Please note…
The series, “13 Things You Can do to Kill Your Community,”
is a set of satirical open letters by
Doug Griffiths
which appeared as individual weekly contributions to
The Wainwright EDGE
during the spring and summer of 2005.
The series is not intended to be taken as instruction
for actually harming your community; rather its critical aim is to
increase awareness of everyday things we may not
recognize as being detrimental to our community.
13 Things You Can Do to Kill Your Community
by Doug Griffiths, MLA
Battle River - Wainwright
Introduction
I have invested a great deal of time and energy traveling this province discussing what needs to be done by all levels of government and communities to ensure the future of our rural communities.
I reiterate that the success of rural development is partially the responsibility of the federal, provincial, and municipal governments. As governments we must ensure that the foundation is there for success to be achieved, and we must be active and aggressive partners in the initiatives that communities undertake to build and grow in the future.
No success will occur, however, unless the plan and the initiative come from each community itself. I, as an MLA, cannot walk into a community, any community, and tell it how to be successful regardless of the plan I have or the money that accompanies it. This is primarily because without community buy-in, without community spirit and desire, without passion from the community to survive, the plan is doomed to failure. The community knows best its own strengths and weaknesses, its competitive advantages and disadvantages and how it could capitalize on, or mend, each for success. Or, in short, a community’s success will be determined more by its people and their determination to succeed than anything else.
I have, in my travels, made an interesting observation. As a teacher, when I asked young people what they could do to ensure a good life they responded with comments like: I would get a good job, I would marry someone I love, I would buy a nice house, I would finish school, and so on. That is pretty straightforward stuff, and I’m sure any young person would provide similar answers. When asked what they would do if they wanted to deliberately ruin their lives, however, and they responded: I would probably become a drug addict, I would probably get someone pregnant or get pregnant before I was married, I would fail out of school, and so on. Then ask them what they would do today to travel down that road to failure and they would immediately realize that some of their current actions were leading them down that path, though they had failed to see it. On drugs; they would say they would start smoking dope and some student would blush because they had. On pregnancy; they would say they would be having sex and some student would blush because they had, or had come close. On failing out of school; they would respond that they would fail some of their classes now and some student would blush because they were.
The point is that some of the best intentions we have, our dreams and hopes, are often shattered by things we do today that we don’t realize we are even doing. With that in mind I wrote up a list of 13 things that you can do to kill your community. It is not meant to be a list of things that you should deliberately do, but rather a list of things that you or community members may be doing that are directly having negative consequences on your community and its future. If you are doing these things, you are harming your community’s future. I will be writing about one item off the list each week and explaining how harmful it is to you and your community.
The Series
- Ensure a Poor Quality of Water
- Ensure New Businesses are Not Enticed
- Relegate Youth to the Sidelines
- Needs and Opportunities
- Don’t Give a Reason to Shop Local
- Don’t Paint
- Don’t Cooperate
- Don’t Include Seniors
- It’s All About the Attitude
- Be Short-Sighted
- Keep Outsiders and Immigrants Out
- Don’t Take Risks
- Don’t Take Responsibility
