Canada's new Kindness Week needed now more than ever, says former senator
Canada is the first country to officially recognize a National Kindness Week
During Canada's inaugural National Kindness Week, the senator who helped establish it says we need a reminder to be kind now more than ever.
The third week of February has officially been dubbed Kindness Week. The bill was enacted on June 3, 2021, making Canada the first country in the world to pass such legislation. The bill states that the purpose of this week is to improve the health and wellbeing of Canadians by encouraging "acts of kindness, volunteerism and charitable giving."
Retired Ontario senator Jim Munson, who spearheaded the efforts to make Kindness Week into law, spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off about why Canadians could use a little kindness now.
Here is part of their conversation.
You live in Ottawa. You only have to look around to see what's going on there. We're all watching it on TV. Who knew this was Kindness Week?
I think now more than ever is a time to have acts of kindness and acts of tolerance.
You were in politics, you know what this means to have the Emergencies Act enacted the same time it's supposed to be Kindness Week. A lot of contradictions right now in our country.
I turned 75 last year and I'm old enough to remember, and have covered as a journalist, the FLQ crisis in the early '70s in Quebec. And Mr. [Pierre] Trudeau invoked what was then called the War Measures Act. And it upset a lot of people because of civil liberties.
I don't think today we're faced with the same kind of situation.
Freedom is a two-way street, and we have to understand that one person's freedom is interpreted differently by somebody else.
This city feels like a city under occupation in some respects. And I think that while we have to have tolerance and we have to respect the right to free speech and freedom of association, there must be a way that we can work harder together to actually get along and respect each other's rights.
The bottom line still is that we do have the moral fibre to stick together, and we'll get through this.- Retired senator Jim Munson
What does it say to you that we need an act by Parliament to remember to be nice to each other?
I think we have to be reminded who we really are and what our moral fibre is about and what our national character is about.
This wasn't [my] idea; I was simply the messenger for Rabbi Reuven Bulka. He had this idea for a Kindness Week, and he came to me and asked me if I would introduce this bill in the Senate. And I jumped on it.
It did take five years and two Parliaments. But I think that if we wake up each and every morning and think just for a moment, "Who can I be kind to today?" as opposed to, "Who do I have to take on today?" I think we have to have an attitudinal shift of some sort on a massive scale — and if it's the law to be kind, then why not?
You were Jean Chrétien's director of communications in the early 2000s. You know how nasty politics can be. Do you think that if you want a role of kindness, our political system, our politicians set a good example?
That's a very tough question to answer. What I discovered when I was in the Prime Minister's Office is public servants and politicians who were trying to do something for the common good, and [it] doesn't matter what political stripe you come from.
I think that events get in the way of sometimes doing things in the common good. And I think it's an opportunity for politicians in this particular Parliament to lower the temperature of the language that is being used. You can be firm in your beliefs. But as this kindness bill has shown — all parliamentarians agreed to it unanimously — you still have to be sensitive to other people's ideas and to take that in stride. Because it's not always personal, you know, it's about your place in society and the political place in society.
I wouldn't want to live in any other country in the world. Along the way, there are disruptions, and that challenges who we are as a nation. But I think that the bottom line still is that we do have the moral fibre to stick together, and we'll get through this. You know why? Because we have to.
Written by Olsy Sorokina. Interview with Jim Munson produced by Chris Harbord. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
