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The Democratic Garden of Canada
People are like flowers in a garden. However, a garden with only one kind of flower, beautiful as it may be, would not be very satisfying. So would a society. Canada's multicultural mix is its beauty - and its strength. Each Province of Canada has its own floral balance. Our particular form of Democracy has created a Canadian Garden where the visitor finds delight in every corner.
Unfortunately our Political Gardeners have been spending too much energy trying to make their own flower beds more successful and 'better' than the others. The Head Gardeners at the Big Greenhouse are too concerned about their own image and reputation among Gardeners on the other side of our garden wall. All are forgetting how to make each individual flower in the Garden of Canada bloom to its best.
The Provinces are communities of people working together to produce pleasant societies in which to live. Each community is unique and special, and has something to contribute to the whole fabric of Canada.
It may be that the analogy of the Garden could be developed further. Flower beds need not always stay the same shape and size. Some beds could be divided differently. For instance a corner of the Dogwood Rose bed might be better suited to grow the Wild Rose, and perhaps an isolated bed in the north west corner of the Garden could be made a part of the Dogwood Rose bed. Since there are so few Prairie Lilies and Crocuses, perhaps they could go into one flower bed. It would certainly make these areas easier to tend.
In the eastern edge of the Garden four small beds buffeted by harsh sea breezes could be amalgamated and let their combined flowers enhance that whole area. What of the Fleur-de-Lys waving proudly on the banks of the stream that flows through a part of the original Garden? It could make that flower bed a very distinctive part of the whole Garden, and certainly a real attraction for visitors. No other Garden in the Neighbourhood has such a flower bed. Yet without the rest of the garden to act as a foil and complement it, this flower bed could lose its beautiful and unique quality.
At one time in less enlightened days, the Wildflowers that grew in the area long before the present garden was built, were weeded out, poisoned, or left to struggle to exist in small clumps in unwanted corners. Unwanted, that is, until the Gardeners felt they needed them for their own purposes. These Wildflowers should be allowed to grow independently and contribute their special beauty to the Garden - as Wildflowers, not, as some Gardeners tried to do, by forcing them into living as hybrids in the formal beds. Wildflowers have a unique quality, and are very much a product of the earth of the Garden. For example they should not have fertilizer dumped upon them. It destroys them. They only need the sustenance of the earth they spring from. But they must be given a recognized place in the Garden.
The best gardeners to have are those who have experience tending the individual flower beds. A flower bed responds to proper, interested care from its own Gardener. It is the beauty of each flower that in turn makes the Garden beautiful. Each flower bed should be self-sufficient, with a little help in bad weather from Gardeners of the neighbouring beds.
The Head Gardener's job is to look at the Garden as a whole, but he should not interfere with the flower beds in their day-to-day care. He may help to repair a wall to keep out vandals. In which case he may ask for contributions and labour. He should not take a large proportion of the money made from sales by the flower bed Gardeners, for unnecessary expenses.
So how could we reorganize our Garden of Canada as a Democratic Garden? One way would be to set up Canada as a true Confederation, the Commonwealth of Canada.
