspective and could be offering greater leadership.
There are all the organizations that are perhaps renewing themselves, one example being 4-H, and their early conversation—again I'm not committing them but simply to note it—was that perhaps they could organize the nation's biggest student exchange: all the grade 9s in the country going and living somewhere else. Or perhaps we can actively be tourism commissions to mediate the biggest home exchange—not home invasion—in the country. For younger people, perhaps it could be a couch sort of thing. But it's to really put out in 2017 a plan to visit some part of the nation you've never been to before, and to do so according to your means. There are all kinds of possible alliances.
I believe the federal government can play a number of useful roles. One of them is as an information source, as an accumulator of ideas and opportunities. Another one is to facilitate the CRA regulations so that if chapters of imagiNation 150, or whatever their formation might be, pop up in different cities, they can get to a place where they offer tax receipts more quickly. That can be a very sticky process.
I'm sure there will be thousands of projects that are most appropriate for some kind of public money. In our case, we do not want it, and we don't want it for a couple of reasons. One of them is because we really believe in the notion that this is an opportunity to animate citizens outside of government, not in opposition but outside of government. Part of it is that we hope to reframe some of the political conversation we have now, not toward what is government going to do for me, and will you fix my pothole or repair my tax bill, but rather that we as citizens more frequently ask the question, what can we, Madam Mayor, Mr. MP, do to facilitate you being the best public policy maker that's possible for all of us? In other words, trying to turn that conversation from government as a service to government as ours. If we're going to be part of that advocacy, then we shouldn't be recipients of public money. But there are all kinds of projects, from war memorials to field houses, to concert halls, to student exchanges, that would be very appropriate for consideration in that regard.
Other networks that I think we might be able to activate are the Orders of Canada. We've had conversations with a number of Order of Canada recipients, and I think they will all tell you that of course they're deeply honoured to be recognized, but nothing is ever asked of them once they've been recognized. This may be a very appropriate way of engaging recipients of the Order of Canada.
I've had some conversations with past Governors General and with current Lieutenant Governors, and there are roles that could be played there in their unique position within our structures of government.
There's much more, but I thought that would be at least a beginning.
Thank you so much for inviting me here. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Thank you.