Gregor Robertson is Mayor elect of Vancouver. A strong team from Vision Vancouver, COPE, and Green Party won office alongside him. The wise agreement of those parties to run in unity was notable. We've all seen the often damaging results of three or more parties running against each other.

The classic example was Bush-Gore 2000. We will never know just how badly that changed the direction of the world. The evidence appears to indicate it was a disaster. It will take many years to recover. The October federal election in Canada again resulted in a small majority government with a five party division.

Obama's victory at this time of global economic turbulence makes for a climate where a new form of political cooperation may be more realistic.

Many of us at Renewal are proud of Gregor's courage and sacrifice to take on an elected executive position during such challenging times. We know that no leader, no team, no set of politicians, can solve things for the rest of us. What they can do is create an open inclusive environment that encourages optimism and many solutions. They can make decisions that consider the whole. They can stimulate the rest of us to reach further, dig deeper, and take responsibility for our own organizations, initiatives, and goals. It's on each of us to be the best we can be.

We need ten thousand heroic efforts. We need a network of leaders and solutions. They must show up at every level, from neighbourhood enterprise, to social services, the creative sectors, emerging and traditional business, government, civil society, personal inquiry, kindness, commitment, small acts and large. We need a renaissance of new models and unifying action.

We have the responsibility and choice to be constructive. Intelligent critique is important. So is generative engagement. It's easy to choose disappointment, victimization, and alimentation. There are massive pressures to encourage us to fall into blame and suspicion. Put any one of us up for examination and we are easy targets.

What's harder is to step beyond despair and cynicism into leadership and contribution. Gregor and the team who were elected to Vancouver City Council, School Board, and Park Board, along with their colleagues from the opposing party, deserve our benefit of the doubt. We won't like every decision. We will have unrealistic expectations of them.

They need us to take responsibility. We each must do what we can do towards bettering our community. It's time for a major refinement of economy, society, our relationship with nature, with other nations. We have lived the era of maximum financial return at any cost. We have tested the limits of infinite growth and expansion. We have unleashed extraordinary human ingenuity and accomplishment.

Now is the era for wisdom, astute strategy, and building systems that are self sustaining. We may still have time to do that intentionally and by choice.

Congratulations Gregor. You have inspired me and many others. I know you'll reach out to those who saw it differently. They are essential to success. I'll do all I can to support you in your intention to see that everyone is safely housed, that Vancouver becomes an economic powerhouse of creativity and effective use of resources, to reduce our ecological footprint. Vancouver can be a hub of solutions, a hotbed of a global reinvention.

The prize is the world we pass on to our children's children's children.