Trudeau can, and should, clean up mess he created for charities
A pretty good pro-tip for life, political or otherwise, is that if you make a mess, you should be the one to mop it up.
With all eyes on this coming week's speech from the throne, the prime minister has an opportunity to stay true to his promise to focus on the COVID-19 response while also cleaning up the wreckage strewn from the self-created political hurricane that is the WE Charity scandal.
It didn't only damage the government politically, or WE existentially. New research released this week by the Angus Reid Institute, in partnership with Cardus, Charitable Impact, Imagine Canada, Philanthropic Foundations Canada, United Way and Canada Helps, shows that the affair has left a distinctly bitter aftertaste in the mouths of Canadian donors.
A majority of the 85 per cent in this country who currently contribute say it has raised questions about the governance, transparency and management of all charities. Significant segments say it has shaken their confidence in the organizations to which they have given in the past. Many say it's changed how they feel about giving altogether.
Let's think for a minute about the impact of this. There has never been a worse time for a national embarrassment such as the now-cancelled deal between the Trudeau government and WE to sow doubt in the minds of donors. 2020 has already resulted in a devastating double hit to charities. At a time when the health, economic and emotional effects of the pandemic have arguably increased the need for the help they provide more than ever, the coronavirus has badly blunted Canadians' ability to give. Indeed, some 37 per cent of donors say they have given less since the pandemic began. Considering that Canadians gave about $10 billion in 2018 (the last year for which information is available), this represents a loss of hundreds of millions, if not billions to the charitable sector.
Speaking of which, “charitable sector” is a stupid turn of phrase. It paints a dull, grey, corporatized veneer over what, in reality, are the passionate and robust efforts of thousands of volunteers who, with donor dollars, provide crucial services, programs and assistance to those who need it. People who need rides to chemotherapy. People who need something to eat. People who need assistance getting their lives back on track after something or someone derailed it. Real people in your communities. Maybe even people you know.
There are about 86,000 such organizations that do this work.
The double chilling effects of COVID-19 and the WE scandal on donors will make doing it even more difficult in the coming months. Some organizations will not survive. Such is life.
The Justin Trudeau government can take action, however, to encourage Canadians to re-flex their giving muscle. One option might be a limited-time donation program that would see every dollar donated by an individual to a particular charity (up to a limit, of course) matched by taxpayers. It is an idea that already finds buy-in: three-quarters of Canadians say they would support or strongly support such an initiative. It is especially popular among this government's left-of-centre vote base. More importantly, nearly 40 per cent of Canadians say they'd consider donating more to a charitable organization if such a program existed.
To be sure, there are a lot of expectations on this government's throne speech and subsequent budget. Demands of help for the business community to stimulate the economy; for social spending to help households hit the hardest restart their lives; and of course, to use Trudeau's phrase, to “build back better” by spending on climate change, pharmacare or a national child care program.
Not everyone is going to get what they want. That's reasonable. But it was this government that played a direct role in damaging how charitable organizations in this country are perceived. And it is this government that carries a direct moral obligation to repair that damage. Shachi Kurl is executive director of the Angus Reid Institute, a national, not-for-profit, nonpartisan public opinion research foundation. She is also on the boards of two charitable organizations
(the Canadian Cancer Society and the Jack Webster Foundation). The Angus Reid Institute also has the status of a registered charity but does not solicit donations.