In his book The Good Society, author Robert Bellah says that institutions are “patterned ways of living together." He reminds us that we often overlook the fact that our institutions are more than mere social associations but structural necessities that help us get from one age to the next.It's been in vogue in recent years to denigrate our Canadian institutions, charging them with patriarchal practices and of responding in glacial terms towards change. In a globalized world, many have come to see them as archaic. There's truth in such claims, but at moments like this, we are seeing not just that they are essential, but are powerful means for keeping our collective heads together.This past week, I had communications with people in Africa, America and Britain, and without exception each expressed a kind of longing, a tolerated envy, for how Canada has responded to the corona pandemic. Such observations weren't solicited, but arose out of a historic sense that this country has a certain panache for finding balance in adversity. A later call with a UN official only confirmed the sentiment.The Trudeau government has received deserved plaudits for a measured response to what was clearly an out of control virus. But it has also been observed how Canada's premiers, mayors and regional leaders were restrained from making their typical partisan and political attacks that could have undermined the national response. And it's become clear that Trudeau in the cottage has proved far more adept than Trump in the White House or Boris Johnson on the stump. He accomplished it by referring relentlessly to the experts – health professionals, scientific voices and ministry personnel. It wasn't a political ploy for the most part, but a legitimate referral to those whom Canadians trusted more than the politicians. It is that approach that earned the Washington Post headline: “Even with Trudeau in isolation, Canada is responding well to the coronavirus.”All the leadership in the world would prove inept, however, if a country's institutions weren't up to the task. Canadians frequently complain of the lack of institutional capacity throughout the land, but there's little of that at the moment, as the nation pulls in behind the call to be united to fend off an enemy that we were hardly expecting. Citizens helped to build, support and utilize these institutions and are helped in return, especially as the needs of individuals is not great enough to change any outcomes.It is through our schools, hospitals, arts, houses of faith, media, governments and other institutions that we are actually summoned from our individual pursuits to consider broader issues like security, economies, family, culture and democracy. We can't hope to survive if we don't comprehend the implications of our individual actions – actions refined and developed by our social institutions. It is through those larger organizations that we collectively become a force in society.But what do we make of institutional failure on issues like poverty, lack of housing, employment insecurity, poor progress in indigenous essentials, territorial divisions or a global corporate structure that destabilizes shared wealth? That answer is easy: we blame them, finding fault in their lack of effectiveness.The problem with this ease of judgement is that it is Canadians themselves who voted repeatedly to undermine those institutions that were once part and parcel of our identity. We are doing it even now. We trust the experts on this last pandemic because our lives are literally at stake, but refuse to act on what climate scientists, almost universally, tell us about a natural order in decline. The first is about our lives, while the second pertains to our luxuries. To admit to the claims of environmental science would mean a radical changing of our material and cultural practices and, as yet, we don't have the gumption for that kind of sacrifice. Our individualism has effectively undermined our institutionalism, pushed in such a direction by a corporate culture calling us to buy, buy, buy.Until times like now, that is. The vision of a virus so capable of ruining societies overwhelms our individual resources and those institutions we have degraded for years now appear as our last chance between life and, what … extinction?When this crisis passes, we must begin again to find the sense of common purpose that once infused our institutions with life and a new relevance. Our penchant for a market mentality has overrun our lives, vaulting the individual to the periphery at the same time as it stripped our public life of that ability to draw us together for new accomplishments.Our various institutions are precisely what will get us through the pandemic. It is time we looked anew at our need to better resource and defend them before the next challenge, like climate change, simply overwhelms us.Glen Pearson was a career professional firefighter and is a former Member of Parliament from southwestern Ontario. He and his wife adopted three children from South Sudan and reside in London, Ontario. He has been the co-director of the London Food Bank for 32 years. He writes regularly for the London Free Press and also shares his views on a blog entitled “The Parallel Parliament“. Follow him on twitter @GlenPearson.