Does Community Belief Trump Individual Freedom?

"Please consider the implications for all when legislation is enacted that overrides the deeply held beliefs of any faith community, and intrudes on its freedom to act in a way that is in accord with its principles of consciences," said Thomas Cardinal Collins.

"Why is a piece of provincial legislation being used to micromanage the naming of student clubs?" asked Thomas Cardinal Collins, Archbishop of Toronto.

I would suggest it's the Cardinal who needs to tread carefully.

The issue isn't the Province micromanaging the naming of student clubs; Minister Broten is trying to empower students to choose whatever name they feel suits them best.  Within the clubs, there would need to be consensus.  The issue here is the Church and Catholic Boards trying to micromanage the options of students to name clubs as they please.

Youth in Ontario are in a rebellious mood.  They are being told to expect diminished opportunities in the future while their present is being dictated to by well-heeled individuals and institutions.  They're being told to strain preparing for standardized tests, yet watching their parents, weaned on those tests, still stress out at work (if they have work).

Rightly, students are questioning whether the institutions of yore are designed to serve their best interests tomorrow.  When there is doubt, those institutions are finding themselves under tight scrutiny and even become the focus of protests.  As these institutions push back, the movement is gaining support from across society.

Across the board, the phrase of the day is "there's no money."  People are pushing government to spend less but, as the odd scandal or story of waste springs up, the demand is switching to efficiency.  give up the ideologies, policy-makers, start working together across the system and reduce duplication, gaps and overlaps.  More than once it's been asked if we should be funding this many school systems.

As young Ontarians try to claim their stake and all Ontarians start agitating for more streamlined, broadly representative services and an end to silo-based duplication, it's the Catholic Church that needs to consider the implications of their actions.

They can start by asking one simple question.  What would Jesus do?

A Canada Consciously Touched by Fire: A National Mental Health Strategy

Canada is about to get its first-ever national mental health strategy – a massive report that may persuade Prime Minister Stephen Harper that his government must return Ottawa to a lead role on health care.

Specifically, the blueprint wants federal and provincial governments to earmark nine per cent of their health spending for mental health – up from about seven per cent now.

Governments should also draw two percentage points more from their social spending envelope for mental health needs.

It will call for a reconfiguration of health care services so that patients have better access to mental health professionals, community support, better funding, and appropriate medication.

It will emphasize recovery from mental illness, and urge for more prevention, especially when dealing with young people.


It will also stress the high cost of inaction. Mental health problems cost the Canadian economy at least $50-billion a year.

 

People from all walks of life are seeking the same thing – a reason to connect, to trust others, to have faith in a promising tomorrow.  Right now, that’s a tall order, but like a diet, when it’s hardest is when the impact starts to be felt.  Best part - the animosity, the anxiety, the ethnic tensions and social tensions and economic tensions - when we look at them the right way, these are all issues related to the expression of states of mental health.

There are those of us who have a vision for a mentally healthy, Conscious Society that empowers individuals and strengthens the whole.  We have blueprints for action plans to reform, practically, our existing services system into a collaborative, digitally-based model.  

Given the lonely path we've chosen, you may ask - Why Should I Care?  You need to care because this isn't about diagnosisng more individuals with problems - it's about empowering our society, from the soldiers coming home from Afghanistan to the average, frustrated desk worker to be at their best and have access to the tools they need to stay at their best.  You need to care because mental health matters.

We can only realize our full, true potential (Canada's first, best destiny) if we learn from the Drummond Report, from this forthcoming national mental health strategy and other seeds that have been planted:

-         You can’t have effective services if they aren’t broad in scope and centrally coordinated.  This is especially true in healthcare, specialized collabiration is the way of the future.

-         Putting all your eggs in one basket – be it a single ideology or a single economic resource – is folly.  IDIC – evolution is about maximizing diversity, as is social evolution.  That’s why from Greek Hellenism to Canada’s multiculturalism, the best in human history has come through expansion and inclusion, not isolation or dominance.

-          When you look at others as lesser-thans, you cut yourself off from our collective potential.

-      Mental health is everything - how we think, what we ignore, what makes us angry and what inspires us are all functions of how our brain manages that information.  We can learn to manage it better.

If you want to go fast, go alone. 

If you want to go far –

Personally, I believe in the power of you and I.  Do you?