During the upcoming federal election, Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair will all try to portray themselves as leaders Canadians can count on. They will use words like strong, decisive, competent, passionate and dependable to describe their leadership.
It's highly unlikely any of them will use the word healing.
That's too bad because the leader as healer is often a transformative force, someone who changes the culture and alters the conversation, bringing previously disenfranchised
voices and views forward. Pope Francis is working hard to be a healing leader but it's too soon to see if he will truly deliver because
healing takes time and persistence. George
W. Bush could have been a healing leader after 9/11 if he had caught Osama bin Laden in the fall of 2001, not used torture as a form of interrogation, not spied on Americans to gather intelligence and responded to Hurricane Katrina much faster. Lyndon Johnson could have been a healing leader for his "war on poverty" if he had stayed out of Vietnam.
In Canada, Pierre Trudeau could have been a healing leader if he had brought Quebec into the Constitution. Paul Martin could have been a healing leader if he had been prime minister long enough to make the Kelowna Accord with First Nations a reality.
Closer to home, Rachel Notley has the opportunity to be a healing leader in Alberta by devoting tax increases to schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure. Lyn Hall is showing promising signs of being a healing leader at Prince George city hall with his renaming of Fort George Park, his neighbourhood consultations and his staff appreciation barbecues, but it's early days in his mandate.
Out of last month's tragedy in Charleston,
S.C., that city's mayor has emerged as a textbook healing leader. Nothing about Joseph Riley's background is typical American South. He is an Irish Catholic in a predominantly Protestant area and he is a Democrat in a predominantly Republican city and state. Yet he has been the mayor of Charleston for an incredible 39 years and is in the final year of his 10th term as mayor.
As a profile in the Globe and Mail this week showed, his leadership has unified a city and state in grief. Imagine if nine blacks had been killed by a young white man in St. Louis. The violence would have been devastating and would have spread to many other cities and states. In Charleston, however, Riley, with key support from Republican governor Nikki Haley, has been a healer in the wake of the shootings. An act designed to provoke a race war sparked an outpouring of white and black citizens coming together to pray for peace and a demand for the South's most racist
historical symbol, the Confederate flag, to be retired from flying over public spaces once and for all.
Riley didn't become a healing leader just a few weeks ago. It's been a central part of his leadership style since he was sworn into office in December 1975. In 2000, he walked the 114 miles from Charleston to Columbia, the state capital, to demand the removal of the Confederate flag from the legislature.
In 1989, the Globe story goes on to explain, Charleston was devastated by a hurricane yet Riley led a massive rebuilding effort that rebuilt the city's historic downtown and turned it into a major tourist destination. He has remained steadfast even when faced with serious opposition. To this day, he favors tougher gun-control laws and he is a staunch opponent of the death penalty, even for the killer of the nine black parishioners. In his early days as mayor, white opponents dismissive of his efforts to soothe tensions between black and white residents earned him the nickname "Little Black Joe."
That only emboldened him to improve housing and parks in black neighbourhoods and to hire the city's first black police chief.
Before he leaves office early next year, he told the Globe he hopes work will be underway on a $75-million museum of African-American history that will tell the story of the 882 slave ships that docked in Charleston with 40 per cent of all of the slaves brought to America from Africa.
Applying Riley's past accomplishments and present ambitions to Canada and a map of what truth and reconciliation with First
Nations could look like quickly emerges.
Now all we need is some healing leaders.
