Glimpses of Integral Canada 2005

December 29, 2005, © Marilyn Hamilton BA CGA PhD

(Note: This article is extracted from a longer report giving the news sources for each meme. It is archived in the Maple Leaf Meme Project. Click here to read the report.)

At the end of 2005, with a year of global disasters behind us I wonder -- how well does Canada support the basic needs of human life at home and respond to tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes elsewhere? We are a nation of immigrants – how well do we remember and honour our roots? We are a nation of explorers and traders of both places and ideas – how well do we protect the freedoms of expression that drove us beyond old borders? We are a nation of peace, order and good government – how able are we to ensure mutual trust and respect? We are a nation of hewers of wood and drawers of water – how effectively do we steward our raw materials and produce our goods and services? We are a nation of social safety nets -- how willing and able are we to share our human and social capital with the rest of the world? We are a nation of innovative caregivers – how flexible are our healthcare systems? We are a nation of environmentalists – how effectively do we steward our nation’s natural resources? We are a nation of peacemakers - what kind of example do we set to which the world might aspire?

The Dance of the Maple Leaf Meme-lights calls forth from Canada eight great capacities with which we can serve the world (see below). Each meme is like a colour from our Northern Lights, whose hue radiates from a prism-set of values, each more lustrous than the one preceding it.

The Dance of the Maple Leaf Meme-lights recognizes the foundations of five layers of existence that have emerged on this globe: Place, Plant, Phylum, Person, Planet (see below).

Taken altogether the octet of values and the quintet of layers of existence define the boundaries of a new integral dance floor that is just coming into view on this planet. The values and layers provide criteria and give us powerful new lenses to glimpse an Integral Canada – a Canada who can appreciate, capitalize on and share an emerging, global-centric, evolutionary, integrated, multi-perspectival, dynamic view of the world.

While it is often easier to judge the missteps in our Dance of the Maple Leaf Memes, this review is about glimpsing an Integral Canada – a nation able to recognize, honour, govern and live as if the world is integrated, undivided, whole and interconnected. A glimpse of Integral Canada reveals the extent to which, we plan on “dancing” for the next seven generations and beyond.

This is an “appreciative” glimpse of Canada’s “integral dance” in 2005. “Appreciative” means focusing on strengths, emerging potentials and possibilities. This is not a critique nor an exhaustive report. As a glimpse, it is a mere blink that reveals hopeful signs of coherence, resonance and emergence for an Integral Canada.

It is only fair to warn you, that this Maple Leaf Meme dance may not be perfectly described in the clearest light, with the most fluid movements, with the truest expression. With Winter’s contemplative gaze, it appears to be a vibrant, often chaotic, choreography on a Canada-wide integral dance floor. But, as I notice how Integral Canada is emerging, I also invite readers to let us know what they are glimpsing, coast to coast to coast in Maple Leaf Memeland, in their provinces, their cities, their workplaces and their lives. We will share your observations and together we may be able to merge multiple glimpses into a full scale integral view. (For fuller details and sources of these observations click on www.integralcity.com/Ezine%20Files/archive.asp . See below for email address.)


Glimpsing Aspects of Integralness

As 2005 concludes, I can glimpse aspects of an Integral Canada emerging in each of our Maple Leaf Memes.

beige to protect our individual needs for physical and spiritual safety and survival; and prevent harm to all individuals. (B+)
• As a nation responsive to basic human needs, we are addressing our own homelessness and housing needs through renewing the National Homelessness Initiative which has benefited over 700,000 households since 1999 and by pledging $5 billion to First Nation’s living conditions.
• In addition Canada has pledged $425 million towards immediate and long term disaster relief for the Indian Ocean tsunami; first response and task force deployment for the Katrina and Rita hurricane relief; and $57 million, expertise and long term commitment towards Kashmir/Pakistan earthquake assistance.
• Canada tends to avoid offering “one size fits all solutions”, but attempts to craft responses appropriate to specific life conditions.

purple to honour the traditions and heritage of each group of persons so long as they do not threaten the health of *PPPPP; and honour the contributions of the elders so long as they do not threaten the health of *PPPPP. (A for effort, C for results)
• As a nation of immigrants, we are struggling with ways to honour the roots of our cultural mosaic from Asia, our First Nations and elsewhere. For example, the federal Canadian government agreed to acknowledge the Chinese head tax and exclusion laws (applied from 1885 to 1967 in various forms) were discriminatory and will pay $12.5 million into a new foundation.

red to defend the freedom of each individual to express their development and creativity without infringing on the freedom of others to express their development and creativity. (C)
• As a nation of explorers of place and traders of goods and ideas , we still exhibit tendencies to nepotism and preferential treatment, though we now demand accountability. This was clearly revealed by Justice John Gomery’s assignment of responsibility to ex-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his staff, for the misguided operation of the $332 million federal sponsorship program between 1994 and 2003.
• We take many of our rights for freedom of expression for granted, and learn with astonishment how fundamentalist beliefs prevent such expression in other countries, as was demonstrated by the release of Indo-Canadian, Deepa Mehta’s film “Water”, (illustrating the plight of 34 million widows in India in 2001) at the September, 2005, Toronto Film Festival.
• The top four news makers of 2005 were all people who chose to speak out in unusually creative ways: Justice John Gomery, on government fraud ; a released criminal, Karla Homolka, demanding her rights as a private citizen ; a global media baron, Conrad Black, insisting upon his entrepreneurial freedoms; and an independent parliamentarian, Chuck Cadman, voting for his constituents, not in compliance with party lines or media pressures.

blue to respect the value of order without imposing restrictions that harm individuals or groups; and honour the need for order that serves the entire *PPPPP. (C+)
• As a nation built on the tenets of peace, order and good government, we are learning to conduct our politics publicly with mutual trust and respect despite media exemplars from the U.S. to do otherwise. This was obvious in the unanimous censure by all federal political parties of a Liberal campaigner’s blog containing profane and racial innuendo lampooning NDP and Conservative candidates during the 2005 federal election campaign.

orange to promote the success of persons; to be accountable for the integral and fair exchange of products, services and ideas as long as resources do not accumulate for the benefit of a few interests, organizations and/or levels of development, at the expense of (or while depriving resources to) *PPPPP; to publicly recognize the origination/originator of ideas, products and services. (C-)
• As a nation of hewers of wood and drawers of water, we steward our raw materials and produce our goods and services, with increasing awareness that the public expects production to align with other values. We are becoming less ready to buy other nations’ brands of success that jeopardize our own production values. This value could be seen in Canada’s persistence in appealing NAFTA rulings that recognize a softwood lumber agreement reflective of its own economic worldviews.
• In a completely different arena, equitable success and accountability continued to make front page headlines with court challenges to Conrad Black, Canada’s high profile media mogul, author, British Lord and Founder of Toronto-based holding company Ravelston and U.S. based Hollinger International. Lord Black (who is facing a maximum of 95 years in a U.S. jail if convicted and is protesting all charges) is battling a new set of expectations for public accountability of previously privileged classes (in this case private sector executives) that has been tilted against him by the U.S. court rulings on World.com and Enron executives.
• On the world stage, Inco, the world’s leading nickel producer broadened the growing cross-investments between the resource and industrial sectors of Canada and China, by joint venturing a plant in Dalian China, that manufactures nickel foam, used primarily as a component in rechargeable batteries. In doing so, they simultaneously expanded mutual opportunities and risked competitive backlash from elsewhere in the developed world.

green to accept the dignity of groups; ensure fair opportunity for all persons to pursue happiness as long as no individual or group is prevented from doing likewise; to not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, gender, creed as long as such action ensures the health of *PPPPP; to not seek to favour any group at the expense of another group as long as such action ensures the health of *PPPPP. (B+)
• As a nation of social safety nets, we share our human and social capital with the rest of the world by asking more nations of the world to join us in demanding basic human rights elsewhere. John Ralston Saul (effectively using exposure as the spouse of retired GG Clarkson) rather forcefully lists the undiscussables, Canada calls the world to act on: “… malnutrition, Aids, abuse of human rights, gross distortions of income, dreadful examples of child labour, widespread ecocide, corrupt governments in cahoots with fantastically rich multi-national corporations whose fat-cat executives earn ever-higher bonuses even as they shift their production facilities to cheap-labour countries and fire their own workers.”
• Canada became the third country in the world to pass a law granting same-sex marriage rights, despite tempestuous public debate,.
• Canada continues to encourage the aspirations of all world people to the highest positions in the nation, by appointing well-known Quebec journalist and broadcaster, Michaëlle Jean, an immigrant from Haiti, as the first black Governor General of Canada.

yellow to facilitate the integral flex and flow of energy across all aspects of *PPPPP; to unblock the barriers to the emergence of new ways of thinking, doing, being as long as they respect the health of *PPPPP; to mesh the elegance of natural patterns, processes and structures. (C-)
• As a nation of caregivers, we have started to transform our national healthcare system. A court ruling in Quebec, affirmed a constitutional right to invest in private insurance for health services, even if those services were already covered the Health Insurance Act and Hospital Insurance Act). This opens the door to designing new public-private strategies and relationships.

turquoise to value the geo/bio/noetic capacities of the planet; to respect the integral ecology of *PPPPP; to co-emerge the evolutionary intelligence of Life inherent in *PPPPP. (B)
• As a nation of environmentalists, at the UN climate change summit in Montreal in December, 2005, we called for the need to have a global conscience for climate change, though we still need to put our money where our memes are.
• As a nation of peacemakers we are opening doors for the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education of the Heart, as an international centre in Vancouver.
• By contrast, in world trade, Canada is redesigning military spaces into educational parks and forums for global learning and relationship building, such as the Royal Roads University in Victoria and World Trade University in Chilliwack BC.

Towards an Integral Canada
Glimpses of Integral Canada show the country in an early learning mode. We struggle towards alignment of our Maple Leaf Memes both internally and externally. As a leader of nations and as a member of a community of nations, the Northern Lights illuminate the new and unfamiliar boundaries of the integral dance floor. Some of those lights need to be released from the dimmer switch so we can enhance performance grades within each hue and rebalance the spectrum across the whole prism of Maple Leaf Meme-lights (see marks above).

While Canada practises on the global dance floor trying to align the health of Place, Plant, Phylum, Person and Planet we often stumble. Our favourite dance steps indicate where our true priorities lie. We favour the equity of people, but too often risk the health of place, plant and phylum on which the health of all people depend. So the integral scorecard to date, in our quintet of P’s, probably rates little more than “C -” .

But, appreciating that a child crawls before learning to walk, let alone dance, we can applaud that many of Canada’s early integral efforts warrant “A” for intention. As the band starts playing and the curtain rises on 2006, Canada’s efforts send a message to other countries to join us on the integral dance floor. We need partners to brighten the lights, explore the boundaries and rehearse the integral dance steps with us -- not just to improve integral performance in our Maple Leaf Memeland but to integrate alignment of Place, Plant, Phylum and Person for all the Planet.

~~~

What glimpses of an Integral Canada do you see? Send your Glimpses of Integral Canada to integralcanada@integralcity.com and we will create an integral feedback loop that can brighten the Northern Lights and reinforce the emergence of Integral Canada in service to an Integral Planet.

(If you are not in Canada, send us your glimpses of your Integral Nation.)

---

Dance of the Maple Leaf Meme-lights
for Place, Plant, Phylum, Person, Planet

© Marilyn Hamilton BA CGA PhD

May the dance of the Maple Leaf Meme-lights vibrate with the resilient commitments of Life. May the Northern Lights from our flashing energy field radiate:

beige to protect our individual needs for physical and spiritual safety and survival; and prevent harm to all individuals.

purple to honour the traditions and heritage of each group of persons so long as they do not threaten the health of *PPPPP; and honour the contributions of the elders so long as they do not threaten the health of *PPPPP.

red to defend the freedom of each individual to express their development and creativity without infringing on the freedom of others to express their development and creativity.

blue to respect the value of order without imposing restrictions that harm individuals or groups; and honour the need for order that serves the entire *PPPPP.

orange to promote the success of persons; to be accountable for the integral and fair exchange of products, services and ideas as long as resources do not accumulate for the benefit of a few interests, organizations and/or levels of development, at the expense of (or while depriving resources to) *PPPPP; to publicly recognize the origination/originator of ideas, products and services.

green to accept the dignity of groups; ensure fair opportunity for all persons to pursue happiness as long as no individual or group is prevented from doing likewise; to not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, gender, creed as long as such action ensures the health of *PPPPP; to not seek to favour any group at the expense of another group as long as such action ensures the health of *PPPPP.

yellow to facilitate the integral flex and flow of energy across all aspects of *PPPPP; to unblock the barriers to the emergence of new ways of thinking, doing, being as long as they respect the health of *PPPPP; to mesh the elegance of natural patterns, processes and structures.

turquoise to value the geo/bio/noetic capacities of the planet; to respect the integral ecology of *PPPPP; to co-emerge the evolutionary intelligence of Life inherent in *PPPPP.
 

May the dance of the Maple Leaf Meme-lights resonate the universal rhythm of
*PPPPP= Place, Plant, Phylum, Person, Planet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(The colour sequence mirrors the colour framework used by the values meta-framework of Spiral Dynamics © integral, co-developed by Dr. Don Beck.)
 

---

Place, Plant, Phylum, Person, Planet

The Dance of the Maple Leaf Meme-lights recognizes the value of five layers of existence that have emerged on this planet: Place, Plant, Phylum, Person, Planet.
Place – for the geo-chemical building blocks that emerged from the elemental matter of the universe that gives us 17 habitats from sea to desert, mountain to plain, valley to hillside, lake land to ice sheet, forest to tundra and all the variations in between.
Plant – for the biological basics of life that emerged from the primordial soup to synthesize into symbiotic colonies of cells, algae, fronds, grasses, flowers, bushes and trees covering the places far and wide with life from deepest depths to highest peaks.
Phylum – for the multiplicity of species that range from molluscs to fishes, insects to reptiles, birds and mammals all evolving across the ages in ranks of ontogeny and files of phylogeny, surviving, adapting, populating and extincting down the ages.
Person – for the human species that evolved from life conditions where its upright stance, opposable thumb, big brain and conscious awareness gave it capacities for noticing self and other and propensities for changing place, plant, phylum and person.
Planet – for the whole symbiotic, interconnected, ever evolving third planet from the sun; more than just the sum of its places, plants, phyla and persons, but its mass of inseparably embedded relationships at all levels of existence.

---

Sense in the City Archives

Home