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December 3, 2004
CBC list makes one think
The greatest Canadians quietly contribute to society.
MARK WINSTON
Who is great, and what is greatness? The CBC's Greatest Canadian
project narrowed down the list of great ones to a top 10. Over the
past weeks, they cut that down to a single human being, the greatest
Canadian ever.
The winner, declared on Monday night, was Tommy Douglas, followed
by Terry Fox and Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Except the voting CBC viewers eliminated women, aboriginals and
most non-white Canadians except for Japanese-Canadian David Suzuki.
The list was heavy on scientists, prime ministers and hockey guys,
missing broad swatches of artists, comics, writers, thinkers, musicians
and, yes, even professors.
The list was flawed, and the countdown to the ultimate great one
had more in common with reality television shows like Survivor than
with reality. The roll of greatness says more about who watches
CBC and responds to polls than it does about who is great, but it
has served one useful purpose, to stimulate us to ponder the nature
of greatness in Canada.
My fallback position when pondering is to query the dictionary.
At least some members of the CBC list qualify lexiconically as great,
defined as "very large in size." All make the grade when
the definition is expanded into at least one of "powerful,
influential and distinguished."
Still, dictionary definitions are deceptive, tolerant of this embarrassingly
exclusive set of good old great boys. Each of these eminent Canadians
may be individually accomplished, but the collective group of 10
diminishes the inspirational potential of what greatness should
be about.
I've had the opportunity to approach greatness from a different
perspective, through my work in Simon Fraser University's undergraduate
semester in dialogue, as well as with Action Canada, a leadership
development program affiliated with the Morris Wosk Centre for Dialogue.
The undergraduate program uses dialogue to focus student education
on public issues and is designed to inspire students with a sense
of civic responsibility and encourage their passion to improve Canadian
society. Action Canada accepts up to 20 of Canada's best and brightest
young emerging leaders each year as fellows who join together in
a program focused on leadership development and the pursuit of public
policy projects of significance to Canada.
These two programs have generated my own list of great ones, and
inspired my mood about greatness to shift from cynicism about the
CBC to optimism that we are indeed a country blessed with greatness.
My growing sense of hope has emerged from moments populated by moving
examples of caring, courage, engagement and character – moments
that have revealed the everyday interactions between us that define
greatness in a healthier manner than the insipid CBC list.
One element of greatness emerged from an offhand comment made by
a student in the undergraduate semester. The dialogue that day had
veered vaguely into the great mysteries of human existence. Finally,
an impatient student, tired of our descent into intangible platitudes,
asked another student to define the meaning of life. Without missing
a beat, she responded, "The ultimate goal of living is to reduce
pain and suffering."
Indeed, the undergraduate semester students and the Action Canada
fellows are heavily represented by those whose actions present daily
testimonials to caring about others. Action Canada fellows include
a surgeon dedicated to improving aboriginal health care in Canada
and a gynecologist providing care for women in remote areas of the
Himalayas, a law clerk in the Supreme Court who is launching a micro-enterprise
project in Africa, a graduate student who organized a program to
donate residence food to Toronto's homeless and two of the initiators
of Engineers without Borders, among many examples of contributions.
Undergraduate semester students are not as far along in their career
pathways, but nonetheless are replete with volunteer accomplishments.
They can be found quietly assisting at shelters for battered women
and camps bringing together Palestinian and Jewish youth, toiling
in basements refurbishing computers for donation to impoverished
Canadians, serving as big sisters to juvenile prostitutes through
Youth Court, living in remote Latin American villages encouraging
local enterprise, and assisting in recreational programs for the
physically and mentally disabled.
Helping others may not be a uniquely Canadian contribution to greatness,
but I have been struck with a made-in-Canada ethic that applauds
accomplishment while diminishing focus on the accomplisher. A particularly
compelling insight into this side of Canadian greatness occurred
during the inaugural meeting with the first Action Canada cohort
of fellows.
A number of prominent Canadians from political, nongovernmental
organizations, aboriginal, academic and other spheres were asked
to come to dinner one evening and present short verbal essays about
their visions of leadership. Ed Broadbent, member of Parliament
and former leader of the New Democratic party, uncorked a message
that I've since had printed, framed and posted on my office wall:
"Real leaders want to do something, not to be somebody."
The lack of ego among many of the guest speakers in the undergraduate
semester and Action Canada has been palpable, expanding the concept
of greatness beyond accomplishment into character. I think, for
example, of Ken Lyotier, founder and director of United We Can,
a program in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside that describes itself
as a "street charity that means business." A bottle depot
for returnables provides jobs for 24 individuals, all with barriers
to re-entering the workforce, and to hundreds of bottle collectors
across the city. The crossroads and lanes program employs residents
to clean neighborhoods and public spaces, while the computer club
offers free computer and internet access to low-income residents.
Lyotier is remarkable not only for growing a simple concept into
a multi-million dollar enterprise generating income for the needy,
but more for his continued deflection of much-deserved attention
from himself onto his organization. He is almost invisible on their
website in spite of his central role and has declined numerous offers
to be nominated for prestigious awards.
I think also of George Harris, director of the Gulf Islands Film
and Television School (GIFTS), a residential media training program
located on Galiano Island. They offer intensive workshops and programs
in filmmaking for teens and young adults, inspired by a desire to
imbue students with confidence in their own creative visions and
to remove technological and financial barriers to media access.
It was only when he was hard-pressed by the undergraduate semester
students that Harris revealed the precipice of bankruptcy over which
his program teeters, supported primarily by his personal financial
donations that allow disadvantaged youth to explore their creative
potential.
A portrait of Canadian greatness has emerged from these and innumerable
other experiences with students and fellows, a picture represented
by quiet contributions and deflection of praise away from the doer
and onto the deed. These moments have produced glimpses of greatness
in the everyday, extraordinary accomplishments conducted without
fanfare or expectation of recognition on a CBC list of the great.
Modest Canadians may be less obvious than the heralded great ones,
but their stories of voluntary contributions, humble personalities
and unheralded deeds are compelling, and their diversity exhilarating.
True greatness is more readily and realistically rooted in the not-so-rich-and-famous
than among celebrities. If I were a public broadcaster, it is here
among the ordinary that I would begin building my list of greatest
Canadians.
Mark Winston is a professor and fellow at the Morris Wosk
Centre for Dialogue, and directs Simon Fraser University's undergraduate
semester in dialogue. This article was originally published in Simon
Fraser University News and is reprinted with permission.
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