On public policies and individual practices – reflections from a Canadian democratic sauna.

I live in a relatively small town (60 thousand people) in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada.

Among other spaces, I believe that gym clubs are one of the most democratic spaces of our Canadian society. At approximately $30 dollars a month, almost everyone can afford a membership.

And it is after swimming, while stretching in my local club’s sauna, that I have a good pulse of my community and its diversity of thoughts.

There I've met and exchanged ideas with a variety of citizens - the janitor and the neuro surgeon of our regional hospital, the owner of the bakery and some of his staff too. Folks from different ages, cultural backgrounds, educational and income levels.

Lately, with another federal election in the radar, I often heard folks saying that their vote has no weight in the greater picture and independently of the winner, reality would not change at all for them.

My most obvious reaction is to explain that although public policies often seem far detached from our day to day reality, they do have great impact on our lives and different parties and leaders may have radically different ideas for the economy, immigration, social security and climate change policies, just to mention some big topics that are relevant for most, if not all communities of our planet. Unquestionably, each individual's vote and the winner of any electoral process, matter enormously.

But beyond that, these conversations made me also reflect on the cycle of public policies and practices. What comes first? I think that in general, public policies are reactions to individual and businesses’ practices. In theory, legislators reflect on our society and its practices and develop regulations in order to streamline processes, mitigate or eliminate imbalances, injustices and inequalities. It could be also true that legislators may anticipate trends and directions and develop public policies accordingly.

But these late conversation made me also reflect on the following questions:

What if the practices out there are moving faster then the legislators can react to?

Can we continue to rely solely on public policies as a way to regulate our society?

Is there value in reflecting if some of our individual and businesses’ practices, although legal, may still cause tremendous harm to our planet and to our society?

And I thought about three simple examples:

Climate Change

Although extremely relevant, legislation around electric cars is absolutely no more important then the amount of garbage and waste that we produce in our households. As an example, it is impossible not to get amazed by the size of the boxes and amount of paper that arrive in any Amazon delivery - even if inside the box is just a single multi color pen. Delivered at your door, next day, with no delivery costs. Put this in scale...The primary loser: our planet. Is Amazon bad and should cease to exist? Absolutely not. Is this model legal? Yes. Sustainable? Absolutely not too.

Income inequality and job insecurity

Everyone agrees that workers should have dignifying salaries and working conditions. Everyone.

Yet, we are in general very comfortable in using uber type of services where the worker in front of us have no right to sick days, vacation time, retirement or any type of benefits and ultimately, make money only to survive. What originally meant to be a complementary income for some, became the only income for most. Have we ever heard about an uber driver who worked so hard that became very rich? This is a truly precarious job. Is Uber bad and should cease to exist? Absolutely not. Is this model legal? Yes. Sustainable? Absolutely not too.

Corruption

Despite the inefficiencies of the public sector here and there, we all agree that corruption removes money from the system. Money that would otherwise be invested in care for our seniors, education, in health, in training, in supporting those who are falling behind - in somehow levelling the playing field for all.

Around our planet, individual and businesses’ strategies and practices associated to tax dodging (tax avoidance + tax evasion) have exactly the same final impact in our society and accounts for monumental amounts of resources removed from our system - $427 billion each year*.

This reflection does not aim in pointing fingers as I truly believe that in one way or the other, and with different intensities, we are all part of the system and the sole contributors to the injustices, imbalances and inequalities that we so strongly despise.

Ultimately, I see enormous value in starting to ask ourselves not only what we can do more but even more importantly, what we should start doing less…

It is certainly the collective of our micro (individuals and businesses) actions the primary source for our most pressing macro challenges - climate change and income inequality.

And if we keep waiting for new public policies to establish the balances and make the necessary corrections, it may already be too late…

* As per Jeanne Whalen's article on Washington Post on November 19, 2020 - "Governments around the world are losing $427 billion each year to tax avoidance and evasion as companies and wealthy individuals shift their money to tax havens, according to a comprehensive new report that urges an overhaul of the “broken” tax system"