Editorial

May 13 2026

An instinct to participate

We hear it constantly now, delivered with the weary certainty of people convinced they are merely describing reality: the public has checked out. Civic life is broken. People no longer care enough to participate except perhaps to rage online or retreat into private frustration.

Spend enough time listening to political commentary, scrolling through national headlines or reading reports about declining trust in institutions, and it’s easy to accept the premise that our democracy is a wheezing shadow of its former self.

And yet, here in northeastern Nova Scotia, the evidence says otherwise.

Last week, in this space, we argued that bold ambitions – whether tied to major industrial projects, economic development or regional transformation – are only as strong as the infrastructure beneath them. Roads, communications systems, pharmacies, utilities and public services are not glamorous, but they are what make lasting growth possible. And all this is true.

But another kind of infrastructure matters too: civic participation itself. Over the past several weeks, we have seen repeated examples of ordinary people refusing to behave as though public life is something happening somewhere else, beyond their reach or influence.

Across Guysborough and Antigonish counties, residents responded forcefully to cuts in the provincial budget affecting cultural organizations, local initiatives and community programs many considered essential to the social fabric of the province.

More recently, residents have turned out in significant numbers to public meetings and open houses tied to major proposed developments, like those organized by EverWind Fuels last week in Sherbrooke, Country Harbour and Port Bickerton, where dozens asked hard questions.

The same dynamic is emerging around NexGold’s proposed Goldboro mine project, where, over the next several weeks, residents, contractors and local officials will be looking for specifics about a development whose scale many communities have not seen in generations.

Importantly, people aren’t showing up merely to oppose, applaud or “perform” indignation for its own sake. They genuinely want to know about timelines, impacts, tradeoffs and consequences. In other words, they are behaving like citizens.

That seems counterintuitive when you consider that Statistics Canada has cited declining volunteerism, weakening trust in institutions and falling participation in many traditional forms of civic engagement as defining features of public life over the past decade.

But maybe what we are seeing is not the disappearance of civic participation so much as its migration. If people trust institutions less than they once did, many clearly believe their presence is more, not less, important when decisions affecting their communities are being made.

Perhaps people are not withdrawing from public life so much as re-entering it on their own terms.

That should encourage us.

Not because every public argument is wise, or every concern justified, or every proposed development destined to succeed. They are not. But because the instinct to participate – to gather, question, scrutinize and engage – remains very much alive.

And in an era so often defined by alienation, distrust and exhaustion, that may be one of the strongest foundations any community can still possess.