Think Different is a comprehensive discourse on a whole array of fascinating ideas. Primary among them is the concept of urban reform and revival, and the role that religious communities have and are poised to play in the future. With this somewhat vague framework of what an urban religious community is, most of the essayists set out to answer whether these things are problem solvers or trouble makers. Many make the more obvious case that, due to the public good that urban churches and congregations do in their charitable work, they must be problem solvers. One contributor, James Watson, advocates that urban religious communities should become trouble makers because the mission of the Christian church particularly is to shake society-at-large out of its complacency. There are sporadic strategic criticisms of urban religious communities, but there is no strong coherent attempt to play devil's advocate. A great deal of focus is made on how religious communities, particularly churches, should interact with city planners and municipal officials in order to play a more participatory role in city building. But there is also an acknowledgement of how radically the urban landscapes of North America have changed since the Second World War, and what impact that change has had on religious communities. This emergence is what Sandalack calls the "big box churches" that fret about zoning laws and parking lots, as well as what Menzies, identifies as churches, mosques, and synagogues becoming more isolated from the city-at-large (and, more importantly, each other) while relocating to suburbia. It is from this point that essayists like Kuykendall, Miller, and others advocate that religious communities must seize a more active role in urban planning if these downtown cores are to retain "sacred spaces". The most interesting idea, however, comes from Robert Joustra, who posits that municipal authorities should take the same role in fostering the growth of religious institutions as they do with businesses, because of the critical public goods they provide. This he argues despite that both business and religion are supposed to be rigidly separated from government. At the end of the book the picture is painted of an urban Canada at a crossroads in terms of what we, as citizens, want our towns and cities to be: whether that choice is Kuykendall's harmonious, Bedford Falls, or the debauchery of, Pottersville. In sum, Think Different has a great deal to contribute to continued debates on urbanization.

Canada is a caring society but, as the recent Cardus study "A Canadian Culture of Generosity" shows, its compassionate core is becoming an endangered species. The overall positive numbers regarding Canadian generosity (85 per cent of adults say they donate to charity annually; between a quarter and a third of us volunteer) mask the reality that less than 30 per cent of Canadians account for 85 per cent of total hours volunteered, 78 per cent of total dollars donated and 71 per cent of all civic participation. Dig a little further and we discover that there is a primary civic core of about six per cent of the population that does about five times its proportionate share and a secondary group of 23 per cent of the population that does about double its share. They carry the remaining 71 per cent of the population. While some measure of disproportionality is expected, given the different stages of life, resources, and various aptitudes that make up the population mosaic, what is concerning is that the patterns are not sustainable. Researchers tell us the features which distinguish the civic core are not the sort of characteristics which will automatically replenish themselves, but rather are founded in certain habits of the heart that incline them to the common good. Members of the civic core have an "otherness" syndrome that causes them to do what they do out of deep convictions. They share a set of beliefs that stress responsibility, connectedness and cultural renewal. They are committed to improving their communities through exercising and promoting personal and corporate responsibility. These citizens are often (but not always) older, religious, and well educated. While in the paper we explore the data as it relates to giving, volunteering, and belonging to social organizations, we did not manage to get parallel data regarding how this relates to the decline in political engagement. Still, what all of these trends together point to, as Rudyard Griffiths stated out in his recent book, A Citizens Manifesto, is that: "Join the dots of these statistics, and the picture that emerges runs completely counter to our own self-image as 'caring Canadians.' ...a significant portion of the population is doing little in terms of day-to-day behaviour to renew the social capital upon which much of the prosperity and social harmony in Canada depends." The matter will not be resolved simply by a moralistic campaign urging people to give more, nor is the solution to be found in privatization. It will not do for one sector (government) to cast off its responsibilities onto another. All stakeholders are needed to do their part to create a new culture of giving, to improve the social environment, to mobilize citizens to become part of the civic core, and strengthen Canada's charitable sector. Cardus's report - now available at https://www.cardus.ca/policy/ - provides 19 practical recommendations for first steps which might be considered by the various social institutions which constitute our social architecture. Although the issue is much broader than politics, the importance of political leadership cannot be overlooked. We recommend that government highlight the importance of the charitable sector by increasing the charitable tax credit for donations over $200 from 29 per cent to 42 per cent. Since Alberta and British Columbia increased their provincial tax credits for charitable organizations, donations to charities have increased in each province by more than five per cent. I would hasten to add that initiatives ought to include understanding of faith-based organizations and their important role in the public square. Dealing with faith and its public implications in a multicultural country such as ours has its challenges, but pretending that faith does not exist or that it is a motivating factor for much of the volunteer and charitable activity that goes on in Canada is self-deluding. A careful analysis of the numbers shows that even when we factor out all of the giving which people of faith give to faith-based institutions, it remains true that people who are active in their faith communities give more and volunteer more than those who do not. The next chapter in the future of Canadian civil society has yet to be written. Canadian society today thrives in large part because of the culture of giving and civic investment that is practiced routinely by a small minority of the population who comprise Canada's civic core. If trends toward disengagement deepen and become entrenched, it will be much more difficult to reverse these patterns in the future. Strategic action is required now. Ray Pennings is Senior Fellow and Director of Research for Cardus, a Canadian think-tank focused on the application of moral values in the public arena.

Canada is a caring society but, as the recent Cardus study, A Canadian Culture of Generosity, shows, its compassionate core is becoming an endangered species. The overall positive numbers regarding Canadian generosity (85 per cent of adults say they donate to charity annually; between a quarter and a third of us volunteer) mask the reality that less than 30 per cent of Canadians account for 85 per cent of total hours volunteered, 78 per cent of total dollars donated and 71 per cent of all civic participation. Dig a little further and we discover that there is a primary civic core of about six per cent of the population that does about five times its proportionate share and a secondary group of 23 per cent of the population that does about double its share. They carry the remaining 71 per cent of the population. While some measure of disproportionality is expected, given the different stages of life, resources and various aptitudes that make up the population mosaic, what is concerning is that the patterns are not sustainable. Researchers tell us the features that distinguish the civic core are not the sort of characteristics that will automatically replenish themselves-- but rather are founded in certain habits of the heart that incline them to the common good. Members of the civic core have an "otherness" syndrome that causes them to do what they do out of deep convictions. They share a set of beliefs that stress responsibility, connectedness and cultural renewal. They are committed to improving their communities through exercising and promoting personal and corporate responsibility. These citizens are often (but not always) older, religious and well educated. While in the paper we explore the data as it relates to giving, volunteering and belonging to social organizations, we did not manage to get parallel data regarding how this relates to the decline in political engagement. Still, what all of these trends together point to, as Rudyard Griffiths stated in his recent book, A Citizens Manifesto, is that: "Join the dots of these statistics, and the picture that emerges runs completely counter to our own self-image as 'caring Canadians.' . . . a significant portion of the population is doing little in terms of day-to-day behaviour to renew the social capital upon which much of the prosperity and social harmony in Canada depends." The matter will not be resolved simply by a moralistic campaign urging people to give more, nor is the solution to be found in privatization. It will not do for one sector (government) to cast off its responsibilities onto another. All stakeholders are needed to do their part to create a new culture of giving, to improve the social environment, to mobilize citizens to become part of the civic core, and strengthen Canada's charitable sector. Cardus's report --now available at https://www.cardus.ca/policy/--provides 19 practical recommendations for first steps that might be considered by the various social institutions which constitute our social architecture. Although the issue is much broader than politics, the importance of political leadership cannot be overlooked. We recommend that government highlight the importance of the charitable sector by increasing the charitable tax credit for donations over $200 from 29 per cent to 42 per cent. Since Alberta and British Columbia increased their provincial tax credits for charitable organizations, donations to charities have increased in each province by more than five per cent. I would hasten to add that initiatives ought to include understanding of faith-based organizations and their important role in the public square. Dealing with faith and its public implications in a multicultural country such as ours has its challenges, but pretending that faith does not exist or that it is a motivating factor for much of the volunteer and charitable activity that goes on in Canada is self-deluding. A careful analysis of the numbers shows that even when we factor out all of the giving which people of faith give to faith-based institutions, it remains true that people who are active in their faith communities give more and volunteer more than those who do not. The next chapter in the future of Canadian civil society has yet to be written. Canadian society today thrives in large part because of the culture of giving and civic investment that is practised routinely by a small minority of the population who comprise Canada's civic core. If trends toward disengagement deepen and become entrenched, it will be much more difficult to reverse these patterns in the future. Strategic action is required now. Ray Pennings Is Senior Fellow And Director Of Research For Cardus.

Cardus' Gideon Strauss, president of the Center for Public Justice in Washington, D.C., appeared on CTS-TV's "Behind the Story" last week. Watch the roundtable discussion here.

The walls of political empires such as the one that rules Alberta crumble only when the broad consensus that holds them together cracks apart. On Oct. 17, the Wildrose Alliance, a 2008 coalition of the Wildrose and the Alberta Alliance parties, will select either Danielle Smith or Mark Dyrholm as its leader. That and the outcome of the Progressive Conservatives' leadership review of Premier Ed Stelmach will determine the answer to the rarely asked question of whether Alberta's and Canada's longest-lasting political empire might just have finally passed its best-before date. The Wildrose Alliance is the provincial equivalent of the late-1980s Reform Party. Then, Blue Tories frustrated by what they believed to be the federal Conservative government's failure to adhere to fiscal conservatism walked away from prime minister Brian Mulroney's centre-right coalition and, along with social conservatives, built the wave that Reform rode for 10 years. The only foreshadowing of that unrest came in the 1989 by-election victory of Deborah Grey, Reform's first MP. Fast-forward 20 years to Alberta and the victory in last month's Calgary-Glenmore by-election of the Wildrose Alliance's Paul Hinman in a riding that had been deep Tory Blue for 38 years. High-profile Calgary Alderman Diane Colley-Urquhart was the PC's standard bearer and an assumed shoo-in for the cabinet; she finished a shocking third behind Mr. Hinman and Liberal Avalon Roberts. Wildrose's victory was all the more stunning because it took place in urban Calgary, where many commentators have insisted, albeit without much evidence of changed voting patterns to support the claim, that the influx of people from other parts of Canada is blunting the city's renowned conservative leanings. The result is that political attention is suddenly focused squarely on the struggle between Ms. Smith and Mr. Dyrholm to lead Wildrose and then build a sustainable reformist wave to ride into the next election. Both candidates have well-funded platforms designed to appeal to both fiscal and social conservatives. Ms. Smith, an articulate former journalist, broadcaster and director of provincial affairs with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, is billed as the candidate most likely to appeal to supporters with a strong bent toward free-market business policies. However, her laissez-faire approach toward social policies includes accommodation for the socially conservative. Mr. Dyrholm, a chiropractor, appeals primarily to the social conservative crowd although he, too, promotes free-market, small-government fiscal principles and, just in case there was any doubt about political parallels, has "Reforming Alberta" as his campaign slogan. The ability of the victor to hold the party's fiscon-socon consensus/coalition together and then broaden its appeal is the key first step if a real revolution in Alberta politics is to take place. Meanwhile, Mr. Stelmach faces a mandatory leadership review next month similar to the one that proved to be the undoing of former premier Ralph Klein. Notwithstanding his powerful 2008 election victory, the Premier is burdened by the same "everybody's second choice" leadership dynamic that so troubled Stephane Dion of the federal Liberals. Struggling to stifle unrest within his caucus as an $8-billion provincial surplus morphed into a $7-billion deficit in a matter of months, Mr. Stelmach evicted a former cabinet minister, the popular Guy Boutilier of Fort McMurray, from the caucus, punished a rookie Calgary MLA for mildly critical comments and was forced last week to respond to rumours that Mr. Boutilier and as many as 10 Tory MLAs are poised to defect to Wildrose. Mr. Klein, to the chagrin of Stelmach loyalists, weighed in on the leadership issue by opining that the Premier needs a minimum of 70-per-cent support to maintain order. The common wisdom is that should Ms. Smith, the candidate seen as the most likely to expand Wildrose's appeal into the centre-right, become leader and should Mr. Stelmach survive the leadership review, the pan-Alberta consensus that the party of Peter Lougheed has so carefully nurtured for 38 years may unravel. Deepening fissures are already evident between Red and Blue, urban and rural, public and private sectors, fiscal conservatives and Keynesians and, most openly, Edmonton and Calgary. For Mr. Stelmach, burdened by a weak internal mandate and the reputation that under his watch Alberta's oil-and-gas regime is all of a sudden the country's least friendly to investment, that's a lot of consensus to hold together. For the challenger, whether it is Ms. Smith or Mr. Dyrholm, it's a lot of consensus to build.

Senior Fellow Jonathan Chaplin, Director of KLICE, publishes God and Government with Nick Spencer of Theos. Featuring a top collection of essays including Bishop N.T. Wright and a Foreword by Archbishop Rowan Williams, Cardus calls this "must reading" for folks thinking about religion and politics.  

"A Canadian Culture of Generosity: Renewing Canada's Social Architecture by Investing in the Civic Core and the Third Sector", is a Cardus discussion paper looking at a strategic response to flagging volunteerism, philanthropy and civic participation. Order a copy here.  

Mike Goheen and Erin Glanville (eds) release The Gospel and Globalization, featuring chapters by Senior Fellows Jonathan Chaplin, Paul Williams and Cardus Researcher Robert Joustra. More on the book...   

Cardus opened its new head office in Hamilton, on 185 Young Street with ceremony and style on September 2. Visit us at our new Hamilton location in the coming weeks, and stop in for a coffee and a chat. Or - check out some the photo gallery from our event on Facebook - no account required!    Finally, coming soon browse some candid video from the night and get a feel for the new space, what it is we're up to and the folks that make it happen.