From time to time, I have the opportunity to spend time with leaders of the voluntary sector, and government officials with whom I have good history and mutual respect.  Today was one of those days.   The annual conference of the National Coalition of Voluntary Organizations was meeting today; I had registered, both in the interest of finding out first-hand what the joint process between the sector and the government had produced over the last six months, and as a kind of marketing effort.

As always, I was struck by how slowly things happen in the public policy arena, either in the voluntary sector or the public sector, and especially when both are involved simultaneously.  I'm not convinced that to go slowly in these cases is a bad thing, but it is a consistent phenomenon.  The wheels of public policy do indeed turn slowly.

However, I was reminded in chats with some of my colleagues and former colleagues that the slowness increases in direct proportion to the distance from the front-lines, the ground, the local neighbourhood and its issues.  There is little doubt that the voluntary sector emerged in the first place because some well-intentioned souls, often in faith communities, saw a need and knew they could fill it.  Even when government became the primary delivery agent of funds and services in the social and health fields, the voluntary sector organizations, at the local level, were identifying needs before government ever could, even at the local level.  Or at least they were meeting the needs.

We tend to cite the earliest examples: schools, libraries, hospitals -- all started in Canada by volunteers.  In fact, they were all started by women, a not coincidental factor.  But there are more recent examples of where the volunteer community responded before government could.  On a grand scale, one can look at services to people with HIV and  AIDS. In the earliest years, those aware of the problem were desperately putting their energy into the medical science of fighting the disease; the voluntary sector was helping people who were dying of the disease.  Both initiatives were important.  Both were instrumental in containing a horrible epidemic to its already bloated numbers.

On a smaller scale, we can see the response of the volunteer sector to the recent horrors in East Timor.  It's not like what's been happening there is new.  Almost twenty years ago, East Timor was on the political horizon.   And it's not that there isn't ample evidence that the needs for military and peace-keeping intervention are urgent. But Canadian soldiers can't be sent because they haven't had the appropriate shots.  Now, it's the government's job to protect its employees, including those serving in the military. But at least Canadians as individuals, as volunteers, are responding with money and expertise, with less concern for their own health than goverment must exercise for the health of its employees.

Local volunteer organizations see a need and meet it, whether in East Timor, or in raising funds for special medical treatment of a neighbour.  Local governments have some of the same capacity to respond relatively quickly to changes in circumstances and priorities.  The same is less true as one goes up the ladder to provincial organizations and governments, to national organizations and governments, to international organizations. 

So why bother trying to turn the wheels at higher levels of government? Because too many of the individual problems at the local neighbourhood level, whether in Kosovo, Alabama, or Gander, Newfoundland have causes and effects far beyond their local circumstances and boundaries.  To truly solve AIDS, we needed international research and treatment protocols.  To truly bring peace and stability in trouble spots in the world, national governments and international governments have to be involved; local organizations can provide bandaid solutions, but not cures, as it were.

Democracy being a part of most governments, organizations and institutions at all levels, these cures are often slow in coming.  The identification of a problem can take a long time to go from being a neighbourhood emergency to a national or international priority.  And the time is often time lost, with entire families and communities paying the price with their health and prosperity.  But it is not time wasted.

So it is with the initiatives around the voluntary sector in Canada.  That the recommendations offered not a lot new despite another six months having passed since the last report is frustrating, but it can be seen as having educated the sector and the government in the issues, and as having begun the process of building broad-based understandings and support for ideas that were new a year ago.  Patience is required to change the world, and impatience is also required.  I'll continue to err on the side of impatience, I'm sure, but I'll respect those with patience for their contribution to our common goals.

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