Wenn Kanada stärkere Gemeinschaften will, muss es die Freiwilligenarbeit erleichtern

There was an earlier article that was discussing the decline in Canadian competitiveness in international sport. I think amateur sport and volunteerism have the same root concern facing them: they require time and energy that is in short supply.

I volunteer roughly a half dozen hours a week as a Scouter, my wife volunteers as a elementary/high school level coach. We can do this because I work from home and she works fifteen minutes from our home. If both of us were commuting the Canadian average, or more, then there simply wouldn’t be time to volunteer.

And that’s the volunteer side of things. Being a competitive athlete takes *so much more time*, and being in an office or commuting nine to ten hours a day, five days a week, doesn’t sit well with training two to three hours a day.

If we want strong communities backed by volunteerism, and if we want competitive athletics, and if we want people to have the *freedom of time* in general then we need to shorten commutes and shorten hours worked.