With the upcoming civic election one cannot help but get caught up in the words and public discussion, which are becoming more ubiquitous as Oct. 16th approaches. With all that has already been said in this paper by all the good people running for office and the good commentary by Ken Allred in the Oct. 4th edition, I felt I had nothing more to add and my comments would be just another cut and paste exercise in our local democratic process. Until I read a comment by mayor hopeful Cam MacKay: “I am not someone who believes in collaboration for the sake of collaboration.” Here is my opinion on this well-intentioned comment. The essence of collaboration is working cooperatively together to attain certain goals such as in a scientific research project. Trust, respect for each other, a willingness to listen with an open mind without an entrenched attitude of biased opinion and the ability for making evidence based decisions, are at the core of collaboration. Collaboration speaks to sharing and civility rather than self-interest and rivalry. In my opinion, collaboration trumps the adversarial approach of competition in problem solving. And God knows, we do have many problems to solve. I believe our community and society would be better served if we taught and developed the skills which honour “collaboration for the sake of collaboration”, rather than following the current conventional wisdom, so programmed into each of us in our capitalistic, free enterprise western democracies, “competition for the sake of competition.” As long as we insist on a culture that continues to play the game of winners and losers, we will continue to vie for the elements of control, which serve my agenda and we’ll continue to be at each other’s throats instead of looking out for each other’s backs. Ever heard of the phrase, “America First”? If we want to build a sense of solidarity within our community, locally and globally, be individually empowered by our common humanity and collective efforts, we must learn how to act collaboratively; “collaboration for the sake of collaboration.” Even though competition has its place and makes our national game an entertaining event, governance should not be a political game. There should be no score sheet and success for all should be the measure of our collective and collaborative efforts. If this cannot happen at the local and civic level, where there is an intentional design to eliminate partisan politics and minimize an adversarial approach to governance, I hold very little hope for the bigger picture and our world. Wilf Borgstede, St. Albert
