Mike Bernier, MLA Peace River South
The Class of 2020 will end their school year in a world very different than the one that existed when they started classes. The first day of school nine months ago feels like it was nine years ago.
Graduation is a time for looking forward. It’s a time to count the opportunities ahead, to plan for what’s to come, and to start down a path to a better future. It probably doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will be that way for the Class of 2020 too. Maybe not today. And maybe not this year, but it will come.
The challenge of living through an historic crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic is it feels like we have never faced anything so difficult, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Those grads with some history classes under their belts could likely help with some perspective.
The class of 1930 graduated in the midst of an economic collapse – the Great Depression – that would see almost a third of the population unemployed in Canada. Those grads went on to be part of what’s called the Greatest Generation. These men and women who fought and won the Second World War fighting the fascists trying to take over the world.
Hot on their heels was the class of 1940, a generation that graduated in the middle of that very same war. Their outlook and the world’s future was bleak. France had been conquered by the Nazis. Europe seemed ready to fall. That class would go on to fight that war abroad and at home, and they would be a part of the massive economic growth of the postwar era that built modern Canada.
But the Class of 2020 probably has the most in common with the Class of 1918. Those graduates of more than 100 years ago left school and went into a world still being torn apart by a world war. They were also in the middle of a global pandemic that would leave up to 50 million people dead by 1920. Half the deaths were those aged 20 to 40. That class went on to be part of the rebuilding of the world, and an era of economic growth called the Roaring 20s.
All of us – the Class of 2020, their families and friends, and the rest of us, have an incredible choice in front of us. We can give in to the pandemic or we can do exactly what previous generations have done – face down the challenge and build something better.
There are obstacles ahead larger than we’ve seen in decades. But there are also opportunities to be seized. It could be finding a way to use technology to tackle social distancing. It could be building a new business to help others navigate the pandemic and its impacts. It could be starting a company that begins manufacturing products currently made overseas so we have supplies closer to home. Your imagination and your intelligence will help you propel yourselves and our entire nation to seize the opportunities.
To all of the graduates in the Class of 2020, congratulations and well done. You have an exciting future ahead and I wish you luck as we move forward past the pandemic.
If you have any ideas or questions, please contact me through my office at mike.bernier.MLA@leg.bc.ca, through my Facebook page at MikeBernierBC, at (250) 782-3430, or 1 (855) 582-3430.
