Winston Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time….”
One of democracy’s weaknesses is that 90 per cent of the people tend not to get involved 90 per cent of the time.
For example, Clearwater town council can go for months or even years with no more than a handful of members of the public attending its meetings. Then some issue comes up, people get excited, and the meeting room if filled.
Almost guaranteed is that sometime during the emotion filled meeting that follows, someone will angrily ask council, “Why aren’t you listening to the people?”
Well, most members of town council would like nothing better than to listen to the people. Unfortunately, if the public is staying home on their couch, watching TV, it’s pretty hard for any politician to know what they want.
What do people expect them to be? Mind-readers?
The recent furore about renovations to Avola’s old log schoolhouse is another example of the process.
No doubt Willow MacDonald, the Thompson-Nicola Regional District director for Blue River and Avola, plus the other members of the Thompson Headwaters services committee thought they had been doing a pretty good job putting together a plan for the building and letting people know about it.
No doubt, generally, few or no members of the public attend their meetings. Then they do something some people don’t like and the next thing they know the meeting room is full and people are asking, “Why don’t you listen to the people?”
There is another local organization that, in its way, is just as important as local or regional government, and that is the Wells Gray Community Forest.
It’s been going for about seven years now and, for the past few years, has been reliably producing about $200,000 per year in grants for worthy local causes.
Multiply that by the dollars paid to logging and silviculture contractors (many of them local) over the years, and the immediate economic impact of the community forest is obvious.
Not so obvious is the longterm impact of initiatives by the community forest such as the workshops on non-timber forest products it put on.
We’ve had some outstanding executives working for the major forest companies locally over the years, but it is hard to imagine even the most progressive of them putting in money to support looking at the market potential of devil’s club, blueberries and pine mushrooms.
Wells Gray Community Forest recently held its annual general meeting. Nearly all who attended were involved already in some way – only a few were members of the general public.
There wasn’t much exciting to report, either, mostly because those involved continue to do a good job.
That doesn’t mean we should take the community forest for granted, any more than we should take the municipality or the regional district for granted.
Members of the Wells Gray Community Forest advisory group are quite often at the Clearwater Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. Take a moment to look at their display, read their brochures, and have a talk with them.
Wells Gray Community Forest belongs to the residents of Clearwater and Wells Gray Country. All of us therefore should take our responsibilities as owners seriously.
