ERIKA SHEA: Kindness and community spirit still exist during troubling times

Like many of you, we at New Dawn have spent these first few months of 2025 struggling to make sense of what is unfolding south of the border. We’ve watched as increasingly erratic behaviour in the White House sends us into an exhausting and consequential on-again-off-again trade war. And we’ve watched as America’s rich and powerful have moved to dismantle human rights and undo that country’s already inadequate social safety net, all the while scapegoating immigrants, transgender Americans, USAID, Ukrainians, Canadians, and people living in poverty for every real and imagined woe between the 32nd and 49th parallels.

The truth is, as the American dream has moved further out of reach for more and more people, it’s done so on the heels of extraordinary economic growth.

Between 2000 and 2024, GDP in the US grew from $10 trillion to almost $30 trillion, an increase of 200 per cent. In this same period, the population of the US has grown by only 20 per cent.

Canada has seen a similar trajectory, with its national wealth more than doubling from just under $1 trillion in 2000 to $2.25 trillion 2024, while population has grown by 25 per cent.

If we dig deeper, we see in both countries that it is the wealth of those at the very top that is growing most quickly while the wealth owned by those at the bottom is shrinking.

In America, the very rich – the top 1 per cent – now control more wealth than the bottom 90 per cent. The debate, then, is less about whether there is enough money and more about who we think deserves the money – the 1 per cent at the top or the 90 per cent at the bottom.

Bullies in the White House

In 1885, lawyer, author, and political leader Robert Ingersoll said, “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power.”

Bullies, from the playground to the boardroom to the White House, use bullying to feel better about themselves. They may think it is about “the art of the deal,” they may think they are doing what is best for their country, but then they also think they won the 2020 election.

Instead of introspection, they find someone weaker, and they use their power to make them feel small. They mock them. They blame them. They talk over them. They dismantle their human rights, they try to erase them from public life, and they pursue policy changes that threaten their health, safety, and well-being.

Immigrants – legal and illegal – are not the downfall of America. Canada isn’t taking advantage of America, and it isn’t responsible for its opioid crisis. Ukraine didn’t start the war with Russia. Transgender Americans are not a threat – they aren’t grooming children, and they aren’t a danger to women in bathrooms. If you are afraid of men dressing as women to attack women in bathrooms, you are not afraid of transgender people, you are afraid of men.

Finding hope close to home

Every day at New Dawn, we are witness to the most profound acts of generosity and selflessness, and to the spirit of care, community, and love that drives these acts. We get to see first hand people using whatever power they have to serve others. Every day, all day, stretching back decades.

Our longstanding Meals on Wheels program has been inundated in recent years with requests from international students to volunteer. They tell us when inquiring about a volunteer position that they want to give back to their new community and want to connect with elders like they would do back home.

In a recently organized planning session, 38 service providers showed up to talk about how we might better co-ordinate services for young people in need.

It was evident from the start that achieving better mental health, well-being, and educational outcomes for young people in the community was the shared and singular objective of everyone in the room.

Over the past weekend, 20 people showed up to a workshop at Eltuek Arts Centre on Palestinian tatreez – a traditional form of Palestinian embroidery art – and under the direction of a charismatic and skilled instructor – stitched and shared diverse stories of their experiences with embroidery and sewing in their own families and art practices.

Last week, we had the immense privilege of listening to two young people from Glace Bay talk with such awe and commitment to their community, and compassion for people who have lost loved ones to addictions, that it brought tears to our eyes. Their wisdom exceeded their years tenfold.

Last month, we picked up boxes of beautifully kept, cleaned, and packed men’s clothes from a woman who recently lost her husband. She wanted to fulfill his wish that they go to help those in need, so she sent them to the residents of the Village at Pine Tree Park.

And yesterday, a businessperson in the community donated $75,000 to ensure that Eleanor’s Court, the supportive housing development set to open next month, could be outfitted with a generator so that tenants could stay in their homes when extreme weather in years ahead disrupts power supply.

Every day, all day, stretching back decades.

A call to action

As we confront the harsh reality of the ways in which some choose to use their power, may we remember to look for, linger on, and lift up the acts of service, compassion, and love that surround us every day.

May we take the lessons we are learning in real-time – about character, integrity, fairness, inequality, and leadership – and continue to apply them to both ourselves and our local, provincial, and federal leaders here in Canada; asking how and for whom we use our power, and how and for whom they intend to use theirs.

May we build and ruthlessly defend communities where newcomers are welcomed and celebrated, where we know that how another person decides to define their love has no material impact on our lives, where we examine our fears of difference instead of projecting them out on the world, and where we work not towards a future characterized by anger, scarcity, and fear, but one based in hope and our belief in the innate goodness and dignity of one another.

Erika Shea is the President & CEO of New Dawn Enterprises, Canada’s oldest community development corporation.

Cape Breton Post, March 15, 2025