It's not only the loss of jobs. In most of our community organizations, there are very few employees who are paid even the minimum wage. We can't give them much.
What happens is that we lose volunteers. Our organizations function because of full-time volunteers. These volunteers truly work full-time and work for nothing. Because we have no money to hire staff in the various community organizations, the volunteers pick up the slack. They can no longer do so, because they are exhausted. We are suffering from a syndrome that I always describe as the ASP syndrome: always the same people. At some point, people can no longer carry on. With no more volunteers to do the work and no employees to take over, some organizations are shutting down.
Recently, a number of regional organizations of the Association canadienne-française de l'Ontario, who work on behalf of community development, closed their doors, for example in Sault Ste. Marie. On weekends in Nipissing, we will also no doubt be required to close. We are currently on hold. In the Cochrane region and in several other areas, the ACFOs can no longer continue.
The exhaustion of volunteers is a fact. It is clear. People are tired. Sometimes the communities may not perceive their relevance, but there are no employees to do the work to ensure that the community is properly served. It thus becomes a vicious circle.