Proceedings of the Subcommittee on Cities
Issue 2 - Evidence - May 1, 2008
OTTAWA, Thursday May 1, 2008
The Subcommittee on Cities of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 10:45 a.m. to study current social issues affecting Canada's large cities today.
Senator Art Eggleton (Chairman) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Welcome to the Subcommittee on Cities of the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
Today, we are studying the role of non-governmental and religious organizations in the areas of housing and poverty reduction.
[English]
Our subcommittee is building upon previous work that has been done in the Senate in the matter of poverty. The 1971 report headed by Senator Croll, in particular, comes to mind, as well as the work in 1997 by Senator Cohen, in which she produced a report entitled Sounding the Alarm, Poverty in Canada.
At the same time, our study is complementary to the work being done by the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry chaired by Senator Fairbairn. At the request of Senator Segal, they are dealing with the issue of rural poverty. We hope to bring a lot of these pieces together and build on the work that has gone before.
Today, to help us move in this direction, we have four panellists, each of whom has been asked to speak for about five minutes or so.
Ms. Laforest is Assistant Professor in the School of Policy Studies at Queen's University. Her current research interests focus on the study of the voluntary sector and public interest groups, with special emphasis on representation, advocacy and new forms of political activism.
Ms. Patten is the President and CEO of Community Foundations of Canada. She is the Council Chair of the Centre for Voluntary Sector Research and Development, a joint initiative of the voluntary sector and Ottawa's two universities.
Community Foundations of Canada is a number of local organizations, as well. I know one from my city of Toronto. How many are there all together?
Monica Patten, President and Chief Executive Officer, Community Foundations of Canada: There are 160. I think probably all of your communities have a very active community foundation.
The Chair: Mr. Lacasse is Coordinator of Carrefour de Pastoral en Monde Ouvrier. CAPMO promotes solidarity, involvement, healing, and the training of people living in poverty and those in solidarity with them.
Finally, Mr. Northcott is the Executive Coordinator for Winnipeg Harvest, which is a food bank that he cofounded in 1984. He is also the founder of the Canadian Association of Food Banks, and he has served on the board of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, NAPO.
Welcome to all four of you. Unless you have a particular order in which you would like to proceed, we will proceed in the order in which I just introduced you.
Rachel Laforest, Assistant Professor, Queen's University: It is a pleasure to be with you here this morning. I have been asked to talk about the relationship between the government and the NGO sector. I will start by outlining some of the broad trends affecting the NGO sector and government, because the relationship between the two is undergoing some important changes.
Next I will speak to where I see the challenges for organizations working in cities in the area of housing and poverty reduction. I will focus on two main challenges in terms of social justice and going forward. I hope I will make the case for why the role of the NGO sector and faith-based organizations is so important in this area.
In recent years, governments in Canada and abroad have recognized that they cannot go it alone in policy development or service delivery, but that they need to work cooperatively with the voluntary sector in order to achieve their desired results. This brings me to the first trend, which is the offloading of responsibility in the delivery of public services and the increasing expectations being placed upon voluntary and community organizations of all shapes and sizes.
We recognize increasingly, from a policy perspective, that organizations do things that governments cannot do. They reach out to people in a way that governments cannot. They build a sense of community in a way that state and governments cannot —
The Chair: Excuse me. I am sorry to interrupt, but could you slow down just a bit? I do not think we need to keep to the 5 minutes that closely. The main reason I ask is that this is all translated in both languages, and the translator is having a hard time keeping up with you.
Ms. Laforest: I apologize. The sector has a culture that is very connected to the people it serves. Therefore, it can come up with solutions that government cannot because it has its ear to the ground.
However, from a policy perspective, there has been a lack of coherent vision for the voluntary sector in Canada. There has been an overly narrow focus on the role of service delivery that organizations perform. This is particularly important when we think about the work that organizations are doing around poverty reduction. If we think about their role solely through the prism of service delivery, we miss an important aspect of what they are doing.
The way that people come together in communities is through being empowered to make a difference in their environment. We have seen organizations begin providing services in areas, and they have been very successful at transforming those areas — not just because they are delivering services but because they are empowering people locally. They are giving them a voice to transform their community. That role of empowerment, that role of giving a voice to the community is what makes a huge difference, not just the delivery of services.
Governments need to do a far better job of respecting the breadth of what the NGO sector does. That means not implying that third-sector organizations are simply a public service delivery arm of government. What organizations do across the country in communities and in cities makes a huge difference every day.
Social enterprise brings a new ethic to business models and market models. Volunteers, through their individual acts of kindness and in everyday life, have a huge impact in their communities. Even when we think about campaigning and advocacy, the role of organizations is important in changing attitudes and laws, and should be recognized as being just as important as delivering services.
The second trend that I want to flag this morning is funding — more specifically, the shift away from long-term, more stable sources of funding toward more short-term, project-based funding. The impact of that has been devastating for voluntary sector organizations across Canada. Through a number of research projects, we know that the growing funding constraint, the growing short-term projects, the fact that project-based funding does not enable groups to put money aside for their core operations has led to growing volatility in the funding base of organizations.
A loss of infrastructure, due to project funding models and restrictions on the administrative costs, can lead to mission drift. This should be of concern to all of us as we think about sustainability and building the capacity of the sector to work in partnership with government. We need to build a sure foundation for the sector, for large and small organizations, so that government can support the role that they are doing on the ground.
Another thing that is important to understand is that small organizations can really make a huge difference with very little funding or finances. The impact they have on daily lives is enormous. In the current funding infrastructure, the accountability requirements are huge for these small organizations, in particular those that are working on the ground in communities. We need to rethink the way in which they access resources, and find new ways to facilitate that access for small organizations.
What are the key challenges that we will be facing? One of the big challenges has to do with demographic trends — the influx of new populations and the rise of diversity in our cities. When we couple that with the fact that our traditional institutions are weakening, that the way people come together is changing and that the traditional models no longer exist, that means there is greater dislocation and segregation within communities. People are seen as separate; even though they are living in the same neighbourhoods, they are not "neighbouring" as much as they used to.
In the future, the third sector has an essential role to play in bringing people together and creating that sense of community and belonging. Increasingly, research is showing that the impact of the sector on creating a sense of belonging will yield higher benefits for general social well-being than any other kind of economic leverage. This is an area for the future that we need to be thinking about.
We have a huge challenge around inequality as we go forward, about how we can reduce poverty in the context of growing affluence. This is not just about poverty. The third sector really comes into play to create the kind of public services that reach out to people, that empower people and engage them in policy. They are community anchors and hubs that provide a sense of community, which will be essential for going forward if you want to deal with the issue of diversity.
It is about linking up people so that people who live in the same area do not live apart but feel a sense of belonging. There is too much distance in our community. Organizations are sites where communities are built and people come together. I believe that the sector will play a central role in tackling these problems that we face in the future, in particular in the urban areas.
The Chair: Ms. Patten, please proceed.
Ms. Patten: Thank you. I am pleased to be here and to be following up on Rachel's remarks. I will bring you a couple of stories that, I hope, will illustrate in part what Rachel has spoken about.
I will talk to you through a slightly different lens — part of the NGO sector — about the role of philanthropy, in particular community-based philanthropy organizations. You all know about the United Way and other organizations that do very important work through funding, community leadership, convening and a variety of other ways.
I have made some comments to you in writing and I will not repeat those. I will focus on a couple of stories in my paper to you that spoke to the complexity of poverty, the importance of numerous stakeholders and partners coming together to address the fact that this is not just about money. All the money in the world that we throw at poverty is not likely to tackle that complex problem alone.
First, I will tell you about Community Foundations of Canada and who we are. There are 160 of us across the country. When you add up all the funds under management by a community foundation, we are brushing up to $3 billion. That depends on the markets, of course, but we are at about $3 billion. We put out about $180 million in grants to charitable organizations in communities across the country.
The assets and grants that the CFC manages are only part of the work of the CFC. The other part is around building collaborations and partnerships, convening around issues, bringing funders together, and working with numerous government and non-government actors for the benefit of the community. If I may, I will describe two promising approaches, but they are just the beginning and, in and of themselves, will not be able to tackle the serious issue of poverty.
The first one I want to tell you about is in Winnipeg, which Mr. Northcott might know about as well. The second one I will describe to you is in Hamilton. In both of these urban communities, leadership comes from the Winnipeg Community Foundation and the Hamilton Community Foundation respectively. I stress at the outset that they are not the only actors: a very fundamental and important point.
In both cases, the community foundations planted the seed for the initiative. Winnipeg has just reached the end of a five-year neighbourhood-based approach that was built on the belief that education is a ticket out of poverty. With appropriate supports, the right people, community engagement and citizen engagement, poverty can be reduced.
In the Centennial neighbourhood in Winnipeg, the approach has focused on the elementary level of education. The approach is centered around one school in one fairly small but highly marginalized community in the core of Winnipeg. The goal was to create a model that would serve that neighbourhood well but that could be replicated and adapted as appropriate in other urban neighbourhoods in centres across the country. It is a collaborative initiative and open-ended. No one said at the start that it would work and end in a specific way. It was built from the bottom up within the community. The initiative was about building local partnerships and engagements, bringing many partners to the table, building on strengths and assets. It was a very fundamental approach. This is not about saying, ain't it awful? This is about saying, there is an issue; there is a need; this cannot go on; this is not acceptable; and there are assets and strengths in the community upon which we can build. This is an asset-based approach, as is the one in Hamilton.
A significant financial investment was made by the Winnipeg Community Foundation over a period of five years so that it could serve as a catalyst for change and bring other partners to the table, too. The first goal was to bring others to tackle poverty and put money into being a catalyst.
The second goal was to influence public policy, in particular around education because they were addressing this issue through education. Let me tell you what has happened so far in the Centennial neighbourhood in Winnipeg. There has been a noticeable change in attitude within the community. Community members have come together to work together. A new community association has been formed. It has housing and safety committees. There is resident leadership for future community development already in place. A neighbourhood development corporation has been established and its work will reach into two neighbouring neighbourhoods, thereby connecting three neighbourhoods that had been quite isolated before. They now find themselves able to come together to share solutions and ideas about their future. Houses are being rebuilt, community policing is better, and new funding partners are at the table and active.
This school happened to have a significant number of Aboriginal children but no Aboriginal teacher aids, let alone teachers. Some of the funding has gone to train Aboriginal teachers and some has been used to support teaching interns to come into the school. Early test scores on the kids at the Centennial school seem to indicate that there is some improvement. Local people are hired to work in the school and in the local community. The Government of Manitoba is now a partner in this change. For instance, the government has made a commitment to the Head Start program in that community.
However, there are challenges: sustaining momentum and pace, the lobbying role of a charity for increased change, the slow pace of policy change, getting the right people involved, engaging diverse partners, and maintaining community enthusiasm. We are at the end of five years and the program is still under way.
I will tell you quickly about Hamilton, which has chosen a slightly different route. In the city of Hamilton there is a very exciting, multi-facetted initiative in place. The three elements include strengthening neighbourhoods, a Hamilton round table and tackling poverty together. I will say a quick word about each of them.
First, is a five-year financial investment in disadvantaged neighbourhoods made by the Hamilton Community Foundation. It is an asset-based approach that provides support to local neighbourhood groups. The HCF provides technical assistance and training so that community groups can mobilize and come together to analyze and tackle problems. It provides financial assistance as well.
Second, the tackling-poverty-together initiative is a targeted grant program by the Hamilton Community Foundation whereby it puts significant financial resources in the hands of faith-based and charitable non-government organizations, or NGOs, in Hamilton. Their role is to address cross-sectoral poverty and housing issues in the community.
Third is the Hamilton round table on poverty, which is a very interesting part of their work that has been widely written up and documented. I believe it is called the round table on poverty.
The Hamilton Community Foundation and the City of Hamilton came together to create a community-wide round table on a common theme to address poverty. Their powerful statement was that no child in Hamilton should live in poverty. That has become the rallying cry in Hamilton. They set out to design an integrated, community-wide strategy that is collaborative in nature. The learning model they bring to it involves the local media, the police, the schools, health care, a broad range of NGOs and others in the community.
At the outset, they created what they call the "no-blame" table. It signals something very powerful: that is, the belief that the Hamilton Community Foundation and other community foundations have that we are all in this together. We have some responsibility for creating the situations in which we find ourselves, and we all have an opportunity to work together to move away from it. Therefore, the no-blame concept is a powerful principle.
The other important piece I cannot stress enough is that both Winnipeg and Hamilton have a commitment to long-term engagement. This is not a one-year or two-year wonder. There is a long-term strategy and there is no easy exit. This is a journey through a process.
What has happened in Hamilton? New relationships have been formed that are intergenerational and cross-cultural. New leadership development programs have been offered in local neighbourhoods based on strengths and assets. New services and partnerships have developed in Hamilton, and the round table has become a catalyst for community ownership. One impact has been that the city government now supports and advocates for public policy changes that benefit children and low-income families in Ontario.
It is not realistic to expect that this vicious and complex cycle of poverty will be broken by any of these initiatives. That was known when the journey began for the organizations of both Mr. Northcott and Mr. Lacasse. However, in both cases, positive trends and progress have been identified and documented. This is progress in the lives of individuals and in the life of communities. It is as important that the knowledge and experience generated through these stories, and others happening across the country, is being shared and built upon.
We know that governments must be partners in this work. They must stick to it on both the policy and funding sides. Sadly, we are not convinced that governments are likely to stick with it and to go down that long road to develop the policy or funding strategies we think are important. Much of this work falls to individuals and to communities. Therefore, that is where I think support for the NGO sector is very important.
If I may, when we are finished, I will leave you each with a little postcard. We are about to launch a new website about the role of non-government funders and philanthropy in tackling poverty in Canadian communities.
The Chair: Yesterday, the Senate passed Bill S-204 unanimously. That bill will establish a National Philanthropy Day that will help draw attention to the need to give money, time and effort to philanthropy in its broadest perspective. That bill has now passed the Senate and will go to the House of Commons for consideration.
Ms. Patten: Congratulations.
The Chair: If you have influence with anyone over there, please use it.
Ms. Patten: Let me thank all of you who were part of that.
The Chair: This committee processed the bill.
Ms. Patten: I am sorry I missed that in the news yesterday. It is the best news I have had today. Thank you very much for that.
[Translation]
Jonathan Lacasse, Coordinator, Carrefour de pastorale en monde ouvrier: Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your invitation. Please understand that many people will follow our deliberations today and will pay attention to what comes out of this subcommittee's work.
"Acting TOGETHER". From its creation almost 33 years ago by priests and brothers sensitive to issues affecting workers, the Carrefour de pastorale en monde ouvrier (CAPMO) quickly understood the value of getting people involved in the process of transforming their world. Today it is clear that poverty is not an inevitable fate, but rather a circumstance that is perpetuated by the economy. I believe that the global food crisis has demonstrated once again the real and unsustainable shortages that have widened the growing gap. But there is no need to travel to the south to witness the effects of the system. Canada's large cities, including Quebec City, also house the many faces of poverty, where misery takes root every day, but where there is also a deep and sincere desire for change. But how can we effect that change?
Before going further, let us recall some statistical facts on poverty in the Quebec City area, where the population is of about 600,000 inhabitants: monthly food assistance is provided by the Moisson Québec agency to over 25,500 people in the area. That is a total of 2.7 million kilos of food in the course of one year.
In the St-Sauveur neighbourhood in inner Quebec City, almost 65 per cent of the population has an income of less than $20,000 a year. In the Vanier neighbourhood, almost 43 per cent of the population aged 20 and over has no practical training. The list could go on and on. Even then, it would still be too short to cover all the different living conditions of people, and these are merely numbers, because the battle against poverty is a question of dignity. Over the years, CAPMO has positioned itself in the battle against poverty by prioritizing the contributions of people living in poverty. It is important to remember that the poor are the primary stakeholders in any desired changes; they are the first to fight to try to get out of poverty.
It is therefore important for them to be present throughout the process of improving living and working conditions, as was the case in the process that led to the adoption of a bill to combat poverty and social exclusion in Quebec. The bill was unanimously adopted by Quebec's national assembly on December 13, 2002.
Thus, in Quebec's short history, a citizenship initiative rooted in the basic concerns of the poor was taken up by their elected members.
The idea of acting "together" is therefore significant. It means that it is vital for the poor to be truly engaged in the process. "Acting together" lets people own the process, and empowers them in day-to-day situations. "Acting together" also requires those who work with low-income persons to rethink their preconceived strategies, which do not always consider the actual lives of these people. In both cases, "acting together" enables individual and collective progress for all concerned. That is why we also suggest that, in any such process, you must provide a space for these people, not just the people like me who represent them. They are better positioned to come up with solutions that meet their needs. It takes more than numbers to tell the story. More often than not, the living testimony of these people is much more telling than numbers, which do not provide a good understanding of the daily realities of these people.
Let us remember that we are not mired in a life of misery, where human dignity is constantly trampled. That is why CAPMO believes that we have a sacred duty to act for the dignity of these people, and that we are all called upon to do so.
Over the years, CAPMO has developed an approach that brings together the poor and their advocates around what we may call common knowledge. This common knowledge allows the creation of new social knowledge by pooling the expertise of all participants, leading to one or more action strategies to promote the desired change. Everyone is an expert on their own situation. Consequently, everyone is in a position to contribute and to offer their life experience to the community, so that coherent strategies based on people's concerns can be implemented.
This pooling of skills is an essential element in the process of exercising a citizenship that considers everyone's needs. Therefore, the underlying vision of the common knowledge is to rework and rebuild the basic community fabric, while developing the knowledge required to properly articulate situations. It goes without saying that this pooling of knowledge will greatly benefit all participants.
Over the years, CAPMO has also addressed other issues which, over time, paved the way for the bill to eliminate poverty in Quebec, which aims to achieve the lowest poverty level of the industrialized nations in 10 years' time. Until then, there is certainly much to do, but it can and must be done with the active participation of the poor.
CAPMO's experience, like many others, has proven the relevance of involving the people in the process. Each person, according to their history, life experience, strengths and weaknesses, can make a real contribution to changing our society into a more socially just place. CAPMO says yes to a Quebec and a Canada that is rich in every aspect.
[English]
The Chair: You referred to Bill 112, and that is something that we have talked about quite a bit here in this committee. It was a citizenship-based initiative that was then embraced by the elected level. It sets out some clear direction and it is very commendable.
We cited what is happening in Newfoundland and Labrador as well — and hopefully soon in Ontario and everywhere else.
David Northcott, Executive Director, Winnipeg Harvest: Those are tough witnesses to follow; they are very talented.
Honourable senators, I am delighted to be here. It is an odd delight to be at a food bank and still be able to sit around a respected table to talk about these issues. It is very valued and disappointing at the same time.
[Translation]
I work with the Winnipeg Harvest food bank.
[English]
I appreciate your asking the tough questions about poverty in Canada, poverty in cities in Canada and why it is still here.
We also recommend and commend the Senate for the work you have done already on the subcommittees on issues facing Canada's cities, along with the work on rural poverty by the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry — the Croll report and the report by Senator Cohen, Sounding the Alarm: Poverty in Canada.
Winnipeg Harvest was founded in 1984, in the first recession to hit Canada. We respond to two conditions in Manitoba: the presence of hungry people and their families, and the presence of surplus and donated food. We believe it is wrong for Canadians to live with hunger in a country that has so much. Our goal from the beginning has been to meet the immediate needs of hunger and feeding people, while working with other groups for long-term solutions to reduce these needs.
Manitoba food banks provide food for more than 43,000 people in Manitoba every month. Almost half of them are children. In Winnipeg, the food is delivered to more than 39,000 people through 300 agencies in local neighbourhoods. As an aside, most poor people in Manitoba live in an urban setting, which is why that number is different. Most agencies — over 60 per cent — are based in churches and other faith communities in Winnipeg. That translates to just over 4 million kilograms of food being shared in Winnipeg, and distributed to hungry families.
Of those families using Winnipeg Harvest, fewer than half rely on welfare as their source of income. About 15 per cent are working but do not earn enough money to buy the food they need for themselves and their families. Others get income from pensions, disability payments, employment insurance or the alternative economy, while many report no income at all.
Many of our clients, despite facing hardships in their own lives, volunteer their time and energy to help others through Winnipeg Harvest. We could not do this work without the more than 270,000 volunteer hours they give us each year. Most of our volunteers are clients.
While redistributing food to people who need it remains the top priority of Winnipeg Harvest, we are working to try to give low-income people access to several areas. These include: free income tax returns for people with incomes under $30,000, in partnership with a volunteer from the Canada Revenue Agency; redistribution of personal care products and household goods; provision of meals and snacks to daycares and schools and many other agencies; and new and developing programs to meet the distinct needs of people from First Nations, African and refugee communities that, more and more, are living in Winnipeg. We are actively working in training for life and work skills, grief reduction, et cetera.
Winnipeg Harvest has also begun a program of advocacy with our clients and other low-income Winnipeggers. There are three aspects to our advocacy program: teaching and working with other faith and NGO communities to teach low-income people to advocate for themselves on welfare, housing, rental and other social issues that touch their lives; systemic change, working with like-minded groups to urge senior politicians and bureaucrats to make the system more fair; and one-to-one advocacy to help families access social services to which they are entitled, and which are provided by NGOs, governments and the private sector.
When I think of what is wrong and right with Canada, I think about Big Bill, a man just over two metres in height. A large man, he was a long-time client, a street man and volunteer at Winnipeg Harvest. Big Bill lived in a downtown hotel. He could not always use the shower at the end of the hallway because it did not always work in the place he rented. He wore his clothes all the time because he knew someone would steal them if he left them in his room. As a result, Big Bill struggled with hygiene and many other issues, including mental health issues, yet he still came to help people who were less fortunate than he was at Winnipeg Harvest.
Overnight, his life changed. He was clean, he wore a new set of clothes, he had a new sense of self-esteem and he was respected. What happened? He turned 65. Suddenly, the system that had treated him so badly began to respect him — his income and his needs as a citizen. He got access to decent housing; he could afford to buy groceries and cook them in his own kitchen.
This proves without doubt, in my mind, that when we want to, we have the capacity to design and deliver a system that works and that values the citizen. Why can we not do this same thing every day for every Canadian citizen — either in English or French?
Canadians are justly proud of this country's achievements in social programs: Canada and Quebec Pension Plans, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, Old Age Security, Employment Insurance, Workers Compensation, access to education, welfare and their famed and proudly justified health care system. These are all the steps taken by federal and provincial governments on behalf of all Canadians. Food banks were meant to be temporary. Winnipeg Harvest has always wanted to close its doors in a Canada where no one ever went hungry again. More than 20 years after the first food banks were founded, we have learned that Canada needs the political will to change.
Former NDP Leader Ed Broadbent's motion to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000 was a noble attempt, but it had no legislative teeth. Instead, we have seen the growth of a philosophy that the marketplace should solve all social ills. It did not work. Those in the upper echelons grew richer while economic growth provided jobs for some people on welfare, but those jobs did not provide high enough incomes or stable enough environments and, therefore, many people continue to rely on food banks.
In Manitoba, the welfare rates for shelter have been frozen for 15 years so, in the area of social housing, the provincial programs have created slums. When inflation is factored in, the buying power of Manitoba's poorest citizens has been reduced by 35 per cent over the past 15 years. The result is a terrible choice faced by two-parent families, single mothers, people with physical and mental disabilities or mental illness, people who need education and training and others who have been forced by circumstances to turn to welfare to make this decision: feed themselves and their children or pay their shelter costs. Money that should have gone to food is used to pay rent and utilities. The food budget is stretched by using a food bank. It is only a partial solution. Our clients receive only enough food for four or five days per month.
What would be more lasting and an appropriate solution for Canadians living in poverty? It would be, please, an opportunity to relook at the Croll report and a recommendation that we look at the guaranteed annual income again. The term "guaranteed annual income" has fallen out of public discourse and public favour, so let us rename the proposal to the "refundable family tax benefit." RFTB needs to be evaluated in light of the need demonstrated by food banks over the past 25 years. People are still hungry.
The principle is simple: Every Canadian deserves an adequate standard of living simply because they are Canadian. Other citizens in Canada know that people fall through the social safety net all the time. That is why they are so incredibly generous to organizations such as Winnipeg Harvest. Canadians know they must try to achieve through charity what governments have failed to achieve: an adequate standard of living for all Canadians.
We would be overjoyed to close the doors of Winnipeg Harvest because we knew that all our former clients and households had an adequate income and were no longer living with hunger.
We thank you for inviting Winnipeg Harvest to make this presentation. In return, I invite honourable senators to visit their local food bank to see what NGOs and faith communities are doing each day in their communities to reduce the hunger issue. We are committed to the same Canada as you: a Canada that is hunger free.
The Chair: We will have a round table on the subject of a guaranteed annual income sometime this month, I believe.
We will move to dialogue and questions. I want to talk about government relationships, which I am sure are not easy, at the federal, provincial and municipal levels. I will focus a little more on the federal level to understand how we could have a better relationship with you to help you do what you do, which is a valuable part of what is done in our communities in dealing with the issues of poverty, housing and homelessness.
For some years, I have had this notion that government makes your life miserable in many respects by first not wanting to fund core operations and administration. Somehow you have to get that elsewhere. Government seems to like short-term, specific projects, and it is difficult to plan an organization on that basis. As well, they have you pushing a lot of paper with applications, reports and evaluations. Although it is quite a process, we can understand the government's requirement in being responsible for taxpayers' money. Perhaps it is over the top at times, making it that much more difficult for you.
You may or may not agree with my remarks but I would like you to comment, either from your own perspective or from the perspective of the community not-for-profit organizations and faith-based organizations in general. How can there be a better relationship with government, in particular at the federal level? I would suspect that most of your government support would come from the provincial or municipal levels but how much of it comes from the federal level?
Mr. Northcott: That is a multifaceted, powerful question. The first piece I would like to address quickly is the definitions of "charity" and "advocacy." For us to gain charitable status, we need to follow certain guidelines and rules, one of which is the definition of "advocacy" or, as we politely call it, "public education." We need to fund the voices of advocates and value that in the good definition of "charity." To sit at this table, we need charitable dollars that will allow us to do that.
When we say we are feeding hungry people, we can deem that to be a charity for the good of the community. However, the Canada Revenue Agency has rigid definitions of "charity." We would like you to look at that.
The Chair: Do they tell you that you are getting into the political field, which you are not supposed to do, while the line to advocacy is pretty thin. Is that part of the problem?
Mr. Northcott: Yes. We talk to four governments: federal, provincial, municipal and First Nations. When we talk to them about these issues, everything reflects back to a political or bureaucratic decision on how they are managing somebody's life. Even giving food to a hungry family in Manitoba is a political statement. No matter what we do, this is attached.
I would recommend building on the good programs that Canada has and ask you to please tell the multiple silos that target low-income people to talk to each other before they talk to families. In Winnipeg, we know a family that has to talk to seven different silos of federal-provincial governments each month, and they do not have enough money to buy the bus fare to get there. Please ask the silos of government to talk with each other first.
I have more comments, but I will defer to the others.
Ms. Patten: Thank you for that litany of issues that the sector faces. One of the things I hope you would do is reverse some of the paperwork. I will add one thing that needs to be addressed and then comment on philanthropy in government.
So often, governments at all levels ask those who apply for funding to be innovative. However, governments do not want anyone to take any risks with their funding. There is a double message. They might say, "Bring us something new and bring us something different," but then they put the other requirements in place that dumb down what many of us put before governments.
When we talk about housing, homelessness and poverty, we need to think about some new creative solutions, but the reality is that we are discouraged from doing that when we apply for funding. I truly hope that the whole issue of innovation and building on existing good programs will be addressed.
The whole issue of innovation is really about building on successful programs, as Mr. Northcott said, whether they are local, community or government programs. Let us not throw those out. Let us continue to build on those. I hope this can be addressed somehow.
Let me talk about philanthropy in regard to the Government of Canada. There has been interaction around the issues of taxes, taxation and more supports for philanthropic giving. That is good, and I hope that will continue. There have been important tax benefits introduced since about 1997 when we began to see important progress being made.
We have seen charitable giving and giving to the creation of foundations rise significantly in this country. That is good, but that is not all that philanthropy does. In my remarks, I have tried to give you illustrations of other ways that organized philanthropy can tackle critical issues.
There has never been, to the best of my knowledge, a serious dialogue between organized philanthropy — foundations — and the Government of Canada about how important it is for these two actors to work together. It has only been around tax issues.
We need to understand that no government, no NGO and no foundation, in and of itself, will be able to do this work on its own. Someone needs to create the space where government, philanthropy and the private sector can come together to talk about how can we do this together, not who will do what. That would be an enormous step forward.
Senator Munson: You said you are discouraged from coming up with new and innovative ideas. Who discourages you and why are they discouraging you? Can you give us an example?
Ms. Patten: The discouragement comes when there is a conflict, if you will, between the rules that are very tight, stringent and short-term. You cannot be innovative in a short period of time. Innovation is about pushing the edges. You need to be able to say "This did not work this way, so how about trying it this other way?" You are not allowed to do that with much of the government funding available. On the one hand, they say "We will only look at new and innovative programs," and, on the other hand, "Here are the rules." It is the sense of not having flexibility, not having enough time, and then spending much of your time responding and reporting. Senator Eggleton mentioned that, in fact, you have no time to be creative and innovative.
Ms. Laforest: Part of the problem goes beyond the reporting and the forms. The objectives that you want to reach need to be predefined. As Mr. Lacasse said, part of what organizations do is this iterative process where they are on the ground and are learning from the people they serve. That is where social innovation comes in. However, innovation is not possible when you do not have the flexibility and liberty under a system where you have to predefine exactly where you want to go.
As Ms. Patten mentioned in regard to philanthropy, an enormous amount of work has been done in Canada around philanthropy in the past number of years looking at charitable status and the National Philanthropy Day that was discussed. That is only one prism through which to look at the role of the sector. It is not only about philanthropy. The data shows that Canadians are very generous. They make donations and volunteer. However, we still have complex issues such as poverty that show it is not only about philanthropy; it is about social justice, and the kind of country we want, and holding ourselves to a higher standard where families and kids do not go hungry.
Looking at your question around government relationships, I think we need to broaden our understanding of the various roles that voluntary sector organizations are playing on the ground. They are not only delivering services but empowering people and giving voice to people. All of the examples given really talked about that.
Is that possible? Yes, I think it is. When you look at the history between the federal government and the voluntary sector in Canada, you see that the federal government was very supportive of voluntary organizations in the 1980s. Funding was given to the role of political representation. The importance of the sector to bring the voice of the marginalized into the policy process was acknowledged. Part of the funding went to support core activities and to support advocacy. It was important to creating our sense of citizenship as Canadians.
It is possible to go back. Our understanding of the role of the sector has been narrowed. There has been a lack of vision in how we can truly partner together beyond delivering services.
What can be done? Funding is important. It is a huge piece of this, in particular for small organization on the ground that can yield higher results. On the question of how much funding comes from the federal government versus local or provincial governments, I think it is right that the majority of funding does not come from the federal government. However, over history, it is interesting to note that there has always been some opening to the voluntary sector at the federal level. Organizations gravitate to the federal level because there is this openness to talk about the relationship and to talk about citizenship that is not necessarily found at the provincial level, where the sector's infrastructure tends to be weaker. Therefore, part of the reason you have such representation at the federal level is not about funding but is about the fact that there is an opening to talk about these issues.
[Translation]
Mr. Lacasse: To begin with, I agree with my colleagues' remarks. I would just like to reiterate what Rachel said about ensuring there are fora in which people can make their opinions known throughout the entire process, so that we have an opportunity to hear what they have to say.
Now, I was also thinking about charitable organizations vis-à-vis groups like CAPMO, which have more of a human rights advocacy focus. There is always a fine line between charitable organizations and rights advocacy groups.
We need to think about how limited we are as far as our focus on charity is concerned; no more than 10 per cent of the work we do can have a political focus because we need to make sure we offer sufficient services.
And these ties in with an important point the federal government needs to understand: there needs to be a greater recognition of organizations which focus more heavily on the structures which cause poverty instead of working on the effects of poverty. Nevertheless, there still needs to be a focus on the effects of poverty, because there are many people who struggle on a daily basis.
As Mr. Northcott said, I dream of the day where CAPMO will no longer have a raison d'être because poverty will be a thing of the past.
I do not think that we can just rely on ready-made solutions; there needs to be greater cooperation between the various stakeholders and levels of government and more recognition of organizations which focus on the causes of poverty rather than its effects. That could contribute to a solution.
[English]
Ms. Patten: I want to make a very quick comment about the role of national organizations. We have not touched on these, in contrast to those providing services on the ground. I am watching national organizations all around me falling — Family Service Canada, the Child Care Federation, a number of them. They are gone. Some of that is about funding and some of it is not.
I would urge you to think about the role that national organizations can play. They are vehicles for dissemination. They are vehicles for connecting and linking.
One of the facts in this country is that the vast majority of not-for-profit organizations working on the ground are not connected to anybody. They are working on their own independently, without benefit of being part of a larger network — the learning, the sharing and all the kinds of stuff that come from that. I would say that we need to revisit that notion of networks and of organizations that can, in fact, facilitate mutual learning on the ground between and among the organizations that are doing this incredible work, as well as the people who are doing this work.
The Chair: This subcommittee is from the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, which I also chair, and the vice-chair is Dr. Keon, who is also chairing a subcommittee on a very important related study on population health. Senator Keon is from Ontario. In fact, he is right from here in Ottawa. You might say, even though the hockey season is over in this part of the country, that he is an Ottawa Senator.
Senator Keon: Ms. Patten, it is very interesting that you ended on networking. Senator Trenholme Counsell and I were discussing other things this morning, and we were talking about the tremendous importance of distinguishing between networking and ownership, or between integration and ownership.
I believe the reason for the failure of many of the national philanthropic organizations is that they get too big. They get too bureaucratic, and people stop supporting them.
I do not think there is anything as important for Canada, certainly from a population health point of view and also from a poverty point of view, as community NGOs. If people in identifiable communities do not come together, we will never solve the social problems. That coming together must come with a sense of giving, not taking. Having said that, the reality is that you need a chair and a desk, a telephone and now a BlackBerry and some other things. Therefore, you need some money.
The most interesting component is this ability to encourage philanthropy and remain on the ground, and to encourage advocacy and remain on the ground. To do that, of course, you need the networking, as you mentioned, Ms. Patten, of your 160 foundations across the country.
Could each of you respond to what you are doing about philanthropy and networking, and what you are doing to prevent your grassroots, hands-on organization from becoming bureaucratized at a national level?
Ms. Patten: Thank you for those comments, Senator Keon. I would be happy to make a few remarks about them.
I have the privilege of running an organization where we have decided that it is not a good thing to become too big or too bureaucratic, but there is another thing we have decided as well. That is that you do not run a national organization from one place. We have said who are we to sit — in this case, in Ottawa — and talk about what is good for the rest of the country? We have kind of a virtual organization, if you will, and people across the country.
I want to make two points about community, and about philanthropy and today's donors. There are a couple of challenges we are facing in terms of encouraging philanthropy — both volunteering and giving, understanding philanthropy in that broader sense. One is the notion of community. People think about community today in a very different way. It is not always about the place in which they currently live. It may be a place on the other side of the country. It may be a place on the other side of the world. It may be a community of interest.
There is a very interesting conversation happening about community, the sense of belonging. To which community or multiple communities do I belong? The same kind of conversation is going on in the world of donors and volunteers. It is an issue that we, quite frankly, are trying to come to grips with.
Why is it, my colleagues often ask me, that our young people — and these are young high school graduates, university students and university graduates — when they think about the issues that really matter, they do not always think about their own local community? They think about a continent that is across an ocean somewhere, and that is where they volunteer and dedicate their time.
The question then becomes how do we engage younger people and other donors? This phenomenon is playing itself out not just among younger and potential donors; this interest in what is happening far away without being aware that, right in their own community, in their own backyard, 20 per cent of people live in poverty, and so on. There is some work that we need to do in philanthropy that articulates and raises awareness more clearly around what is happening in local, place-based communities so that we balance that desire for people to volunteer and to give far away with the needs within their own neighbourhood.
One of the things we have done is started a program called Vital Signs. It had its roots in Toronto, with a number of civic leaders in Toronto and the Toronto Community Foundation. It has a report card that was issued, this year, in about 18 communities across the country. We issue a national report, which rolls up the kind of data and information across the country.
Poverty is obviously always a big theme. That is one of the things we are trying to talk about to Canadians, because we do not think Canadians understand this. We do not think Canadians really deeply understand the level of poverty in their communities. That is partly what we are trying to do — to connect some of the dots and the networks — through these reports called Vital Signs.
In summary, I would say that volunteering and giving has to be directed where the donor wants it to go. We know that is what motivates donors today. Somehow we need to bring more information and awareness to donors so they learn about, understand and can contribute more deeply, if they wish to, to what is happening in their local community.
Mr. Northcott: These are great questions; you have done your homework. I am very impressed. I am going to brag about the Senate from now on.
We should talk about summer students. If you want to know about shifting and changing, we should chat about summer student funding in Canada and how it reflects moods of the day. That is an aside.
However, I want to chat with you about networking and ownership. The ownership for NGOs is by underpaid, under-benefited, low-income, usually not well-trained people with a huge volunteer base. Many of it is not measured.
At Winnipeg Harvest, we are measuring 270,000 volunteer hours. Candidly, we do not tell the welfare worker where the person is because the system says you cannot volunteer. Volunteering is not acceptable; find a real job, get real work.
The volunteering ethic in many social programs that are owned by federal and provincial governments is not valued. We have to be really valuing the work ethic. In reference to Jeremy Rifkin's book, The Nature of Work, work is good work, whether or not it is paid. For us to own this, we need to look at who owns this piece — underfunded, under-resourced NGOs.
Many NGOs are not very good — not most, but there are a few that should not be there. However, I have no control over that. The owners of the sector are an odd, eclectic group of characters. Essentially, our services fill in the gaps of good programs or bad programs of the private and public sectors.
There are notable differences to that. The community foundations are proactive and ask tough questions with good money on the table. They are not all tainted, but it is an odd area. I am sure Ms. Laforest would be more descriptive of the NGO sector.
The local global fight is the NGO problem. Young adults are networked globally, especially from rich countries. The NGO's role is to ensure that we are on the same page. At Winnipeg Harvest we bring schools to the food bank five mornings and five afternoons a week. At the end of the school year, we have had several hundred classes at the food bank where we talk to them about the Canadian Food Grains Bank, of which we are very proud. They move out into the world and talk about hunger in Canada and around the world. The job of the NGOs is to tell that story.
We have had huge success in youth buy-ins on the issue of human rights, adequacy of benefits in the country and about acting locally and globally. Our issue is to get people up close and personal.
The other challenge is to have a unified voice, which is difficult because the many voices are so diverse. Some are well-researched and some do not present well. There is good homework and bad homework in the not-for-profit sector, and some does not represent good or well-interpreted issues. Some that is presented well does not gain public traction.
Ms. Laforest: I will not answer the question directly, because I do not have an organization or a contact with my grassroots. However, I will speak, drawing on the history of the infrastructure in Canada, and make a comparison with Quebec.
It is useful to understand how organizations in Canada have traditionally interacted with each other. The history of English Canada, aside from Quebec, shows us that the infrastructure is set in a hierarchical manner, with a national organization and local chapters in the provinces. There is little interaction between the silos or fields, with the exception of what takes place at the federal level because national organizations gravitates around Ottawa. National organizations participate in the initiatives that Ms. Patten talked about.
In some cases, in particular in cities, there is not much overlap, which means that when organizations face a pressure to maintain their link with the grassroots and do representation at the provincial, federal level or other levels, and they turn to their grassroots, they have no more connections with other people. This is huge for small organizations that do not have the resources to handle both.
It is a different situation in Quebec because the structure of the organizations is not through silos, which means there is a lot of overlap. People work in round tables on issues and come together in round tables around geographic lines. If an organization falls out of a network, it remains connected to others, which is not the case in English Canada, given the history.
Ms. Patten's comments on social innovation are important. If a small organization is doing something wonderful and there is no capacity to learn from it or share that knowledge, then we are reinventing the wheel and not taking advantage of all the wonderful innovations that are taking place.
If I may, I will make one comment on population health. We know that the role of the sector in this area needs to come to the forefront. There is a link between economic development, population health and social capital. Studies in the U.S. are showing that by investing in social capital, we can have the greatest effect on population health — not just through economic development as we traditionally thought. It is important to keep that in mind and to think about the trends that we will face around social capital.
We have talked about sustainability and the capacity issues in the sector, but we have not talked about the fragility and vulnerability of the volunteering and the levels of engagement. Research shows us that the bulk of contributory behaviour and charitable donating is borne by a relatively small portion of the population, which tends to be the elderly who have a particular ethos or vision about how they contribute to collectivity. The aging of that population will have a huge effect because the up-coming generation engage in a different way. We will lose that ethos — an important part of our social fabric. If we want to think about population health in the long term, we need to ask questions about how to maintain the social fabric and adapt to these demographic trends to be ready.
Senator Munson: Mr. Northcott, you talked about recession and the shortage of food in the world. I would like to explore that and the effects. Recently in Ottawa, Loeb grocers had to deliver bread to the food bank because the food bank faced a shortage.
Do you think there is a systemic attitude by governments whereby they deliberately plan their own funding budgets behind closed doors with the belief that charitable foundations will fill the gap? Do they have their own expectations and not worry about it because it is all pre-planned behind closed doors?
The next question is to Ms. Patten and Ms. Laforest. How does an asset-based approach work?
Mr. Northcott: Those are great questions. Food banks started in the first recession in the early 1980s. The first modern food bank opened up in Edmonton, Alberta, and then they opened up across the country.
The next recession was in the early 1990s, which accelerated the food bank activity more. It was then that the attitude toward poverty in Canada changed and people said it was okay to have food banks. Philosophically, that has done the most damage to Canada.
Today, we are moving into another recession. The change for the 1990s is that the countercyclical social welfare programs were removed from the cycle. When the economy got bad, those programs were supposed to pick people up. The only poverty reduction in the last twenty years is in seniors' poverty. All the other stuff has been released to the marketplace, in a sense.
We of the food banks are very afraid of the looming recession. We have been dependent upon the goodwill of the citizenship and surplus product from the retail and distribution channels, and the manufacturers. Now, we are concerned greatly about how to fill this gap when the mood of the public has shifted. In English Canada, there is a shift between charitable response and justice response. People want justice food, not charitable food, and that has caused people in the NGO sector to look at each other and start fighting.
It is the same coin: Justice and charity need to be one and the same. The outcome from some of the recession language has to be a rooted, deep appreciation of a better definition of "charity" in English Canada and a better definition of "justice."
The Gosselin case tested the definition of "adequacy of benefit" in Quebec, and it took many years to get to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said the phrase "adequacy of benefit" is a political phrase that needs to be defined by politicians.
The justice journey takes a long time, it is expensive and we need access to the courts for it. The Court Challenges Program is still there but not funded. There are many dominoes that fall when we depend on the justice response to things. It must be hand-in-glove with the charitable response.
For us to move through the next recession, we need both structures to be strong. We need a good justice-centred response to these issues. The roots of Paulo Friere's work, which is what I built Winnipeg Harvest on, has candidly never been about poverty; it has always been about power, and for low-income people to get the voice.
From the NGO sector, we will never be powerful enough to be of equal status with the government. We do not have the money, the resources or the time. We often do not know where the tipping points are for social policy decision makers. When March 1 comes, we know the federal and provincial governments will often have slippage in extra dollars and a need to put it out into the community quickly — or the opposite: they will shut things down.
The control point, unfortunately, is still the budget makers. Is it cynical enough to say that they are doing it on purpose behind closed doors? That is a powerful question, one that I will have to digest. During my worst days, I think absolutely, yes. During my good days, when I see good programs come out, I say that cannot possibly be. Somewhere in the middle is the truth of that. I wish I had a better answer to that excellent question.
The food shortages are very worrisome. We are in a global economy up to our neck. Ask any beef or pork producer in Manitoba that question, ask any grain producer in the West that question, or any person producing product to try and sell in the global economy, whether it is China, Japan or the United States. We are very concerned that the global decisions we have made will have huge effects on our ability to feed our own Canadian people. I do not know how the food banks will take the next steps. I am concerned that we may see nutritional deficits in low-income Canadians.
The Chair: That was a very powerful answer.
Ms. Laforest: There is a traditional way of seeing the interaction between the sector and the government. There is a perception that if the government steps back, the slack will be picked up by the voluntary sector. That is a very dangerous way to think about the relationship. Some people also see it as a competition model, where the government and voluntary and private sectors are competing to deliver services. We need to look at the relationship more through the vision of partnership, and recognize that the government has a huge role to play in supporting the role on the ground.
Voluntary organizations are doing unique work that cannot be done through the government. They are working one-on-one, as Mr. Northcott has said. They have the capacity to act one-on-one, to help people learn parenting skills, for example, and help in a way that the government cannot. If the government embraces that role and supports it through funding, acknowledging and respecting the variety of roles and functions that the voluntary sector performs, together we can achieve better results.
With respect to your question about the asset-based approach, it is based on the notion that people tend to do better when they own property, and that gives them greater stability to get through periods of insecurity. The asset base is also empowering. The logic is that by giving people access to property, they become empowered. They have a sense of having, and that then helps them come out of poverty more quickly.
Ms. Patten: I do not think it is a good idea to set program budgets with the belief that philanthropy or charitable foundations will pick up the slack. I say that because I am more cynical, perhaps, than are my colleagues around the table. This is not always true. I hope you understand that, and I say this respectfully. However, in many instances, there is absolutely no understanding of what is possible or what could be if, in fact, there was a dialogue happening.
It is not as if people are uniformly saying "If we do not do it, somebody else will." I do not think they understand what is actually possible and what is real. I do not think there is anything deliberate about it.
I want to talk about assets in a slightly different way, the way I was using the term in my remarks about Winnipeg and Hamilton, and absolutely agreeing with how Ms. Laforest has described it. An asset-based approach is about attitudes and beliefs. It is our belief that everyone in every community everywhere has some strength, some asset, some gift, some sense of who they are, of identity and of hope that they bring to the conversation. So much of what my colleagues have said — and I have not — about the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, when I talked about who sits around that table, people who live in poverty sit around that table in Hamilton. They bring ideas, history, solutions and assets to that table. The assets are their knowledge and experience.
We do not want to be Pollyanna-ish and say that these problems do not exist. Clearly they do exist, but we are saying the solutions are found within the community. Building on the assets of people for us means building on the strengths that people and individuals bring and the asset that the collective brings. That is what we mean when we speak about assets.
Senator Munson: You remind me of a story from here in Ottawa, where my own son, who works in the Byward Market, has befriended this gentleman who is down on his luck. He is a poet, and he has an asset. His name is "Crazy Dave." He has written some beautiful poetry that people in the Market area are interested in. Recently, someone stole some of his poetry. That is a tangible asset that would liberate him in a way and create better attitudes inside our own community.
[Translation]
Mr. Lacasse: Indeed, I do not necessarily believe that the community is in a position to deal with the after-effects of a major crisis.
Having said that, I think that from this point on, it is our job, insofar as possible, to build awareness, and make ourselves heard, through better information dissemination throughout Quebec. For example, before the budget is tabled, there is always pre-budgetary consultations which give organizations like ours an opportunity to appear before committees and speak on behalf of marginalized groups.
It goes without saying that we are not always listened to, and this is unfortunate, but it is important that we continue to tackle prejudice head-on. I think that there is a lot of prejudice which is the result of policies that were not developed, not necessarily because of bad intentions, but rather because of a lack of understanding of the plight in which these people find themselves. So that is what I wanted to add.
Senator Pépin: I would like Mr. Northcott to add his five cents' worth.
We know that food banks are increasingly in demand, especially when you look at the number of people you help, the majority of whom are children. And that is even more worrisome and touching. The Canadian Association of Food Banks told us that they wanted to put an end to their service.
They are trying to tell themselves that there will no longer be poverty? Do you not think that there is a contradiction between the current demand and the association's desire to shut down the service? I was wondering if they are trying to say that there will no longer be poverty. This is a problem. How do you explain away this contradiction?
[English]
Mr. Northcott: That is a very powerful question. It is a difficult contradiction to have hungry people in Canada. By itself, it is very distressing.
It is hard to speak without blaming. I find that very difficult. We do know from the food bank that many of them have moved forward and given up the dream of ever having to close. Winnipeg Harvest has learned many things from Harvest Montreal and a number of harvests throughout Quebec when we founded and formed ourselves. We have learned about how complex and difficult the issue is that drove people into poverty and hunger in the first place. Some arguments have been very complex for many generations in First Nations; some legislated poverty issues, such as poorly written legislation or poor honouring of treaties, et cetera. That is a long-term response.
What we have reconciled from the food bank piece is that we need to be here for longer than we first thought. If it was because of the recession and market-driven, at the beginning we thought when the new economy came out of that, everything would be good again, but it was not. That surprised and shocked many of us.
Winnipeg Harvest is working to reduce food bank use by one half in 10 years, to line up with what Canada signed on to at the Millennium Development Goals at the UN, promising to reduce by half the world's hungry. We thought we should do that in Manitoba; at least have an honourable goal. However, we do not now think we can eliminate food banks, which is a difficult ownership for us. We put our trust in things that we believed in, such as finding new relationships, as Ms. Laforest so eloquently said, and as Mr. Lacasse does on the ground. We need to learn from the NGO piece how to learn together.
In the first 20 years of the food banks, we expected government and the economy to pick everything up again and that everything would be fine, and that has not happened. We have food banks now. Over 700,000 Canadians a month eat at food banks and soup kitchens in Canada.
In the next 20 years we need to do something different than the first 20. The new piece is the homework Ms. Laforest is doing at Queen's and Mr. Lacasse is actually doing in Quebec, and what Ms. Patten and the philanthropy group is leading philanthropically is to build on new relationships with people who are poor. That is key for us now. In the first 20 years, we did not often include poor people in many of these voices.
I am ashamed that we still have food banks. I do not think we will be able to eliminate them quickly now, and it will take 10 years to even reduce them a bit.
[Translation]
Senator Pépin: There is nothing in particular the federal government could do to help.
[English]
Mr. Northcott: That is another tough question.
The Chair: Are we back to the guaranteed annual income?
Mr. Northcott: We spoke about a guaranteed annual income. An example I had used earlier was a man who lived on the streets in Winnipeg and volunteered for us at the food bank for many years. When he turned 65, his life changed. He became a citizen and went on Canada's pension system. Canada's pension plan treats people as citizens with respect, and with enough money.
We would use that example to treat all Canadians in the same way. The federal government should widen that system to say: Let us look at all Canadians in the same way. Then the work that Mr. Lacasse does is much easier if we do not have to worry about their basic food and shelter. Then we can build capacity and spirit and value, and so on, and then the faith and NGO communities come to the table with more depth and honourable work.
These are powerful questions.
Senator Keon: I did not want to let this opportunity go, because I ask this question every time the subject comes up in any of our committees about a guaranteed annual income. Whenever the financial people are around, they shoot it down. Why do you think it is possible?
Mr. Northcott: I think it is possible because the first 20 years of them shooting stuff down has not worked. There is no other model on the table. We would make a huge mistake by letting the financial people shoot it down. The reason they do shoot it down is that they lose control of the policies.
For example, in Manitoba we go with families to appeal boards to appeal a welfare ruling, and it could be a number of different issues that come to the table. The definition of mental illness for low-income people is a big issue. When you are diagnosed with mental illness and if a doctor says it, you get a little more money on welfare. However, welfare will often say "We do not believe that. We do not accept that doctor's interpretation. We think they can still work." That happens. Then we go to appeal, and sometimes win and sometimes lose.
The problem with the appeal is that it does not set precedents. In the criminal justice system if you make an appeal and you win the appeal, it changes the legislation and the law. In Manitoba, when you win an appeal at welfare, it does not change anything. Next time you may have the same issue, the same fight, going back to the same appeal board, and you may or may not win. The structure is not designed well for low-income people to actively have a voice in policy.
If we go to a guaranteed annual income, it would change the engagement of low-income people to the government. The funders then probably have great difficulty with how on earth they would administer all that.
The Chair: I do not want to go off down the path of GAI. We will have separate occasions to deal with that. It is a huge subject.
[Translation]
Senator Pépin: Your organization represents a religious group, but you formed a coalition in Quebec to demand that the government adopt a law against poverty and exclusion.
Mr. Lacasse: Indeed, at the beginning of the process, which was called the bill to eliminate poverty, further to that idea, we immediately created a coalition for the anti-poverty bill, which, with the adoption of the provincial act in 2002, became the coalition Québec sans pauvreté, which seeks to ensure the tangible application of this act.
Senator Pépin: Have you seen any progress in its application?
Mr. Lacasse: No, unfortunately, this act does not have enough teeth or leverage.
Senator Pépin: What are the obstacles to its application?
Mr. Lacasse: There is a lack of political will to ensure that people can genuinely emerge from poverty.
Here is an example. For the past three years, the government has indexed only half of the social assistance benefits for people who are able to work. That means that their benefit does not necessarily match to the cost of living or inflation. A potential threat is looming with the economic crisis. Hydroelectricy increased by 3 per cent, public transit by 2 per cent. Full indexation remains a right.
There are some good points about this act. An advisory committee has been set up to examine all government fee structures in place and the special thing about this committee is that the poor and those who work with them sit on it.
We have managed to secure ongoing consultation with people living in poverty, which is a major stride forward. The government delayed the action plan and the act was adopted in 2002. It took almost two years before the action plan was announced, and it does not necessarily meet people's basic needs. It is not necessarily attuned to basic concerns.
Senator Pépin: Your committee will thus have to make other representations.
Mr. Lacasse: We are currently launching a campaign that targets three recommendations. The minimum wage must be raised above the low-income cutoff of Statistics Canada. There must be better protection of the public and poverty must be envisaged from an overall perspective, which means ensuring the accessibility of health care and education. Finally, the last recommendation, which comes back to the issue of minimum income, is to ensure that people receive an income of approximately $13,000 per year, which is the consumption level index required to emerge from poverty. It must be recalled that it is extremely difficult to fulfil one's obligations on $6,000 per year.
[English]
Senator Trenholme Counsell: It has been very inspiring. Many of my questions have been answered. That is the difficulty of coming last, but it has some advantages.
I want to ask a question regarding two things. First, how do we better value the voluntary sector as governments at all levels and as a society? In New Brunswick we did a year-long study of the voluntary sector about a year ago. That was very beneficial. It was a study done by Madame Claudette Bradshaw. What came out of that, first of all, was the need for respect and validation, but also the need for stable, ongoing funding, a five-year plan. Many organizations, for example hospitals, would like to know how much money they would have five years from now. Nevertheless, this was the request from the voluntary sector.
I would like you to comment on that New Brunswick study and its national applicability.
Second, Mr. Northcott, you said that over the next 10 to 20 years we would have to focus on new relationships with the poor, and community involvement. I think if we are to think in those terms, the solution to all of this is education at all levels, beginning at a very young age. We have been talking about this a lot.
I look at the example of Vanier in the Province of Quebec, where 43 per cent of the population have no practical training. This is the one figure we have today in front of us. We know that 10 per cent to 20 per cent of those people began life and went through school with challenges or learning disabilities. Half of that group did not have a chance in school, and then not much chance in life because they were not given the chance early in life. Then you have another 20 per cent who failed in school.
That made me think about my own high school. Even today, maybe 40 per cent do not go on to anything beyond high school. That does not give them much hope for the future.
The idea of a guaranteed minimum income to me is a stop gap, because you are still in poverty. You cannot make ends meet. It will become harder still, with oil and gas increases, et cetera.
I would like you to discuss this long-term approach of 10 to 20 years and, in particular, the role of education.
I also want to ask whether, in all of your organizations, you are emphasizing education enough. I have had practical experience in working with groups like this in New Brunswick. Sometimes you cannot do it for various structural reasons. However, is there an educational component regarding shopping, cooking and budgeting, for example, at Winnipeg Harvest? How much are the organizations that you know of really trying to not only fill the need but to advance the capacity of the people with whom you work to do better?
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Mr. Lacasse: Education plays an important role in our organization; in fact, we claim to be an autonomous public education organization. In order to achieve the social transformation that we are seeking, the entire process that has led us to the adoption of Bill 112 to eliminate poverty is an opportunity to learn many things that may, for individuals, exert major influence, but which can also be qualified as collective learning, discovering how to live and progress together.
We are also in the process of reflecting on the disturbing issue of the recognition of work. Why do work and education go hand in hand? A person who completes his or her academic or institutional studies has a better chance on the labour market, but if someone has a certain expertise, there should be a way of recognizing their experience.
We are also developing another concept relating to education, namely, the "school of citizenship," which offers various workshops and training with a view to imparting tangible knowledge.
For example, we offer a workshop on the history of human civilization that provides general knowledge. But there are also institutional cooking workshops where the students learn food and how long it keeps. Education in a broad sense plays an important role.
These initiatives must be emphasized as much as possible. Learning does not always happen in the classroom. The school of life is important and we learn a great deal by getting involved.
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Ms. Laforest: You asked how we can better support the sector. There are concrete things that could be done.
You flagged the question of respect and the question of acknowledging the various roles that the sector plays. This is a question of integrating that in our political discourse to acknowledge the multifaceted aspects and contributions of the sector, not only focusing on service delivery.
There are also concrete practices around funding that can be done, such as moving towards more stable, triennial funding, for example. They are doing this in the U.K. where three-year funding is the norm as opposed to the exception. The provincial government in Quebec has also done that.
Moving towards supporting infrastructure and finding a way to funnel resources to organizations that support their core activities is also important. These activities represent and give voice to their members, et cetera. In Québec, there is the Secrétariat à l'action communautaire autonome et aux initiatives sociale. The secretariat funnels money specifically for that core purpose. Organizations that want to do advocacy have access to those resources through this other system.
Another one would be a focus on small organizations that have the most difficulty meeting those reporting requirements and doing the paperwork, to find a channel through which they could gain access to resources so that they could meet their objectives. As I said earlier, they can do enormous things with very few resources. It would be good to do something to help them, either through community foundations or some sort of arm's length organization.
The final one is recognizing the importance of the independence of the sector — its ability to stand strong and tall in the face of the government — and not have that funding relationship be one of dependence. That comes back to the first question of respect and acknowledgment, and recognizing value through discourse.
Mr. Northcott: Again, those are very good questions. We speak of 10-20 years because it is a generation. We need to talk in terms of generations when we respond to poverty. It is beyond the one-year contract and the three-year plan concepts for us to deal with a generation. We know that its life is already flowing, and multiple barriers and issues have been inherited or are yet to come. FAES children will always be with us during this generation, no matter how much preventive work we do today.
We need funding that gives us that 10-20-year window. We need to look at how a relationship between government and the not-for-profit sector can do that. I have heard some great ideas already on this panel and I have great hopes for the future.
Education is absolutely critical — not just education but knowledge. Mr. Lacasse talked about the knowledge hub, which is a powerful concept. I am a huge Paulo Freire fan. He talks about knowledge as one of the power points, not just academic knowledge but knowledge of life and work in the community.
For example, in our knowledge, we train with people. We will train them as forklift drivers. We also have literacy issues. We have a natural healers group where we train people to do grief support. There is much unresolved grief in the lives of low income people. There are huge issues, such as loss or death of a family member, loss of a job and loss of a community. We have been exploring this natural healers concept, which does not bump into the traditional models of education but allows people to participate and feel valued.
In Winnipeg we work with a group that has a summer program for inner city children. When they leave school in June, their knowledge base deteriorates over the summer and they often cannot pick it up again in September. They fall back after summer and, therefore, do not graduate.
The University of Winnipeg has a summer program that a number of inner city groups are using for kids. It includes knowledge, social and entertainment skills. They are finding it to be a huge success when the kids are going back to school in September. The program is a great equalizer for the many inner city children who are First Nations.
I love that concept of knowledge transfer and hub, which was coined earlier. It sort of describes what is going on but does not diminish the issue for budgeting and good cooking. We work with community health through the food security group. A group of nutritionists helps us to ensure that when the food lists go out, they are nutritionally sound. They do budgeting for alternative foods. We are trying to get people to use crock pots, and we give them lentils. We gave them lentils before, but without the tools to cook them. That is an example of our responding to the issue.
Guaranteed annual income, as we have been saying, is the base that we need to do all these other things. It is difficult to learn when you do not know whether you can feed your family tomorrow. We see the guaranteed annual income as a financial security base. It does not release us from the issue of poverty but it gives us a base to work from.
Senator Munson: At the beginning, you talked about social justice and the kind of country we want. We have to go to long-term funding to have the kind of country we want because, with all the short-term funding, you have reporting problems and administrative requirements.
In the new environment that we live in today, the two buzz words are "accountability" and "transparency." Your work is an extremely important part of our community and social fabric but is hard to measure in terms of results when the funding is long-term. If long-term, stable funding were to be made available to non-government and faith-based organizations, how would you demonstrate accountability and transparency?
Mr. Northcott: Winnipeg Harvest is far more accountable to the public than it is to the government. We survive on donated volunteer time, donated money and donated food. The community will tell us right away if we have messed up. Transparency and accountability are huge in our work. The least of our worries, in a sense, is government because we are not government-funded.
When the issue of the voice comes, we need to redefine the language first. We need to redefine "poverty" in terms of what Mr. Lacasse is saying about issues of spirit, issues of knowledge, as Senator Trenholme Counsell was saying, issues of people and financial and political issues. We need to redefine the words differently so that accountability and transparency can be more honest. Currently, we are bound by narrow definitions. There are some skill sets on this panel that could help us to redefine these words so that they truly reflect what we are seeing in the community.
Some of the things that Ms. Patten was talking about are happening, or going in that direction. I have great optimism that if we redefine things properly, then the issue of accountability and transparency will be much easier to deal with.
Ms. Patten: Broadly speaking, the sector is very committed to transparency and accountability. In 1998, a cross-sector panel led by Ed Broadbent and a number of other people spoke about accountability in the voluntary sector. That remains a touchstone for many of us. I would invite you to take a look at that document because it spells out clearly the commitment that the sector, including philanthropy, has made to accountability and to transparency.
For Community Foundations of Canada and many community organizations, the response would be the same as Mr. Northcott's response: that our accountability and transparency are evident through our relationships with our communities and donors, in our annual reporting and in a variety of other ways.
It is interesting for me that not one of us has raised the fact that there is an accord in place on the relationship between the Government of Canada and the not-for-profit sector. The accord was signed in 2001, I believe, and speaks to respect, accountability, and the principles of a relationship. It says that accountability is a two-way street and is not only about the sector being accountable to government but also that accountability works both ways. That accord has gone by the way, for the most part, although we should perhaps go back and have a look at it. It was far from perfect and was only a framework, but I would encourage a review of the accord to build on some of its potential.
I was one of a number of people involved in its creation and we made a number of mistakes. Our colleagues in the U.K, who called it a compact, put one in place between the not-for-profit sector and the U.K. government. It was binding on all governments, not just on the government of the day. Unfortunately, we did not have the foresight — perhaps jointly, the sector and government, we did not have the foresight to embed that in our accord. It fell by the wayside as governments and government leadership changed.
There is some real potential there. I think much of what we have talked about today was addressed, not the tactics but the strategic part of it. I would invite you to include both the panel on accountability led by Ed Broadbent in 1998 and by a group of us in the voluntary sector, and the work of the voluntary sector initiative around the accord and around financing the sector. Let us not lose that and reinvent what we do not need to reinvent.
The Chair: Unless there is another response to that, let me throw in one final question.
You talked earlier about the silos in dealing with the federal government or any level of government, the fact that they do not talk to one another and that there is not enough coordination. Horizontal links in government, whole-of-government approaches are an ongoing challenge.
One thing is a possibility to solve that. A few years ago, there were a couple of agreements entered into in two cities, which I will call community development agreements. There was one in Vancouver that covered the downtown east side and one in Winnipeg, which I think covers Aboriginal peoples, by and large. This was a signed agreement between three orders of government — federal, provincial and municipal — and the community as well, in which it laid out what the goals were of the agreement and what each party to the agreement would do. That helped, as I understand it.
Certainly, in theory, it sounds great but does it work in practice? Are community development agreements a good model? What do you say about that?
Mr. Northcott: It is a great step. I think, as with any model, it has issues attached to it, but the step and the concept is good.
Years ago, there was a Winnipeg development agreement in which three levels of government agreed to move some of these agendas forward. One of the things that percolated out of that at the very beginning was Winnipeg Harvest. There was a bit of money to start it. The community foundations gave us good advice on how to handle issues after that and, to this day, they are still true.
I think you are right. There is a model there to look at; let it run its course, let the analysis take place and build on it. I think you are exactly right.
On the downtown east side, I have been hearing things from the food programs there that they are looking at that and liking what is going on so far. I think that is a good thing to put on the table; let us build on it.
Ms. Patten: I agree with what Mr. Northcott has said and would add that I know that there is some new energy in Vancouver, particularly in the downtown east side. The community foundation there is just one of the players in this, with a variety of government and other stakeholders.
It actually touches on a number of things we have talked about earlier this morning. It is about sticking to it. It is about understanding that we are in this for the long haul. This is not going to be a three-year program and then we will have it solved.
This is also about, unfortunately — and I guess this is a reality — understanding the incremental nature of this situation. We are not about to solve all of the problems of the downtown east side with one kind of partnership or one solution. The stick-to-it-ness is really important — the more than adequate resourcing and the ability to build on small successes as it goes forward; but I think it is a terrific model to keep moving ahead on.
Ms. Laforest: Academic literature would say that the world that we live in now of policy-making is increasingly complex. We need a variety of actors at the table — all of the levels of government and people bringing together their expertise. As Ms. Patten said, it will take time. It is not an easy process and it is a messy one; but that is where social innovation comes from — taking these kinds of risks.
The Chair: I think you, perhaps more than most, know that processes do take a long time. You have been going through a lot of them.
Your input to our process has been very valuable and I appreciate that very much, as do my committee colleagues. With that, this meeting does now stand adjourned.
The committee adjourned.