The Trouble With Charity
TAX-DEDUCTIBLE HELPING HANDS AREN’T THE SOLUTION TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS
by Stephen LaRoseTrying to track down folks like Sydney Bell of the Saskatoon Anti-Poverty Coalition or Peter Gilmer, executive director of the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry, is like trying to track mosquitoes in a windstorm — these are busy people.
Clearly, the nature of their work means both of them are intimately acquainted with many of Canada’s charities. What may surprise you is that both of them are also clearly aware of the problems — yes, problems — that charities present.
Right about now, every charity — from the Regina Food Bank to Santas Anonymous, from CJTR’s Radiothon to the
Souls Harbour Mission — is gearing up for the stretch drive into the Christmas season which, under Christian thought, is one of thankfulness and regard for those less well-off. But Dec. 31 also marks the last opportunity to ask for tax-deductible donations in any given year.
One of the first instincts of people is to assist those who need help — and there are a lot of ways to do that. Canada boasts 161,000 charities (about 10 per cent are social services charities), which employ two million Canadians and generate $121 billion in revenue, according to Mount Royal University’s Institute for Non-Profit Studies.
Fifty-four per cent of all Canadian charities are run entirely by volunteers, says Image Canada, a charity which acts as an advocacy group for Canada’s charities.
And Canada boasts the second-largest non-profit and voluntary sector in the world. (The Netherlands is first; the United States is fifth.)
Charities have become an integral part of our economy, and the frayed patchwork fabric that comprises Canada’s social safety net.
Yet the fact that they’re so important, that so many people depend on them, is also, counter-intuitively, the biggest symptom of the trouble with charities.
People like Bell and Gilmer are part of a probably very small group who understand the contradiction. While working to advance the causes of poor and impoverished citizens in Saskatoon and Regina, both would also like to work themselves out of a job.
Neither, however, is holding their breath.
The basic problem, says Gilmer, is that the charity business reflects the unequal structure of society — the donator holds a lot of power over those receiving the donations.
And people who have power aren’t willing to share power — especially if there aren’t strings attached.
“In the 1980s and 1990s the focus of governments was on fiscal restraint, that we couldn’t do more to expand our social programs,” says Gilmer. “Suddenly the government is running record surpluses, and suddenly we see a shift in focus towards tax cuts for the middle and upper class.
“I don’t mind governments raising tax exemptions on the bottom end, but I’m very concerned this has come hand-in-hand with tax relief for those at the higher end of the income scale.
“When governments say that they’re in a period of belt-tightening, it’s usually around the necks of the poor that the belt-tightening takes place.”
No kidding.
There were no food banks in 1980, in the time before government cutbacks and the ‘business agenda.’ In 2008, more than 700,000 Canadians used food banks at least once a month, says Food Banks Canada, the national umbrella group of Canada’s food banks.
Where once the social safety net protected people, now, increasingly, it’s charity.
“I don’t want to be seen as saying ‘we should do away with charities.’ Charities are an absolute necessity to help meet the needs for some people,” says Gilmer. “That being said, one thing we ask of people is to understand that people need to be concerned with social justice issues. Everyone has a right to have their basic needs met.”
Many of the biggest boosters of Canada’s charities are businesses and governments who have a vested interest in maintaining economic and social policies — unequal tax loads, cuts to education and health, removing equal access to government services — that hurt the same people these charities purport to help.
“It maintains power and balance that perpetuates the cycle of poverty and violence for the recipients, rather than putting an end to it,” says Bell, “instead of creating a system that puts people on more of a level playing field.”
This isn’t to say there isn’t good and important work being done, she adds. “The example that comes to my mind is the Saskatoon Food Bank learning system. There is the age-old tension between providing a hand up for people in poverty, and working towards a more just system. I know there are many people who have issues with food banks, and rightly so: it’s the idea that they provide just enough help so that real social change to address the concerns of the poor doesn’t happen.
“There is a commitment by Canadian food banks to put themselves out of business within a period of time: but I don’t know how practical that could be.”
John Kolkman has heard it all before. He was a senior policy researcher for the Alberta New Democratic Party’s legislative caucus just as Ralph Klein stumbled out of some Calgary pub and into the premier’s office.
Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, governments made cuts to health care, education, and social assistance, but few did it with the zeal and relish of King Ralph. Alberta’s welfare rates were cut, on average, 11 per cent (those Alberta Social Services judged were fit for work faced larger cuts), and the poor were given bus tickets to British Columbia.
“It wasn’t just welfare. The affordable housing programs were abandoned at the same time,” Kolkman adds.
“If you’re bloody-minded enough, you could call that a success, because within two years the Klein government cut the social services rolls by two-thirds, but half of that would have happened anyway because there was a pick-up in the economy, and the rest of those numbers were removed by the cuts Klein imposed,” says Kolkman, now executive director of the Edmonton Social Planning Council.
The problem is, however, those people still needed food, clothing and shelter.
“There was mostly a voluntary response to people caught in those situations — food bank use and homeless and emergency shelter use skyrocketed, for example.”
The social services work therefore gets done not by civil servants, but by people making only a fraction of a civil servant’s salary — so governments can spend less money on such services. Governments get to make themselves look good — they’ve just found the fiscal room to cut taxes. And by the time the effect of these cuts is noticed by the voters, it will be too late for most of them to connect the dots.
Besides — rising homelessness, crime rates and other ills have easy scapegoats. The so-called lazy homeless and criminals, for instance.
That’s one reason why the private sector loves this kind of ‘welfare reform,’ says Kolkman. In theory, more people can be aided with the same amount of money.
In practice this allows governments to cut back the money spent on social services, keeping taxes down for those who have the ability to pay.
Turning social work over to charities and non-profits allows the donating individual or corporation to choose who gets the benefit. There’s only so much money going around — even less in a time of recession, or for those seen as ‘uppity.’
“There are some charities — some of the larger, non-profit charities — who never really speak out against the government, even when they’re doing things that hurt their clients. The reason why is that if they speak out, they’re less likely to receive funding,” says Kolkman.
“They don’t want to bite the hand that feeds [them].”
Even worse are the stories of who, in a less enlightened time, were called the deserving poor. You see them on television shows like Extreme Home Makeover, where Mom and Dad lost their job /came down with a life-threatening illness or injury /one of them’s in the grave. Fortunately, a host of homebuilders/journeymen tradespersons/interior decorators come to make a new home. Hello there fairy godmother.
But what makes the recipients of that form of charity more deserving than others? It’s a human version of the notices the animal shelter puts in the paper, showing a picture of a cute puppy or kitten to advertise that they have animals for adoption. Often the people contacting the shelter, moved to action by the ad, want to adopt that particular animal — never mind the hundreds of other cats and dogs who are also in the shelter and facing death if they don’t get a new human in their lives.
To be sure, there’s some push-back from churches, social services charities and their supporters. In February 2009, representatives from more than 200 such groups in British Columbia signed an open letter calling for the B.C. government to implement a legislated program for poverty reduction.
“All faith traditions call us to help the poor,” said David Dranchuk, Coordinator for Societal Ministry, Diocese of New Westminster of the Anglican Church, in a press release. “Christians too often have responded to this call with soup kitchens and food banks. This is charity and charity is good.
“But charity alone isn’t enough. We are also called to do justice. And that means challenging the institutions that create and perpetuate poverty.”
We’ll leave it to the scrooges of the world to belittle the efforts of volunteers and charities. But it’s another matter to wonder about whether charities are, or should be, left as the last hope for those who have little hope at all.
With few resources and large (and increasing) responsibilities, it’s no wonder the charitable industry is as large as it’s become in Canada.
Charities were once regarded as a supplement to governments in the health and social service sectors. Right-wing governments are increasingly regarding social service charities as a substitute for social public policy.
Maybe that’s why the charity business is growing.
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