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By Lloyd Mackey
 TODAY presents another opportunity to ride my hobby horse -- collaborative governance.
In my 'spare time' in recent weeks, I helped the good folk at BC Christian News and its regional inserts, Island Insight and Okanagan Outlook, to scout out some stories about the upcoming civic elections in British Columbia. That task requires adjusting my head space to 'out west,' while sitting at my desk in the Parliament Buildings, with a view of Quebec across the Ottawa River.
One of the candidates suggested to me by my BC colleagues, for an interview, was Janice Henry, running for the first time for Kelowna City Council, in the Okanagan Valley.
She is well known as an evangelical Christian. That is one side of the equation. But she is also a strong proponent of a mutually-respectful consensus leadership style that grows out of her Christian faith.
Henry attends Evangel Church, a large Kelowna Pentecostal congregation, and is a member of the national board of REAL Women, a socially-conservative group that recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.
So one might expect that she would be quite absolutist in her views.
She does self-confess to being a "very strong conservative with very strong views" about the things that both social and fiscal conservatives believe in -- strong families and fiscal responsibility.
But, in her candidate's statement on the City of Kelowna election web page, she points out that she has "considerable experience in 'collective leadership,' a process that: - facilitates participation,
- strives to understand divergent points of view, and
- draws upon the collective wisdom of the group."
(The black dots in front of the three points were not in the original online statement. But Henry implied them verbally when I talked with her about her views. I could only be faithful to her emphasis by inserting the dots.)
I challenged her that taking such a position would bring her up against evangelical Christian leaders who would suggest she is a milquetoast for being so understanding.
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"That has not been my experience with evangelicals," she responded, gently. "We have strong views and opinions but are open minded. ÊWe believe in right and wrong, but look at other viewpoints."
She allowed that her participatory approach has been shaped by working 15 years with non-profits. For a dozen of those years, she was executive director of the Central Okanagan Foundation (COF) and, for part of that time, was on the Community Foundations of Canada board of directors. The latter is the umbrella group for 164 community or city foundations that assist local charities in the challenging work of raising funds and developing plans for community work.
In her COF post, she played a pivotal role after the 2003 Kelowna wildfires, in administering the emergency fire fund. Those fires destroyed over 200 homes and large tracts of park land.
Her present work is executive director of the Central Okanagan Heritage Society, a group that, among other things, oversees the Benvoulin Heritage Church and Reid Hall. The church was acquired by the society after it fell into disuse as a United Church, and was restored, complete with old oak circular pews and a pump organ. It is now used as a conference, meeting and event centre and a favourite site for weddings.
Henry explained: "The City of Kelowna continues to face a number of issues and pressures. Our community is changing -- some for the better and some not. It is the role of council to help navigate these sometimes complex and divisive issues."
I asked her if she thought this kind of consensus thinking could work on the provincial or federal level. She suggested that it would be more difficult, because of the strength of the party system, but hinted, also, that she thinks it already happens, informally.
Thus enters my hobby horse. I agree that, not only does it go on, but it has to happen in a minority parliament. And I will make this prediction: The combination of the staff changes in the prime minister's office, numerical makeup of the opposition parties and the new faces attached to new members of parliament will all play a role in making this upcoming parliament productive.
I hope that the ideas of some present and future faith-based civic politicians -- like Janice Henry -- will be considered on the federal level. Ron Cannan, the MP for Kelowna-Lake Country, could be a useful conduit for some of that thinking.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa. He is author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006) and More Faithful Than We Think: Stories and Insights on Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly (BayRidge Books, 2005). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
October 30/2008
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