Human Resources Committee on Dec. 4th, 2023

[Dr. Megan Conway]

There are definitely direct supports that could be provided through government, as a centralized funding mechanism, that would enable stronger rates of participation and volunteerism—for sure. There is a way that this supports participation and also builds community in charities and non-profits across the country.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Conway, are cities involved with your organization? Do you rely on cities? Can you partner with cities? How do cities play a role?

[Dr. Megan Conway]

In our new strategic plan, we have a municipal focus in the work that we're doing. That's definitely an area of increased opportunity moving forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Zarrillo.

Ms. Ferreri, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much to our witnesses.

What a powerful, articulate study. There's some shocking testimony coming out here today as we study volunteerism and the crisis that is happening in our country in recruiting volunteers.

I'll start with you, Mr. Moss. Your testimony today has been shocking, in that you're expecting at the food bank a 100% increase in the next four to five months, in a time of historical highs.

I met with the Lions of Canada, which is an incredible service organization. Some of the local organizations were saying their average age is 70. We know through recent media reports.... Global News is saying seniors have to go back to work to account for the cost of living increases and inflation.

How much has the cost of living impacted your ability to recruit volunteers?

[Trevor Moss]

We're starting to see that trend. I think we've always been strong and hopefully we'll remain that way in reference to how we can engage our volunteer base.

I do agree. I'm hearing more from our seniors. They're not really telling us boldly, but they're telling us they need to go back to work. We are seeing huge rises in the number of seniors accessing the food bank. Let's be honest; it's a simple thing. They're on a fixed income and that income is not matching up with inflation costs. We're at the highest in 40 years in reference to inflation.

The biggest crisis, even outside of COVID, is inflation for our people. It's having a very deep impact, whether it's on transportation or our volunteers. This is really concerning for us.

When we have these dips, we have to keep going with our mandate, just like any other not-for-profit. That's where the biggest challenge is for not-for-profits. It's something we are seeing day in and day out. We're really trying to maximize and connect to our base. This is why it's critical to try to bring our younger generation into that, but they're also quite busy because they're struggling as well.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much for that.

For those watching at home, it is the Government of Canada's job—which is set by the Liberal government right now—to have fiscal responsibility. Fiscal responsibility comes back to how money is spent. That is what we're seeing with the highest rise of inflation in 40 years.

I want to tell people—and I'd love to hear both of the witnesses chime in—that one of the first areas to get hit is charities. A lot of these service organizations rely on donations.

I'm going to read a little blurb here from Global News: “The surging cost of living doesn't just have more Canadians turning to shelters and food banks for help—it's also forcing charities themselves to do more with less, as the donors they rely on find their own budgets under pressure.”

Mr. Moss, how critical is it to have fiscal responsibility and to have inflation under control, so that we can ensure you recruit more volunteers and ensure that people can donate to help the valuable organizations that you are running?

[Trevor Moss]

In reference to the inflation piece and the crisis that we are experiencing, we are concerned. I think every food bank across the country is concerned, because the numbers keep rising. Also in our situation we are one of the provincial hubs in B.C. We are looking at that 100% increase through Food Banks Canada and Food Banks B.C., and we're also shipping food to remote areas where they're even harder hit than some of the urban centres.

Our concern is that inflation has to pull back, because it's been rising over the last four years. Sometimes we say, if inflation goes back 2%.... However, if you look at food costs, rentals and all of those things, you see that it probably equals 25% to 30%, and that's the problem for the average person. It's not like anyone really says, “I want to go to the food bank.” They realize that they have no other choice. They're showing up at our door with humility, and we're saying, “Listen, we're going to do our best to help you.”

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you for that.

I'll go quickly to Ms. Conway. You had chatted in a recent article, “Critical lack of volunteers putting Canadian not-for-profit services at risk”. You talked about that number—65%. That was a shocking number having difficulty recruiting new volunteers.

I know my own daughter, who's in university, doesn't have time to even consider this, but she would love to. One of the things you talked about was the cost of fuel. I think about that, and we talked about that with buses. People have to pay for the gas to get there. You mentioned that in your article.

Do you still feel that the cost of gas is an issue in recruiting volunteers?

[Dr. Megan Conway]

The cost of living across the board presents a barrier for diverse demographics. I would also say that people, postpandemic, reprioritized. Older adults, who have historically given a ton of time, may have had child care responsibilities for their grandchildren, for instance. I do think there's a shift there that's been impactful across diverse demographics, for sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Ferreri.

Now we have Mr. Collins for five minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to the witnesses for their appearance today at committee.

Mr. Moss, I'll start with you. As a city councillor in 2017, I worked with my residents to open a food bank. My ward was about 50,000 residents in size, and I worked with volunteers on that project to make that facility a reality. I know that, through the pandemic, it was an incredibly difficult time for our volunteers and for the social agency, the non-profit that we partnered with, Mission Services, here in Hamilton. We were forced to drop our volunteer base, because of the pandemic and some of the restrictions that came with the lockdowns. We were forced to use full-time and part-time staff at Mission Services, which increased our costs.

During that time the federal government and other levels of government provided financial support to organizations to help offset some of the labour that volunteers had provided to us. I know that the emergency community support fund, which was provided by the federal government, through Community Foundations, Food Banks Canada and others, provided tremendous support.

Could you highlight for us the challenges that you faced through the pandemic with volunteers, and how income supports from municipal, provincial or federal governments helped assist you through very turbulent, rocky times?

[Trevor Moss]

This is our trend, and I can't speak for other food banks. For the first two months we were really scrambling when COVID hit, because we had to change our full operations. No one was allowed in the building, technically. We remained open. Then after two months, we realized that...and we went to Ontario Health and different places and said that volunteers were critical, so they had to be considered staff. There was an allowance for that, but the problem was that seniors were scared too. What happened was that a lot of people lost their jobs. For the first three or four months we were actually fine, but then after that, when people started to resume a little bit of normalcy, that's when our volunteer numbers really dropped and we were scrambling.

We were also appreciative of some of the interim funding, because traditionally food banks never had any federal or provincial funding. I'm not saying they don't get it through grants or those types of things, but it was helpful, because it was needed in that COVID pandemic situation.

I'm not trying to overstate this, but I think right now we're in a bigger crisis than we were before, and that's a statement. When I bring this together, anything that helps us to provide an opportunity for volunteers, whether they're university students or right across the board, any structure or funding or awareness, I think, is a win for every not-for-profit. Sometimes not-for-profits go under the radar, when they need to be put up a little bit more on the radar, no matter what not-for-profit it may be.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Great. Thanks, Mr. Moss.

Dr. Conway, I've always found, as someone who's been in office for quite some time, that the exercise of matchmaking in terms of finding the volunteer, in this case I'll point to our youth, and matching them with volunteer opportunities has always been a challenge for me, whether it's the community cleanups that I've hosted for 20 years or... How do you get them to the event? How do you advertise?

I go back to the days prior to social media and the Internet. It was the very traditional form of letters through the neighbourhoods and the local schools. Even with the social media platforms we have today and all the tools we have to communicate with youth, I still find it a challenge in terms of getting people out, whether it's to one of the food drives that I participate in, my local cleanups or other events that I host or am a part of.

Do you have any suggestions in terms of that matchmaking exercise with regard to how to connect with youth and how to let them know those opportunities exist, so that we can increase our numbers with whatever volunteer opportunity we're talking about?

[Dr. Megan Conway]

Engaging and asking youth to participate is mission-critical. The work of that matchmaking is a relational activity and that actually requires people to do that work, and people often require resourcing infrastructure and supports.

One other thing I would flag is that we need to make sure the ways in which we are supporting volunteerism manage risks, and we also believe this is an opportunity to think about a screening platform. One of the barriers we hear people talk about is police record checks. We believe there are other examples in other jurisdictions that are better models, like the blue card system in Australia, for example.

For me, I might have to volunteer for hockey. I might be a hockey coach one day, and I might go into the school the next day. I need two separate police checks. Those are barriers. People don't have the time if, say, they need to that twice. We could reduce inefficiency and streamline some of those processes while still managing risk in important ways.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Ms. Conway, we know that people volunteer in many sectors. You talked about a volunteering crisis. I'd like to ask you two questions about that.

Firstly, are there any sectors in particular for which your data demonstrates that we are in crisis?

Secondly, when you ask for better data, what specifically do you have in mind?

[Dr. Megan Conway]

Thank you.

I know, for instance, that the child and youth sector has been hit very hard by the lack of volunteers. If you want to have someone participate in Girl Guides, for instance, in B.C. there is a two-year wait-list because of the lack of volunteers. That's a significant impact in terms of the quality of life of young people across the country. Child and youth services, I believe, have been hit significantly hard.

I believe the impacts of volunteering are across sectors, so there isn't necessarily one or another that stands out more in the data. However, I do think there is something to pay attention to in terms of the kinds of upstream interventions we want to be having and the ways in which we make it easy for people to volunteer in health, in child and youth, in recreation, in arts and culture—across the board.

In terms of data, we need to understand the diverse demographic picture of volunteerism. What does it look like if you're living in a small rural community in Saskatchewan versus if you're in downtown Toronto in Regent Park? What are the models that are going to be effective across diverse demographics and across different kinds of municipalities?

Some of that data, I believe, needs to be done qualitatively in a much more fulsome picture of what effective models exist and what their high-impact practices might look like moving forward into the future.

I would also say corporate Canada has a role to play, and we need to better understand the baseline data that exists around employee-supported volunteerism across corporate Canada as well. There is a role to play in terms of data gathering there too.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Who can provide us with that data? Could Statistics Canada?

[Dr. Megan Conway]

There's a way in which we could work with Statistics Canada to do some of that data gathering. The general social survey on giving, volunteering and participating happens every five years. There may be an opportunity to do a bit of a research study as well through academic partners, where they are doing some more qualitative data gathering. I believe there's a way it could be done in partnership across academic institutions as well. Then working through the survey on business conditions with some more focused questions might be another opportunity to speak to charities and non-profits specifically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

We go now to Ms. Zarrillo for two and a half minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Conway, on the diverse communities, I wanted to bring something up that happens in my riding in Port Moody—Coquitlam. There's an organization called Immigrant Link Centre Society, and it's an amazing group that has the logistics challenges of a corporation, I'm sure. There are hundreds of volunteers. They serve thousands of families every single month.

It is an entry point for English language learning. They work with new immigrants to the community and introduce them to the city, to the organization, to families, but it's a great way for language learning. I know that's one of the aspects.

I wonder if you would be able to share with us some of the reasons that people volunteer and maybe some of the reasons why they just haven't been able to continue over the last three or four years.

[Dr. Megan Conway]

There's a whole, broad range of reasons why people volunteer, from individual reasons—like wanting to build skills—to thinking about issues and cares in their community or paying attention to a specific cause that might matter to them.

Based on your example, we know many newcomers gain their first Canadian experiences through volunteerism. While they may not be able to work immediately when they come to the country, they are often acclimatized to Canadian community through deep and supportive volunteering experiences. There might be an opportunity for the Government of Canada to think about a skill-building program that supports a volunteer-to-career pathway, for example, not just for newcomers but also youth. We know that youth, oftentimes, gain critical skills through mandatory volunteer service in high school, for instance.

There's an important skill conversation that needs to be had, but there are also reasons related to addressing loneliness or isolation issues or, for instance, just a personal “it's something my parents did”. That's often the main reason why people volunteer. They learned about it from their parents or grandparents. There are diverse reasons. I think it's individual-specific and context-specific.

I believe there are ways of doing some better supportive thinking for individuals and across communities around those issues.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

As a follow-up to that, one of the other organizations in my community, Soroptimist, does scholarships and awards. Through that, they've also been able to include newcomers and create those community connections.

Do you have any examples of other activities that potentially result in volunteerism and greater connection to community, such as award programs or...?

[Dr. Megan Conway]

Annually, Canada celebrates National Volunteer Week. That is a time when we recognize and celebrate the contributions of volunteers. It's a one-week opportunity in April for the entire country to shine a light on these important contributions. I think that's a way. Recognizing and celebrating contributions are ways you can recruit and retain more volunteers, moving forward.

I would flag that this is an important week as well.