Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My hope is to leave you with you two key messages.
First, there has been, is, and always will be an intimate relationship between the federal state and the more than 160,000 voluntary organizations in Canada. There will always be a myriad of bonds between the nation and the 12 million Canadians who contribute their time to the public good through voluntary organizations. The challenge is to make that relationship strong, effective, and efficient, in an ongoing way.
Second, the voluntary sector initiative of 2000-2005 left us with the accord as well as the codes of good practice on funding and policy dialogue. These and the other legacy pieces were developed through working groups, involving equal representation from government and members of community organizations. That process was a profound step forward in forging the kind of approach to community organizations I just mentioned.
The recent decision to alter funding arrangements did harm to that relationship—a harm that must be rectified.
I appear today as a representative of the Muttart Foundation, a private foundation based in Edmonton. For more than a half-century, our foundation has been making grants to charities across Canada to help them deliver new or better services to Canadians.
Most if not all of you have worked with voluntary organizations in your constituencies and in your communities of interest. You will know, therefore, that the voluntary sector in Canada employs about 10% of all working Canadians, that it is responsible for almost 8% of the gross domestic product of the country, and that 45% of all Canadians donate time, while 85% of all Canadians donate money to the voluntary sector each year. But I would remind you that the community sector is, according to Statistics Canada, four times larger than the agriculture sector, more than twice as large as the mining, oil, and gas extraction industry, and more than 50% larger than Canada's entire retail trade industry.
This is all to say that there is, and must be, a relationship between Canada and the community groups and organizations described as the voluntary sector.
Canada and the voluntary sector share some common goals. Both want opportunities for people to improve themselves physically, mentally, spiritually, and economically. We both want people to have the opportunities to contribute to their communities and to be full participants in their communities and in our country.
To be sure, we will not always agree on the best methods to accomplish our common goals, but there are right methods to deal with those differences, and there are right methods of working together despite those differences.
In 2001, Canada and the voluntary sector signed a document that established the framework of the relationship that should exist between them. The accord and the accompanying codes on policy dialogue and funding did not seek to freeze in time any funding commitments, to hamper the development of new ideas, or to fetter the executive's right to make decisions. Instead, those documents speak to how we should work with one another for the benefit of all who live in this nation.
These commitments seem to have been forgotten during the expenditure review exercise. Programs were reduced or eliminated with no consultation, no forewarning, and no discussion of alternatives. That is inconsistent with the accord, it is inconsistent with the codes, and it is inconsistent with the positive relationship that should, and must, exist between the state and the voluntary sector.
To take but one example: cancellation of the Canada volunteerism initiative affects every voluntary organization in this country. Its work at the national and regional levels was meant to address a growing problem in recruiting volunteers and in training voluntary organizations in the most effective means of managing and utilizing those volunteers.
The cancellation of this program, the suggestion that the program is non-core, risks undoing much good that has already been done. It risks the very viability of the one national organization whose role is to encourage volunteering in all its many forms.
Similarly, the elimination of the Charities Advisory Committee to the Minister of National Revenue has destroyed another vehicle for ongoing dialogue. This committee—emanating from a recommendation of the joint regulatory table, which I co-chaired—provided an avenue for conversations about the complex and confusing regulatory regime within which charities must operate. I served as a member of the founding advisory committee. The twelve of us came as volunteers to help build and maintain the relationship between the regulator and the regulated. As with the Canada volunteerism initiative, much good had already resulted, and more was forthcoming. And we have now lost that, despite the commitments in the accord and the codes to open, respectful, informed, and sustained dialogue between government and the sector.
Mr. Chairman, we know that governments must make difficult decisions, including decisions on spending, and we know it's unlikely there will ever be unanimity on what should be cut, but it is not in anyone's interest, not the government's, not the sector's, not the nation's, that we leave as damaged the relationship between Canada and the millions of people involved in voluntary organizations. No amount of saving will justify the harm that could result to programs and, more importantly, to the people we are all committed to serve.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, the Muttart Foundation encourages this committee to recommend to the House a recommitment to the principles of the accord and its subsidiary codes. We encourage you to reinforce to the House, and through the House to all Canadians, the importance of the community sector to the quality of life we have come to enjoy in this country and the central place that community organizations make to that quality and way of life. And we encourage you to hold all future governments to the responsibility of working constructively and diligently with the voluntary sector for the benefit of all Canadians.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.