Who Has Been Here Doing the Work?

A resident recently shared something that stayed with me:

I have to confess, those words resonated with me.

One of the things I struggle with most during election season is watching how quickly community can give way to camps, labels, and sides. Every couple of years, it seems to become more intense.

Maybe what troubles me most is that I have spent much of my adult life watching people quietly serve without applause, without a title, and without an election on the horizon.

They organize. They volunteer. They mentor. They show up when someone is hurting. They sit through meetings nobody else wants to attend. They solve problems that will never make the news.

Then election season arrives.

Suddenly, people who may never have noticed that work begin weighing in on it. Sometimes the first contribution is not to help carry the load, but to diminish what someone else has spent years building.

And when that does not work, the conversation can become partisan.

Pick a team. Choose a side. Decide who you are against.

I confess that I find that discouraging.

Because none of it fixes a street, helps a struggling family, mentors a young person, prepares a neighborhood for disaster, supports a small business, or makes someone feel more connected to the place they call home.

Service is hard enough without turning every disagreement into a political identity test.

Most residents are not waking up every morning looking for another political fight.

They are raising families, going to work, paying bills, caring for parents, coaching kids, trying to keep their neighborhoods safe, and hoping that the people involved in civic life actually care about the community.

That is why those words stayed with me.

They reminded me that leadership should never be about convincing neighbors to dislike one another.

It should be about giving them more reasons to believe in one another.

I also think we should become more comfortable asking a different question during election season.

Not simply:

"Which side are you on?"

But:

"Who has been here doing the work?"

Who was serving before there was a campaign?

Who was listening before there was an audience?

Who was helping when nobody was keeping score?

Who was willing to do the unglamorous work when there was no title attached to it?

Those are questions worth asking about anyone who seeks the privilege of public service.

And perhaps those questions can help us rediscover something our politics too often causes us to forget:

Before we are Democrats, Republicans, independents, candidates, activists, or voters, we are neighbors.

And Ontario belongs to all of us.