I’m very lucky to live in Canada, which by every measure is one of the best countries in the world. Still, there are problems and things we should be doing better. As such, we can learn something from other countries:
Respect from Japan
I once visited Onaping Falls (see below) near Sudbury, the subject of a famous A.Y. Jackson painting that was stolen and never recovered. The scene from afar, with the full spectrum of fall colors, was amazing. Then we walked over to the falls, only to discover that nearly every boulder was defaced with graffiti. Recently, we were in Washington DC to see the blooming of the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin. The absolute beauty of the trees was irreparably marred by the fact that there was litter everywhere. It was stunning how bad it was.
You don’t see this kind of idiotic behavior in Japan. Japanese football fans famously cleaned up stadiums at the recent World Cup. When Hideki Matsuyama won the Master’s golf tournament in 2021, his caddie bowed to the Augusta golf course, an action that immediately went viral. Japan’s culture has always emphasized cleanliness and respect for your community. Children are taught this value by having to clean up their classrooms at the end of the day before they are allowed to go home. But it's more than just wanting things clean; respect is ingrained in Japanese society. In the Shinto religion, nature is sacred and to be revered, especially those places, such as Mount Fuji, that are part of the history of Japanese culture. This reverence is simply a way of expressing gratitude.
Of course, some of this mindset is a result of the hierarchal nature of Japanese society, and there is an obvious downside to this – look at how Japan acted in WWII. And while the Japanese look after their own yard, they often care little about other places, as exemplified by their vehement opposition to tuna fishing limits and their insistence on whaling - even though there is little demand for whale meat (it’s used mainly in dog food, which is as criminally stupid as anything I’ve ever heard).
Respect is a vital virtue in a society; once it starts to erode, everything else becomes worse. Respect means you recognize that all people are important and by extension, that our society is valued and that you have responsibilities as a part of the greater community. In short, it is the bare minimum of duty that society has a right to expect from each of us. The erosion of respect in our times helps explain a lot of our political and social problems, and it seems to only be getting worse.
Education from Finland
It’s not so much how the Finns educate their children, it’s their attitude towards education - they value it as the single most important public good. The Finns’ aim is to educate everyone well, regardless of wealth or social status - unlike the US, which educates some people very well but many people very poorly. It is hard to become a teacher in Finland. Only 10 percent of applicants are accepted, meaning that they choose students who graduate at the top of their class. Most teachers have advanced degrees and are paid as much as university professors. Being a teacher is held in high regard; their social status is on par with doctors and lawyers. And while there are private schools, the teachers at them are paid by the government and earn the same wages as public school teachers, and private schools aren’t allowed to charge tuition. Education spending levels are set by the national government, unlike here in Canada where spending is determined by each province.
There are innumerable rankings out there when it comes to education, and Finland generally ranks highly, especially in math and science. But forget statistics for a moment; there are numerous real-world examples validating the Finnish approach. Take policing: Finland’s cops have to have a least a bachelor’s degree. The police are trusted by 95 percent of the population and almost never use their guns. Or take technology: Finland has more engineers per capita than any other country and its main exports are high-tech products. Finland is a northern country just like Canada, but instead of relying on resource extraction, they have an economy based on manufacturing and technology.
Finland had to engage in an all-out fight for survival against the USSR in WWII, leaving the country and its economy decimated. Finland in 1950 was a poor country, but it is now one of the richest in the world. That’s the results you can achieve when you make education for all citizens your top priority.
Efficient government from Denmark
It’s cliché to make cracks about government, but when you really look at it, our various levels of government in Canada do a pretty good job. But there is plenty of room for improvement. On the federal level, the budget for the bureaucracy keeps growing. Nonsensical trade barriers between the provinces hinder the movement of goods, exemplified by this farcical Supreme Court case. There are also the never-ending fights about the division of powers between the provinces and Ottawa.
Denmark doesn’t have most of these problems. The country is the gold standard in delivering government services efficiently and effectively, and the Danes have achieved this through automation. Every citizen has a mandatory electronic ID, secure email address, digital post office box, and a registered bank account so that all interaction with the government can be done electronically. Each government department is able to share data and information electronically with other departments. This “automated bureaucracy” has saved the country billions in administration costs and has reduced processing time by 30% across departments.
The benefits gained by the Danes through this system are too numerous to list, but I found a few interesting examples. The fact that so much is done electronically means that Denmark’s economy is virtually cashless, which makes operating in the underground economy and other criminal activities much more difficult. For example, in 2022, there were zero bank robberies and ATM muggings in Denmark, which is astounding. Tax evasion is much more difficult because the tax department can easily access information from other departments, such as land titles. There are also health benefits that have been realized because testing frequency and results are wholly automated. During Covid, Denmark was much better able to track the spread of the virus than other countries, which led to far fewer deaths and a much earlier reopening of the country.
There are risks. The Danish government has the ability to collect a lot of data on its citizens, which can lead to abuse and violations of privacy. There have been accusations that the government has used systematic surveillance in its efforts to root out welfare fraud. But despite this, Danes score remarkably high for trust in government when compared to virtually every other nation. When people get good service from government, their faith and trust increase dramatically. Denmark is a very small country, so what they’ve achieved will be much harder to do in Canada; it took the Danes 25 years to get to where they are. But their system is a model that we should try to emulate.
Conservation from Namibia
Namibia was the first African country to introduce environmental protection in its constitution and 43% of the country’s territorial area is currently under conservation management. With the formation of the Dorob National Park in 2010, Namibia became the only country in the world to have a completely protected coastline. Species that are endangered elsewhere, such as cheetahs, oryx and rhinos, are thriving in Namibia.
This conservation has been achieved by utilizing a mix of government, tourism, non-profits and local communities. A private company, Namibia Wildlife Resorts, maintains the facilities in Namibia’s national parks while a non-governmental organization, Namibia Nature Foundation, is responsible for raising funds for wildlife protection and conservation. The country is a leader in the concept of communal conservatories, in which communities guard and govern their own protected areas and thus have the ability to manage and benefit from their own wildlife. Letting communities do it themselves prevents right-wing demagogues from painting environmental policies as government overreach - which happens all the time here in Alberta. Once you get rid of that strawman argument, they got nuthin.
Make no mistake, Namibia is a poor country that ranks 125th in GDP and has about 20 percent unemployment. Yet they are prioritizing conservation, while much richer countries like the US are decimating their environments. Namibia’s protected forests, coastline and wildlife attract thousands of tourists to the country, benefiting the country’ s economy in a way that a bunch of crappy beachfront condos never could. What Namibia seems to understand, and what countries like Canada and other developed nations need to learn, is that conservation isn’t a loss or a cost or an economic waste; it’s an unequivocal benefit. You just have to be able to look past your own immediate short-term economic gratification to realize it.
Comentarios