Great work by Scott McWalter with the Facebook page he created over the weekend. Hell Yeah Prince George! is an unabashed act of community boosterism. There are a lot more positives to living in Prince George than negative is the straightforward message of this page and let us count the ways.
Since it's birth on Sunday morning, the page attracted more than 5,000 members by Monday night. This Facebook page has turned into a rallying point for residents who have had quite enough with all of the "Prince George sucks" chatter, both online and in the community.
McWalter wanted the page to be a place where residents "can talk about why P.G. is an amazing place to call home." His efforts join the ongoing efforts by the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, with its Consider Prince George campaign, Tourism Prince George, with its #takeonpg initiative, as well as others, to foster some civic pride.
In other words, we need to believe in ourselves and our community or we can't possibly convince others about the numerous merits of living and working here.
We have to remind ourselves, though, that badmouthing Kamloops or Kelowna or Nanaimo isn't civic pride. Tearing others down to pump ourselves down is not a sustainable foundation for pride. Rather, civic pride is about celebrating who we are, what we have, what we've accomplished and what we're working on. We have to be careful, however, that our enthusiasm for Prince George doesn't turn into bullying and shouting down the critics and the cynics among us.
The naysayers play their own valuable role in any community. It was the naysayers on other Facebook pages that motivated McWalter to start his Hell Yeah page. It is the negativity of the naysayers, even if it's unwarranted, that provokes positive and powerful responses to serious problems.
Here's an example.
For much of the 1990s, more than 10,000 residents were without a family doctor and there seemed no hope it would change. A massive rally in 2000 filled the Multiplex with community members who wanted to do something. Within a decade, the doctor shortage had been reduced to a handful of specialists, a medical school had been built at UNBC and a cancer centre for the North was under construction at the hospital.
Complaining and frustration and anger and indignation made that happen, not complacency and not a don't- worry-be-happy attitude. The emotional engagement to fix a serious problem often starts with getting mad about it.
There will always be a small handful of people who define their happiness by how much they have to complain about but it's the complaint, not the complainer, that's really important. Most people want a solution to their negativity on certain issues and most of those people would rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.
So long as they aren't obstacles to improvement and are willing to admit when the small victories do come, even the harshest of critics and the bleakest of cynics are good for any community. As Canadians, we admire the American citizens with the bravery to criticize blind patriotism, so we have to be willing to grant the same acceptance to those among us who say "Hell, Yeah, but..." or even "Hell no."
So how about some appreciation for the naysayers? Without them, we wouldn't have the lemons to make lemonade.
