For me, the turn of the year is often a time for reflection. The long, dark days, the damp weather, and the end of our cropping season all help to bring on sense of taking stock of the past year – the gains, the losses, the lessons, and a little forward planning for the future. 

When I think of 2024, Charles Dickens’ famous quote from A Tale of Two Cities comes to mind: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
OK, that quote might be a bit dramatic, but I still like it. 2024 did bring its share of struggles and lessons, but also hope, resilience, and gratitude. One of the things that has been on my mind a lot through the year is my community. This is partly due to some flags and a sign that have sprung up in my area that have made me angry and broken my heart a little. It is also partly due to the kindness and grace I see in action every day in this same rural Ontario community.

One of the flags that flies most days in Wingham directly attacks one of our local council members by name. I have known this council member first through our farming business, but also as a steady community volunteer. He coached and reffed my kids in soccer and has devoted more hours for community service than I will ever know. He has stepped up to take on a role in local government in a way that most people never do. It is a job that takes courage, patience, and the ability to act in the best interests of the community, regardless of one’s own feelings. It also requires the ability to make very tough decisions that will never please everyone. 

My experience fielding questions at our local All Candidates meeting ahead of the last municipal election, revealed the electorate had little understanding of the function of local government. People were woefully unaware of where local government has power or ability to make decisions, and where they don’t, holding “the government” to blame for general dissatisfaction in life. 
There is much room for improvement at all levels of government, however we take for granted the courage it takes to step up and serve society as a politician. It is easy to become cynical about it, but the reality is that politicians always walk the fine line between making decisions that are needed but unpopular and making decisions that help them get re-elected. Attacking our elected officials in these ways further reduces the number of qualified people that would be willing to take on these roles. 

On top of the disappointing flag in Wingham, there is a sign near Goderich directly attacking both federal politicians and immigrants. I heard the man who painted the sign interviewed on the news where he claimed that “white men built this country.” Interesting comment. Setting aside biological ignorance, it does not take a very deep dive into history to realize that all “white men” are immigrants to North America, and that a lot of non-white people have given their lives to build this country too.
Our famous railroad that connects us East to West is notorious for the way lives were considered dispensable based on skin colour. The Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial in Toronto, near the Rogers Centre, was constructed to remind people of the contribution Chinese workers made to constructing the railroad that brought British Columbia into Confederation. Not only did thousands of these men die building the railroad, but they were paid less than half of white workers. After construction was finished, they were discarded with no way to return home. But have a look, were any of them pictured in the famous photos of the last spike? 

I don’t know if this Goderich man has tried to employ people but, from my experience trying to hire people to work in a pig barn, without new immigrants and temporary foreign workers, a lot of local businesses would grind to a halt. Has he needed health care? Or eaten in a restaurant? A quick study of a population pyramid for Canada, especially in rural areas like Huron County shows that we need immigrants to work as much as they need jobs. 

We might all benefit from taking some time to read Carol Off’s new book – At a Loss for Words. Conversation in an Age of Rage. In it, Off uses her experience gained from 25,000 interviews spanning 15 years in radio to get curious about six words: freedom, democracy, truth, woke, choice, and taxes. She explores how the meaning and impact of those six words is changing and what it means for us as a society. “If our language doesn’t have a means to express an idea, then the idea itself is gone—even the range of thought is diminished,” she writes.  

As much as I was disheartened by the flags and the sign in my community last year, I am hopeful that kindness and grace will prevail. In a society that is becoming more complex every day, it is crucial that we remember we are all in this together. The hard work comes from finding better ways of communicating and understanding each other to keep our communities working together and moving forward in a positive direction.  ◊