I have always been involved in volunteer activities and organizations. I'm not sure whether the British Columbia Youth Parliament (BCYP) counts in this regard. We certainly did a fair amount of it. I will speak elsewhere about the importance of volunteer work and what it can do for your career, but BCYP certainly taught me some very important lessons that came in very useful in the course of my career. It was one of the high points of my volunteer career, as well.
When I joined, it wasn't yet the British Columbia Youth Parliament. At that point it was still the Older Boys Parliament of British Columbia.
The older boys parliaments of various provinces in Canada came out of the TUXIS organization which was a Christian young men's group. Well, boys group, as they would have put it at that point. These were teenagers in church groups in Canada. The TUXIS organization took its name from a rather convoluted acronym: training through service (T and S), you (U) and I on either side, and Christ (X) in the middle. As the name would indicate, this was an organization that was involved in various service works, but it was a church group organization, and initially, the older boys parliaments that were created across the country were church-based, and drew their membership from the church service groups.
Our church never did have a TUXIS group, but the Older Boys Parliament was undergoing a bit of a transformation itself, which eventually, within a few years, meant that it was a secular organization. I did get the information about the Older Boys Parliament initially from the church, but not for any contact with the original TUXIS organization. I only learned about the TUXIS organization, and its contacts, later when I did some research into the history of the Older Boys Parliament itself.
At the time that I joined it, the Older Boys Parliament of BC was one of the last older boys parliaments operating in Canada. It was also one of the more socially active of the organizations. The Older Boys Parliament of British Columbia ran a number of charitable projects during the year, including a resident summer camp for kids one week during the year. As I had already been involved with resident camping I was very interested in this project and tried to be involved in the planning as much as possible although I was not always able to attend the camp itself as a counselor, since by this time I was generally working full-time during the summers in order to make money for university.
The Older Boys Parliament gave me two fairly valuable lessons. The first was an early exposure to legal and legislative language, and the importance of seemingly minor changes in wording in any type of legal document or legislation. That lesson, leading to an awareness of policy and procedures, and a much better understanding of the rules of order and procedures in both legislatures and committees, was helpful both in a number of the initial jobs that I had, where I was able to create procedures manuals because I was aware of what procedures were, and also a much better understanding of the importance of policy, when I got into the field of Security Management. The second was rather more complex.
The first year that I attended the Older Boys Parliament of British Columbia, 1971, a resolution was put forward, suggesting that we allow the inclusion of girls and women into the organization. This was hotly debated by the group of the day. There were a number of us who felt that this was the 70s and therefore why should we still have an exclusively male/boys organization. However, a number felt that feminism was going too far, too fast, that male society was under attack, and that we had to hold the line against creeping feminism. In the end however the ayes had it and the resolution passed.
I can't remember whether the shock was immediately after the passage of the resolution or at some point later in the proceedings. The Older Boys Parliament, while modeled on the Parliament, had certain positions, including that of the speaker, filled by senior members of the organization, constituting the Senate, who were essentially alumni of the organization who were still supporting it in a variety of ways. The speaker of the day at some point informed us that the resolution admitting women to the Older Boys Parliament was invalid. That a resolution tended to be a short-term piece of legislation, and was not intended to make a major change in policy or operation. There were a number of pieces of legislation that were bills, and therefore more important to the long-term operation of the organization, which mentioned men and boys and excluded women. Therefore, the speaker felt that a mere resolution could not make the sweeping change that the admission of women to the organization would entail.
The announcement of this decision caused some very predictable reactions. Those who had opposed the resolution were gleeful about the fact that the Older Boys Parliament of British Columbia was protected from an invasion of women. Those who had supported the resolution were crestfallen, and some felt that the Senate had done us a grave disservice in using a legal technicality to obviate the fairly clear mandate that expressed the wishes of the House of the day.
I took a different lesson from it. I was disappointed, yes, but I noted that the Speaker's rationale had some basis behind it, and was, in fact, reasonable. I also learned that if something is important to you, you learn the rules, and you follow them properly.
I had, already, learned from the debates, and the amendments, sometimes turning on seemingly minor points of wording, as well as study of the standing orders, which lay out the rules of debate and the operation of the house. I was already interested in studying them. I was already interested in the position of Deputy Speaker, which, unlike that of the Speaker, was not restricted to members of the Senate, but was open to those of us who were members of the parliament itself. So I studied further in this regard. This interest was further strengthened by the disallowance of the resolution admitting women.
In a subsequent year, I was asked, by the Premier of the day (Premier was another elected position open to the members of the parliament, and was decided by an election held by the previous years parliament, along with the deputy speaker, and the leader of the opposition) to be a member of his cabinet, and therefore government. I agreed, and, since he was asking me to be Attorney General, got him to agree in return that I could propose a bill admitting women to the organization. The premier agreed. He didn't actually want women to be admitted to the organization, but he felt that such a bill would be would lead to vigorous debate within the house and could be a lot of fun. He didn't actually know that I intended it to pass.
I had studied both the rules and standing orders of the organization, and all the existing bills which made up the policies of the organization. I created a fairly massive bill, which eventually ran to nineteen legal sized pages, listing every instance where men and boys were specified in any piece of legislation, and amending that to include women and girls. That was the bill; and it was a bill; that I introduced to the house.
When I introduced it I was allowed to speak initially to open the debate. However, under the standing orders, I would only be allowed that one opening statement, and then a final statement, which, if I chose to make it, would, in fact, close debate. So, I made an opening statement. I outlined my basic position, that it was well past time when we should have become an inclusive and co-educational organization, and that this bill was a comprehensive vehicle to do that. I sat down. Basically, nobody else stood up to debate. Finally the Premier stood. He had obviously wanted to hold his statement (he was allowed only one) until some debate had been established. He pointed out that if we were to pass this bill then, the following year, there would be girls sitting in the parliament with us. The reaction, although unstated, because I don't recall that anybody else much got up to speak, was a massive "Yes? So what? This is the right thing to do." The bill passed, and the Older Boys Parliament of British Columbia became the British Columbia Youth Parliament.
I am rather proud of that particular accomplishment. But more than that it taught me the lesson: learn the rules, follow them properly, and, if the matter is important to you, you will succeed.
There was an addendum to this story. Many years later Gloria and I arranged to be in Victoria during an anniversary year for the group. At an alumni reception, unbeknownst to me, Gloria spoke to the then premier, and other people in leadership, and arranged for me to tell the story of the change to the youth parliament of the day. I had told the story a number of times over the years, and was used to people being not terribly interested. So I was surprised, when I got to the part about the first resolution being refused, when there was a collective gasp (from about fifty percent of those present).
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