Check It Out: Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water

By Joan Janzen

After downing half his glass of milk, the ten-year-old declared, “I am an optimist; the glass is half empty.” His mother corrected him and said looking at a glass as half empty is a sign of pessimism.

The boy smiled and said, “Not if you don’t like what’s in it.”

Likewise, Canadians may not like some of what is going on within our country. The Government of Canada website published a report called “Perspectives on climate change and public health in Canada.” In the report, the Public Health Agency of Canada lists climate change and capitalism as health threats.

Andrew Lawton recently interviewed Marc Morano, author of ‘The Great Reset.’ “The U.N. gets to own the science and gets to be in charge of the solution. They get to hype both the problem and solution through international treaties,” Morano observed. “The Secretary-General of the U.N. is the former president of Socialist International. That is never mentioned in media outlets. This is a guy who talks about overthrowing capitalism, or the planet will die, and the media reports it as though he’s a scientist. Most Canadians think these are experts.” That information about the secretary-general can change your perspective regarding what he says.

Jay Martin, host of the Jay Martin Show, recently talked about ‘experts’ gathered in a debate. He watched a media debate on Global News where they were debating the utility of the Saskatchewan First Act and others like it. There were four people on the panel; not one of them was from Saskatchewan or Alberta. Global News gathered experts from Ontario and B.C., but left Saskatchewan out of the conversation.

Martin spoke to former Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, about the topic. Wall said, “It’s not a partisan thing, but these acts are coming forth because it’s hard to trust the federal government that unilaterally makes decisions. This is why provinces are making these bills because on these issues, they can’t trust their federal government. If there was a different approach, you wouldn’t have these bills.”

When asked about his perspective regarding Canada’s future, Wall offered his response. “I’ve been out of politics for five years. Now we live in the Cypress Hills, and my perspective is narrower,” he explained. “I’m exceedingly optimistic about where I live, about our neighbours, and how we care about each other and the community, how we make a living. I’m extremely optimistic about the province of Saskatchewan. We really do have what the world wants - food, fuel and fertilizer. If everybody feels that way about their respective communities and province, we all would feel better about our country. Our pride might be coming from where we are in that big country. It doesn’t mean you’re less proud of your citizenship.”

Our perspective can also change if we take a look back at the heritage passed on to us from prairie pioneers, some of whom are our relatives. They would never have dreamed of experiencing the benefits we are enjoying today. Their ceiling has become the floor of subsequent generations.

We hear plenty about the negative aspects of our history but very little about the positive. And there’s far more positive than negative.

There’s an old expression that says, “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” It was penned when people didn’t have running water, and heated and hauled one tub of bathwater which was used for the entire family. The oldest to youngest took their turn in the tub. I think you get the picture. The expression seems to apply to our history: don’t throw out the valuable when trying to eliminate something unwanted.

We need to be aware that ‘hope’ can be something of extreme value that is thrown out along with all the negativity we hear and see. Peter Duraisami is the Executive Director of Scott Mission, which operates in his neighbourhood of Toronto. The mission aims to meet the needs of the people in their community.

While speaking on The Faytene Show, Duraisami noted, “These are real people that have something hit them in life. They’ve lost hope. Once hope is gone, everything is gone. You can bring back hope to the eyes of the people as you talk to them. We need to partner with organizations who know what to do to help.”

Those partnerships and connections need to begin right here at home. We could all raise the level of hope in our communities if we shared Brad Wall’s perspective, who said, “I’m exceedingly optimistic about where I live, about our neighbours, and how we care about each other and the community.”

We can take a lesson from the ten-year-old and his half-empty glass of milk. We may not like all that we see going on in our country, but we can take a look around at our community and province and remain optimistic and active in generating hope in the lives of others.