-
- "IF THE SHOE FITS"
by
Tim Wees
This orginally was a letter to the mayor of one of Canada's cities. It was
a communication sent off this past summer. It feels like it was a communication that could
have been sent to any mayor anywhere in Canada, and so with some judicious editing it is
thus ...
You are the mayor of one of the finest cities in Canada attempting, I am sure, to chart a
course for the development of our society that will take us into a healthy future, one
whose citizens are able to walk out into the day with a smile and ready to do what it
takes to make a success of themselves and their city.
At this point in time, I am one of those citizens. You could call me a wandering minstrel,
which in fact I am. I play music on the street for the people. I do this to earn my keep.
I have not been one to become isolated in any particular social class or pegged in any
particular slot in the system. Some might say that this is the mark of a rebel, a loose
cannon, who, not having sworn allegiance to any particular social dogma, is unpredictable
and should therefore not be given a listening. Well, Mr. Mayor, I am requesting a
listening, if I may be so audacious, being but a wandering minstrel.
Sir, I am passionately committed to democracy. I am passionately committed to a free,
healthy and sovereign Canada. This is the marrow of my bones and is the essence of who I
am. My way of doing life has had the effect of giving me a broad variety of observation
points from which to view Canada and to see and experience broader truths of what is
happening to my country.
I want to discuss the possibility of the transformation of downtown Anytown into an
experience that all citizens of our city would be proud to call their own. I am on course
with regard to this subject, but to do this I need to discuss our town within the broader
context of Canada, my experience of human dynamics and attitudes and how these affect the
tangible results we intend to produce and then some particular ideas about manifesting
results. I could start just by suggesting that you do this or that to the downtown core,
but without laying the appropriate social groundwork, anything and everything that is done
will only shuffle the pieces on the game board and make no difference whatsoever except to
annoy people who might well only see it all as just another expensive and probably useless
set of toys designed to keep politicians busy and fatten the bank accounts of those who
need it least.
Canada is a country that lives by the rule of law and Canada is a democracy. My life is
devoted to these truths being real, however I must say that in actual practical
application what I hold to be real is only fantasy or at best a good idea burning as a
torch in the hearts of those of us who care and waiting for people in authority to light
up the whole of our reality. Basic to real democracy are the ideas of free speech and free
enterprise. Both of these ideas enshrine the right to be creative, and being creative and
taking charge of one's life is fundamental to personal success and happiness. Sadly, in my
observation, both of these ideas have been lost in a sea of political correctness and
something approaching an incestuous passion for ferreting out anything and everything that
does not work and making yet another law or regulation to kill it.
Free speech, for many, seems only to give permission to be negative about life or even to
spew out utter garbage and filth into our lives. These are not free speech. They are only
garbage and filth. Claiming the right to speak freely carries with it a responsibility to
be creative and to speak with a view to contributing to the overall health of our society.
One may need to address negativity and actively destructive people within our culture but,
in my view, only to acknowledge these for what they are and set them off to one side so we
can get on with the job of building our country and our city.
The right to speak freely is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and
thus you, as the mayor, have created the 'open door' policy that you have and are
listening to what I have to say. It is your responsibility, which I wish to acknowledge
here, within the context of Canadian law to do just that. Thank you, for accepting and
exercising that responsibility. Even though the law reads as it does, there are those in
authority who pay no heed.
Free Enterprise as an idea is NOT enshrined in Canadian law. If it is written into our law
somewhere, it is indeed well hidden because I have not been able to find it. The
latticework of laws and rules and regulations the we live from reflect a complete
disregard for any right of people to be enterprising. The rules of the game in our country
have become but a web ensnaring the people and tying us all up in little cocoons awaiting
the pleasure of a very nasty spider who has been working diligently, using the weaknesses
in our thinking and our legal design, to gradually and relentlessly take control of our
lives.
Even though this right to be enterprising has no legal base, I personally claim it. I
claim it as a function of the common law that we have been living from for centuries. I
claim it as a natural law of the universe and a right a responsibility given to me as a
human being by God. I would encourage everyone to claim this right, and I would encourage
authorities in my city and my country to commence the process forthwith to design our
legal structure to reflect this right and responsibility to be enterprising. Those who
take responsibility for our financial health would do well to observe that when people are
being enterprising, and with that goes a responsibility to live life with integrity, the
wealth of the country, and the city increases.
I play music on the street and people hear my music and put money in my accordion case. I
say that every dollar I thus earn is new wealth for Canada. I say further that it is REAL
new wealth. It is the product of my creative effort being 'purchased' both by people
within our city and from visitors from abroad. If I had gone the route of living my life
on welfare, as many people have wanted me to do, I would have been everything but a
contribution to my country and myself. I would have been yet one more spiritless lost soul
living at the mercy of a system which only serves to trap human beings in a cycle of
despair. I have had occasion to take welfare, and I suppose that were I starving or
freezing I would do so again but definitely with a view to getting back to a place where I
can be enterprising. Playing music and bringing a smile to people's faces or a tear to
their eye .. and another dollar towards my next meal or a room for the night is a vast
improvement over a perpetual diet of rice and beans under a dismal roof in some forgotten
corner.
I remember the other day when I was playing music on a bench by the water. Two young
people came by, a man and a woman. They took a quick look about for trouble and then in
about thirty seconds they had unfolded a display of their home made jewelry and were ready
to do business. She was the store keeper and he was the lookout. She started to present
her wares, but about five minutes later he came scooting back and gave her a sign, and
they rolled up their small store and quickly walked into the crowd. They had no sooner
disappeared into the street when a bylaw enforcement officer came looking for them. For
the record, I have no quarrel with the bylaw enforcement officers. I have met them in the
course of my work and talked with them, and they are as human as the rest of us and doing
their assigned tasks to the best of their ability and with as much friendliness as they
can muster. But I could not help smile at the courage and the initiative of these two
young people who had obviously worked to create their product and were determined to find
a way to market it. Good for them. But, Mr. Mayor, I find it a sad commentary indeed that
these two had to be so furtive in exercising a fundamental right to life, the right to be
enterprising.
Earlier this year I was playing music out on the pier, and I had occasion to have a chat
with a man who was a very important civic official. We were talking about me working in a
public place. He was asserting that because I was working in a public place, I required
bureaucratic permission, bureaucrats theoretically representing the public interest, uh
huh, to do so. I detect that any place that is deemed to be 'public' is immediately
swallowed whole by the bureaucracy and owned by whatever branch of bureaucracy is given
control. Public places in Canada are NOT in fact 'public' .. anywhere. I could write you
stories upon stories supporting this assertion, but I'll leave it to you to see the truth
of what I am saying. If public places were public then these two young people would have
been exercising their right to be enterprising with impunity.
So, having established what I consider the right to be enterprising, I would request that
you and your council find a way to give people who are undertaking honourable and
constructive activities the opportunity to do their business. I would suggest that you
open the Town Square to this kind of activity. Call it a flea market. Use some imagination
and colour. Make it sparkle. Bring the Square alive with hustle and bustle .. and in the
doing displace that 'marketplace' as it is now being used. Herein is the nut of the
transformation I am talking about, taking a situation which is exuding negative energy and
'causing' it to be an experience of aliveness and joy where people are interacting in a
healthy way and thus generating a healthy spirit for us all to share.
Give people the freedom and opportunity to be who they are and do what they need to do to
have their lives work, or life itself will devolve into despair and unhealthy activity.
When I think of 'small' business people I am thinking of the two young people I described
above. Then there is he/she who is termed the small business person within the overall
marketplace, someone who operates a shop and lives within the framework of the bureaucracy
and is also caught in the bureaucracy of the bank and the corporate structure. These
people too are human beings trying to make life work, but they too are caught in a myriad
of regulatory activity which is way off balance and serves more to support the
bureaucratic infrastructure than the financial health of business.
Mr. Mayor, the small things do make the big difference. Either people come to Anytown to
take advantage of the present currency imbalance between Canada and the US or they come
here for an experience. I play music, as do my friends, to give them an experience, and
those who throw a dollar or two my way get it. But there are a vast number of people
walking down the street dead pan and without a smile to be found. I would suggest that
they are doing our city as an advantageous shopping trip because that is how Anytown is
set up. The shop keepers cannot do more than run their shops and sell their goods. They
need some freedom to create experience in their areas that will, each in its own small
way, be part of a greater whole that can have people be laughing and happy and real. I am
thinking particularly of a shop keeper who put a bucket of water in front of his shop
marked "for K9 use only". This was a nice touch on the street. There are people
who come by with dogs and all of them stop to give their critter a drink. They like that
and it feels like a nice touch from the store owner, a small but real contribution to the
street. As likely as not it will also help his business, and there is absolutely nothing
wrong with that. But the other day he was telling me that he got in a serious row with
bylaw enforcement people who told him to take the bucket off the street. His internal
upset over this issue consumed his day and only forced him into a hostile attitude to the
city. This is a reverse transformation, where the shop keeper attempting to do something
nice, someone who normally operates with a bright smile and a helpful attitude to
everyone, is lured to being resentful and upset. Resentfullness consumes spirit and spits
it back out as negative energy. This is not good and is destructive to the energy of the
street. Shop keepers should be encouraged to think up ideas on their own and put them into
play without having to run to city hall for permission.
This same shopkeeper had to pay $750 just to submit a permit to put up a sign into the
street saying what his business is about. Something about a heritage group needing to
meet. This is taking political correctness to an extreme which is destructive beyond
measure. Lighten up the rules and encourage business people to be enterprising .. please.
Now .. also in the realm of manifesting an experience in downtown Anytown, I would
strongly support closing Main Street to vehicular traffic. May I suggest that there could
be a line of booths selling wares of all varieties up the whole street. I would also
suggest that the people traffic on Main Street would quadruple .. given that the design
was tastefully executed and done so with love and goodwill and a rock bottom commitment to
making the street work for everyone.
As I said about the young people selling their wares, I would say about the entire city of
Anytown. Either people are encouraged and given the opportunity to be enterprising and
successful and in the doing create joy and an experience of living that is worthwhile, or
they will devolve into despair and unhealthy activity. As it is with these young people so
it is with the entire city.
I am available for any response you care to offer.
With my thanks for your listening, I am
Yours Sincerely.
Tim Wees
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All Written Materials Copyright, 1997,1998,1999 Robert H.
Brevig
All Rights Are Reserved, Without Prejudice.
U.C.C. 1-207.4 U.C.C. 1-103.6,.7
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