Since I've been asked... Part Two

If you want to have a say in how things unfold in your city, specifically regarding your schools, then you cannot take a 'stand back' approach. (The proof is right in front of us.)

You cannot vote in your trustees, invest in them the power to make the management decisions that need to be made, then stand back and don't play an active part in how those decisions are made and ultimately, implemented, and expect to be satisfied. (You can...but it's clearly more about naïveté than anything else.)

Moreover, you cannot hope to counter this paradigm within a feedback/consultation mechanism such as the ARC process, something 'owned' by the very people who 'aware-and-energized' in Hamilton are now furious with, whose heads they want on pikes, whose decisions and actions are now the stuff of (small-ish) mass protest.

Most people are content to 'hire' people (trustees) at the ballot box every four years and (passively) hope for the best. Actually, that's not true: most people don't even do this: less than 40% of eligible voters cast ballots in the last election. So the truth is actually this:

-Most people in Hamilton don't care about participating in how education in Hamilton unfolds. If they did, they'd have voted.

-Most of those who do vote for their trustee then remain on the sidelines over the four years.

-Some of these 'aware-and-energized' residents...such as those behind the 'We Need 3' initiative and the Facebook group 'S.O.S.'...get involved. They attend ARC meetings. They write op-eds for The Spec. They email relevant public officials. They try to rally support to ensure that a counterbalance is available to how the HWDSB proceeds.

But my guess is that, in the main, the 'aware-and-energized' in Hamilton amounts to less than 1%. This means that of the 400,000 people that you could classify as being 'potential participants' (excluding the young and the elderly), there are fewer than 4,000. (Honestly, I believe that 2,500 is being generous.)

75,000 people cast HWDSB trustee ballots. (Barely more than half of the number that voted for Mayor.) Of these, somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000 could be counted on to be 'aware-and-energized'.

How many people turned out to the ARC meetings across the city?

How many people were at the S.O.S. rally at 100 Main Street West yesterday afternoon/evening?

The truth is that we currently do not have a 'resident activism design' in place that could possibly allow for Hamiltonians to do anything more than complain and protest, nothing extant that demands of those-in-power genuine commiseration, consultancy and collaboration. And my feeling is that if we continue with this reality, we're going to be endlessly disappointed and forever effectively disenfranchised.

We need to change the design.

We need to change the paradigm.

We need to change the landscape.

There are entities in Hamilton who are organized. The Hamilton Civic League. The Council of Canadians. Environment Hamilton. Just three in a long list. And I salute their intentions, their initiatives, their efforts. But the problem with what amount to 'special interest groups' is that a) they represent those who have decided to show up, and b) every time a new 'cause' is focused on, their primary efforts are on generating momentum from within, hoping all the while that at some point along the way, 'the public' will get aboard and that train will arrive at 'Success'.

If we're talking about authentic, continual activism in Hamilton, these entities (and as I said, others too) need to be provided much better opportunities for success. More resources, more tools, more troops.

I believe in the basics. The fundamentals. In sports, in creativity, in relationships...in Life. So I believe that in order to mount a successful 'campaign', in order to get 5,000 names on a petition to review ward boundaries, in order to get 2,000 people out to a rally, you need to have the infrastructure that allows for such gestures to not be the gargantuan leaps of faith that they –seemingly– are.

The basic element of activism, of investment, of involvement, of engagement...is the resident. But most people generally don't act independently. Much more can be accomplished if they're part of something bigger. If there's cohesion, if there's commonality. People prefer structure, they prefer to feel a sense of belonging, that they're not wasting their time.

So in order for the average Hamiltonian to be active, to invest, to get involved, to be engaged, the building block almost certainly must be larger.

Residents need to feel part of their immediate streetscape. They need to feel pride-of-place. They need to feel like they're in a community. And once you've got momentum going here, then you're on your way to something that eventually allows for that change in design, in paradigm, that change in the governance landscape.

This is why I believe in neighbourhood associations (NAs.) being so vital. It's why I believe that an entrenched system of NAs across the city is the mechanism for actually preventing the frustrating situation that's been unfolding around the closings of schools. (Let me clarify here: I'm referring not so much to the prospect of closings as I am with the lack of ownership on the parts of residents where the realities of the closings is concerned. We don't own the facts. So really, how can most of us own a qualified opinion that goes beyond the emotional...?)

I believe in this notion so much that I've written a series of speculative pieces revolving around an interview with the Chair of the 'Federation of Hamilton Neighbourhood Associations'.

In 2022. 

Imagine if you will, if the Lower City had an NA in every neighbourhood, that there actually had been a Federation of Hamilton Neighbourhood Associations' in place a year ago when the first wave of awareness about the school closings (and the BOE relocation to the Upper City). Imagine these NAs being a force, being able to demand better information, and working with say, the Hamilton Civic League in putting on community meetings owned by residents, not by the HWDSB. Imagine how much more developed the dialogue would have been. Imagine a process where stonewalling would have been far, far less likely. 

Granted, this may not have prevented closings or the headquarters' move...but it surely would have prevented the increased feelings of frustration, of resignation and of cynicism that have run rampant, especially in 2012. 

We criticize our elected officials for 'not seeing the big picture'. We lament their inability to plan past the next few years. We decry their lack of vision. 

Well, don't you think that it's time we take a good, hard look at ourselves, at how we apportion our energies, how we 'see' our own governance at 71 and 100 Main Street West? We need to be visionary in our approach to dealing with issues. Not just the education one, or ward boundary reform, or AEGD. I believe that the importance of our approach goes well beyond the school closings and where the HWDSB headquarters are located. It has to do with the roles we're going to be playing in how our city is re-imagined. 

So; if we truly want to build a better Hamilton, I believe we need to start with the fundamentals. Let's get to building our neighbourhoods so we can better build our city. 

M Adrian Brassington