Recent research on the impact of the recession on Ontario’s nonprofit community service providers shows the need for an integrated government/ charitable funder/ community service provider strategy to protect valuable community services.

The research found that:

• Many organizations fear for their future
• More than one-third have already been seriously affected
• Many ongoing funders will be reducing funding
• Organizations’ endowment funds have been depleted
• Businesses are often cancelling their support
• Service demand for basic needs – food, shelter – are increasing

The study’s authors call for a planned approach to protecting vital community services.

Unfortunately, federal and provincial stimulus funding is now focused directly on job creation, with little or no attention to job retention which, in the community sector, means service retention.  Somehow, community services are expected to “make-do” with less, or raise more from the community (community fundraising is suffering, not growing), or just work harder. 

The recession may be over in GDP terms, but its impact has only begun to be felt.  We are in for a rough ride.

In a report released today by Statistics Canada in “Perspectives on Labour and Income“, the authors found that between 1980 and 2005 the ratio between the incomes of wealthy and poor Canadian families increased from 3.6 to 4.1.  In 1980 about 52% of families earned between two-thirds and four-thirds of the median income.  By 2005 that was reduced to about 42%.  The shares of the population below two-thirds of the median and above two-thirds of the median – the poor and the rich - both grew, indicating a polarization of income in Canada.  This finding has significant policy implications for a range of programs from income security to child care.

In their usual way, the Conservative Party of Canada has turned funding for recreational infrastructure from an exercise in meeting a community need to an exercise in rewarding the party faithful.  In other words, using my money to reward their friends. 

Today’s Globe and Mail reports on an analysis of the government’s spending on recreational infrastructure grants in each Ontario riding.  Not surprisingly, given its track record, the government has invested an average of 38% more in Conservative ridings than in those held by opposition parties.  This would be bad enough if it was just the normal distribution of government largess.  But access to recreation is a significant health issue in Ontario and in Canada.  Statistics Canada reports that, on average, 50.6% of Canadians age 12 and up consider themselves to be moderately active.  That drops to 49.5% in Ontario and 43.4% here in Waterloo Region.

 Access to recreation is an indicator of current and future health.  Limiting access for political reasons should be beneath the moral standard we expect from any political party.

Statistics Canada recently released its annual report on Family violence in Canada.  One aspect that it highlights this year is family violence against children.  In partial summary:

• 85% of children and youth whose abuse was reported were abused by someone they know,
• Assaults on nearly 53,400 children and youth were reported to police in 2007,
• Family members perpetrated sexual assault on girls four times as often as on boys.

There has been very little said about the potential financial impact on charities of Ontario’s harmonized sales tax scheduled for next summer.   While businesses will be able to claim back what they have spent on the harmonized tax, that’s not the way it works for charities.  Charities can currently claim a portion of the GST they paid back at the end of the year.  This means that charities that are already struggling from a recession that brought increased need and often diminished funding are now going to have to pay 8% more on overhead, supplies, and much more.  My rough calculation is that a half-million dollar charity (10 employees) will have to pay about $10,000 in additional tax, of which half may come back as a rebate well into the future.  That’s enough to make the difference between success and failure when the agency is already running a deficit due to the recession.