Having grown up in Pictou on a family dairy farm I have the deepest sense of pride that our entire extended family grew up with these very values and sentiments. There is not one who even on the most tiresome painful day would wake without having a plan to work hard and do good deeds along the way. I can tell many stories that would set the hardest heart to crying but I am sure there are many more stories of good deeds that have gone untold.
One of the greatest gifts my brother and sister were given was the community of 4-H. If I could give only one piece of advice for any parent today it would be to find a 4H club and put their kids in it. The life skills and values are things that will stay with you forever.
Nice piece John. Enjoy your stories and the old ad from Pictou was a cool addition. Thanks
This is profoundly simple and simply profound stuff. Hearing from a neighbor provides needed resonance and relief for Americans gummed up by our present tumble in the opposite direction.
Suppose we brought back the Katimivik program: groups of young people across Canada helping with community projects all across the country. It meant so much to those who were in it, years later.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of such an experience. I believe, even now, it would have been transformative for me and many of the boys I grew up with in Waverley, whose lives ended in sad ways.
The issue of course is that in today's fraught and overthought politics, simply putting boys and young men to work, would seem criminal and worse to many within the established systems.
I can only look back at Progressive Era initiatives that were the forebearers of Katimivik, with wild wonder.
I was an elementary school council chair for 10 years in Kanata in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with a son and daughter. The council members, the school Principal, and other senior teaching/admins were 90% women. There were four Principals during that time at my school, and several others I knew and followed through my involvement with our local community association until the early 2010s. All were women, all very competent.
They were always concerned about the emphasis on girls' education that came down from the Ontario Provincial Dept of Education, in that boys were not receiving support, and they were the ones most in need. I get the impression that this continues to this day.
It's true. Richard Reeves, in his recent book OF BOYS AND MEN points out not just the almost complete absence of men from elementary education (at some levels as low as 3%), but how the few men so engaged are often held in a quiet suspicion.
Reeves isn’t making a macho, back-to-the-locker-room argument. He’s making a deeply developmental and relational one:
Boys often lag behind girls in verbal skills and emotional regulation in early grades.
Schools, particularly at the elementary level, tend to reward behaviors (like sitting still, being quiet, working cooperatively) that align more closely with average developmental patterns for girls.
Without male role models or teachers who can connect with them and model alternative ways of being male (e.g., calm, nurturing, expressive), boys can detach from school culture early—and never quite reconnect. This is especially true for immigrant and underrepresented boys without strong family foundations.
Reeves argues that this isn’t just a personnel issue—it’s a cultural and structural failing. We’ve accepted a system that’s become feminized not in a pejorative way, but in a way that leaves many boys feeling adrift. And it feeds into larger, more damaging patterns: falling college enrollment, higher dropout rates, and disengagement from work and civic life.
When women were underrepresented in higher education, it was rightly a national crisis.
Editorials were written. Task forces formed. Policies changed. Grants and scholarships flowed. The imbalance was rightly framed as a matter of fairness, justice, and national competitiveness.
Now, the roles are reversed—and then some.
In Canada, women now make up 59% of the cisgender student population in public postsecondary institutions, with men at 41% . This means for every 100 women enrolled, there are only about 70 men.
But the response?
No op-eds. No federal task forces. No campaigns urging boys to stay in school. In fact, the very suggestion that this might be a problem is often met with discomfort or dismissal.
What Reeves is pointing out isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s a blind spot. A cultural reflex that assumes every disparity disadvantaging men is either deserved or irrelevant. That’s not equality—that’s ideology.
And if we don’t address it, we’re not just failing men. We’re weakening the whole foundation of an educated, capable, and cohesive society.
There is definitely a ‘purposelessness’ problem that is an issue particularly for young men. Our unemployment rate is going to spike in the coming months as the auto sector takes a major hit along with steel and aluminum due to Trump’s tariffs.
In the 1930s the solution for a surplus of young men with not much to do were public works projects, and I think we should look that way again. Carney has a very aggressive home building plan similar to what was undertaken post WWII, and that will help, but there are also a ton of public works projects that need attention, many related to hardening our public infrastructure. Here in Nova Scotia we need dikes built and/or raised, and forests cleared of deadfall left over from Fiona that represents a fire hazard. The list of projects really is endless!
An entrepreneurship/small business innovation loan program that forgives the principal over time based on employment would also help. Together with “buy Canadian” that may be part of the solution.
I know you are not a fan of government-led initiatives BUT if you want to get things done direct government investment has a great track record of making things happen.
There’s a world of difference between government bloat and government purpose. Between bullshit jobs shuffling papers and a foreman pointing to a shovel. Between initiatives that hire consultants to hold stakeholder meetings and those that put young men and women to work clearing trails, planting trees, raising dikes, cleaning rivers, or laying brick.
Your comment strikes at something urgent and overlooked: a nation doesn’t just run on GDP—it runs on direction. And when we lose that, we lose more than efficiency. We lose young people.
In the 1930s, they didn’t talk young men into wellness, we worked them into wholeness. Public works efforts gave structure, pay, dignity, and the priceless feeling of being needed. They took idle hands and turned them into a legacy of trails, bridges, forests, and roads—many still in use today.
We can do that again. As you say, there's endless work to be done.
There’s nothing soft about building dikes, clearing deadfall, or installing green infrastructure. That’s the hard edge of resilience. It’s also the kind of work that creates better citizens—not just better spreadsheets.
Mark Carney’s housing plan is promising. Direct. Focused. Urgently scaled. It echoes the postwar boom that built Canada’s suburbs and middle class. But the task ahead isn’t just housing—it’s reknitting the social and economic fabric through meaningful, nation-building work.
The idea of an entrepreneurship loan that forgives over time based on jobs created is exactly the kind of smart, outcomes-driven policy we need. It’s not about growing government—it’s about growing capacity.
So no, I’m not allergic to government. I’m allergic to aimlessness. If the state wants to roll up its sleeves and build, buy, or back something that clearly needs doing—I'll buy in the first round of bonds and help carry the gear.
People don’t just need money. They need a mission.
Having grown up in Pictou on a family dairy farm I have the deepest sense of pride that our entire extended family grew up with these very values and sentiments. There is not one who even on the most tiresome painful day would wake without having a plan to work hard and do good deeds along the way. I can tell many stories that would set the hardest heart to crying but I am sure there are many more stories of good deeds that have gone untold.
One of the greatest gifts my brother and sister were given was the community of 4-H. If I could give only one piece of advice for any parent today it would be to find a 4H club and put their kids in it. The life skills and values are things that will stay with you forever.
Nice piece John. Enjoy your stories and the old ad from Pictou was a cool addition. Thanks
Thank you for this note. And especially the Pictou County connection. Much appreciated!
This is profoundly simple and simply profound stuff. Hearing from a neighbor provides needed resonance and relief for Americans gummed up by our present tumble in the opposite direction.
Thank you Charlie.
Suppose we brought back the Katimivik program: groups of young people across Canada helping with community projects all across the country. It meant so much to those who were in it, years later.
I agree Carol,
When I was a kid, I dreamed of such an experience. I believe, even now, it would have been transformative for me and many of the boys I grew up with in Waverley, whose lives ended in sad ways.
The issue of course is that in today's fraught and overthought politics, simply putting boys and young men to work, would seem criminal and worse to many within the established systems.
I can only look back at Progressive Era initiatives that were the forebearers of Katimivik, with wild wonder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps
I was an elementary school council chair for 10 years in Kanata in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with a son and daughter. The council members, the school Principal, and other senior teaching/admins were 90% women. There were four Principals during that time at my school, and several others I knew and followed through my involvement with our local community association until the early 2010s. All were women, all very competent.
They were always concerned about the emphasis on girls' education that came down from the Ontario Provincial Dept of Education, in that boys were not receiving support, and they were the ones most in need. I get the impression that this continues to this day.
It's true. Richard Reeves, in his recent book OF BOYS AND MEN points out not just the almost complete absence of men from elementary education (at some levels as low as 3%), but how the few men so engaged are often held in a quiet suspicion.
Reeves isn’t making a macho, back-to-the-locker-room argument. He’s making a deeply developmental and relational one:
Boys often lag behind girls in verbal skills and emotional regulation in early grades.
Schools, particularly at the elementary level, tend to reward behaviors (like sitting still, being quiet, working cooperatively) that align more closely with average developmental patterns for girls.
Without male role models or teachers who can connect with them and model alternative ways of being male (e.g., calm, nurturing, expressive), boys can detach from school culture early—and never quite reconnect. This is especially true for immigrant and underrepresented boys without strong family foundations.
Reeves argues that this isn’t just a personnel issue—it’s a cultural and structural failing. We’ve accepted a system that’s become feminized not in a pejorative way, but in a way that leaves many boys feeling adrift. And it feeds into larger, more damaging patterns: falling college enrollment, higher dropout rates, and disengagement from work and civic life.
Your comments, particularly on learning styles of you boys and girls were front and center as issues 20 to 30 years ago.
And yet here we are.
When women were underrepresented in higher education, it was rightly a national crisis.
Editorials were written. Task forces formed. Policies changed. Grants and scholarships flowed. The imbalance was rightly framed as a matter of fairness, justice, and national competitiveness.
Now, the roles are reversed—and then some.
In Canada, women now make up 59% of the cisgender student population in public postsecondary institutions, with men at 41% . This means for every 100 women enrolled, there are only about 70 men.
But the response?
No op-eds. No federal task forces. No campaigns urging boys to stay in school. In fact, the very suggestion that this might be a problem is often met with discomfort or dismissal.
What Reeves is pointing out isn’t just hypocrisy. It’s a blind spot. A cultural reflex that assumes every disparity disadvantaging men is either deserved or irrelevant. That’s not equality—that’s ideology.
And if we don’t address it, we’re not just failing men. We’re weakening the whole foundation of an educated, capable, and cohesive society.
There is definitely a ‘purposelessness’ problem that is an issue particularly for young men. Our unemployment rate is going to spike in the coming months as the auto sector takes a major hit along with steel and aluminum due to Trump’s tariffs.
In the 1930s the solution for a surplus of young men with not much to do were public works projects, and I think we should look that way again. Carney has a very aggressive home building plan similar to what was undertaken post WWII, and that will help, but there are also a ton of public works projects that need attention, many related to hardening our public infrastructure. Here in Nova Scotia we need dikes built and/or raised, and forests cleared of deadfall left over from Fiona that represents a fire hazard. The list of projects really is endless!
An entrepreneurship/small business innovation loan program that forgives the principal over time based on employment would also help. Together with “buy Canadian” that may be part of the solution.
I know you are not a fan of government-led initiatives BUT if you want to get things done direct government investment has a great track record of making things happen.
Doug, I think all this is exactly right.
There’s a world of difference between government bloat and government purpose. Between bullshit jobs shuffling papers and a foreman pointing to a shovel. Between initiatives that hire consultants to hold stakeholder meetings and those that put young men and women to work clearing trails, planting trees, raising dikes, cleaning rivers, or laying brick.
Your comment strikes at something urgent and overlooked: a nation doesn’t just run on GDP—it runs on direction. And when we lose that, we lose more than efficiency. We lose young people.
In the 1930s, they didn’t talk young men into wellness, we worked them into wholeness. Public works efforts gave structure, pay, dignity, and the priceless feeling of being needed. They took idle hands and turned them into a legacy of trails, bridges, forests, and roads—many still in use today.
We can do that again. As you say, there's endless work to be done.
There’s nothing soft about building dikes, clearing deadfall, or installing green infrastructure. That’s the hard edge of resilience. It’s also the kind of work that creates better citizens—not just better spreadsheets.
Mark Carney’s housing plan is promising. Direct. Focused. Urgently scaled. It echoes the postwar boom that built Canada’s suburbs and middle class. But the task ahead isn’t just housing—it’s reknitting the social and economic fabric through meaningful, nation-building work.
The idea of an entrepreneurship loan that forgives over time based on jobs created is exactly the kind of smart, outcomes-driven policy we need. It’s not about growing government—it’s about growing capacity.
So no, I’m not allergic to government. I’m allergic to aimlessness. If the state wants to roll up its sleeves and build, buy, or back something that clearly needs doing—I'll buy in the first round of bonds and help carry the gear.
People don’t just need money. They need a mission.