I'm not sure I'm so wise that I have the advice on how to solve these things. But I see in the Canadian community foundations, and in the example of the Fundy Community Foundation, which is in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, a model for something that works in supporting a large number of not-for-profits. The Fundy Community Foundation isn't there to do charitable work itself, but to support the other not-for-profits and charities in facilitating funding for them. They're set up so that people can donate and create foundations to assist themselves and others. They have general endowment funds, and the interest on money that's invested is there for them to put back into charities.
They also work as facilitators of communication. I think facilitating communications at the community level and upward is important. But rather than writing a report at the end, I think there should be an ongoing dialogue from the bottom up—through municipal, provincial, and federal governments. It's our community dialogues organized by the Fundy Community Foundation that end up solving a problem.
Transportation was identified as a problem. We ended up stealing an idea from Nova Scotia and setting up a Dial A Ride program, for alternative transportation. Tomorrow night I'll be speaking with all the mayors in Carleton County. They're looking at copying our model and setting up a Dial A Ride program there. I've spoken with the MLA from Sackville, and they're looking at setting up a Dial A Ride program in that county. I spoke with people from a town in Queens County, Chipman Parish, and they're looking at taking that model. So the Fundy Community Foundation had the dialogue, addressed a problem, and we came up with a community-based solution to it. We have volunteers who are participating.
Rural communities don't have bus service, and you have transportation problems. With the centralization of hospital services, there are many people in St. Stephen, in St. Andrews, and in the area of LSD, Rollingdam, and so on, who have cancer, who have kidney problems and have to go for dialysis, who have no money because they're living on welfare. How the heck can they afford a taxi or $100 each way to go from St. Stephen up to Saint John for the treatment they have to have? The Dial A Ride program has solved that. It's a model of the sort of thing that can work. The Fundy Community Foundation is community-based, but it has a national organization. It's a model; it's not the solution.