Job Banks rather than Food Banks

[August1991]

I have been thinking about this for some time and then I read this passage in an excellent speech given recently by John Howard, the former PM of Australia, in Washinton DC. (I think this is the correct forum category since it concerns all of Canada.)

A conservative edifice must always have at its centre the role of the family and what Americans call faith based organisations in maintaining and strengthening social infrastructure.

...

The former government in Australia gave faith-based groups direct involvement in policy making and execution, adding to their traditional roles of relieving distress and providing spiritual support.

Let me illustrate. Until 1996 unemployed Australians seeking work registered with a government agency which kept a list of available jobs given to it by employers seeking workers.

This system had essentially been in operation in that form for decades. It always received very mixed reviews.

In our first budget we privatised the employment service, ending the government monopoly and replacing it with a job network open to private providers.

The new job network attracted participation from the employment arms of some of the largest religious-based charities in Australia such as the Salvation Army and Wesley Missions.

This quite radical policy change has been a success. The significant involvement of faith-based organisations has been a major feature. Private enterprise providers have also been successfully involved.

I am not aware of any system quite like it elsewhere in the world. I am sure that the new job network has played some part in reducing Australia’s unemployment rate.

I mention this example of the successful (to date) involvement of church based organisations in the coal-face delivery of social services. Such groups bring two priceless assets to the delivery of human services. The first is genuine compassion. The other is a hard-headed approach to money. Hardened by years of ceaseless fundraising most religiously based charities or organisations spend their money far more carefully than do bureaucrats.

John Howard

While the unemployment rate is the lowest in decades, there are still Canadians who are in difficult straits. They find it hard to find and keep a job, or to cope with daily problems. Soon, we will have many elderly people, often single, perhaps childless who will need care and assistance.

Social services are largely a provincial responsibility and most provinces have extensive bureaucracies ranging from child protection agencies, youth offender homes through to welfare bureaucrats and long term care facilities. Invariably, the employees in these different bureaucracies are unionized civil servants who spend taxpayer's money. This is a recipe for ineffectiveness. Bureaucrats are not good at compassion and bureaucracies are not good at directing money where it is best used. Canada's health system is proof of this.

Somehow, provincial governments have to find a way to hand off to private organizations many of the social assistance tasks bureaucrats now undertake. Churches and families need to do more. Howard's comments above are very true.

Edited March 7, 2008 by August1991

[margrace]

Have you been to church lately. In our area the only people going and supporting them are the elderly. You Want to put us to work.

[Topaz]

Have you been to church lately. In our area the only people going and supporting them are the elderly. You Want to put us to work.

I thought the same thing when I read this, not many people go. I do think in some provinces the people who get from the food banks will also work there and help out. The unemployment rate from Ontario to the Martimes is alot higher than the west. B.C. does have their lumber problems though. The minister for the EI keeps saying they are retraining these unemployed people, especially the 45 up and we are getting the job done. Wrong. The training is working at Wendy's drive through, or MacDonalds??? Wouldn't you like to see some of these guys working at a Wendy's after losing an election???

[BC_chick]

Great, then everyone will hold hands and sing Kumbaya together. Oh wait, no, that's liberal foreign-policy, not conservative social-policy.

Kidding aside, I'm not sure I like this. Sure, in theory you're simply cutting out the corrupt middle-man when receiving a tax-break and giving to charity as opposed to giving the money to government for social-programs.

But in reality, the charities receiving the donations would be a reflection of people's personal biases as opposed to those who really need it.

Not really worth it. Better keep the corrupt middle-man because s/he is more likely to reflect the whole, or at least the majority, when making these decisions. After all, their job depends on making the right choices.... unlike the private donations.

[Sean Hayward]

I like the idea of privatization of certain social services, but I dislike the idea of putting them in the hands of groups, such as those which are religiously motivated, who may be altering the service provided to suit their own goals. For example, if we hand over some social service to a church, or "faith-based organization" as they are now known, would they make receipt of that social service conditional upon conversion to their faith or attendance of their church. It may not be so obvious, but they may use more subtle methods to advance their agenda.

There are better ways to streamline the welfare system, such as the creation of Crown Corporations to handle social services, and targeted tax incentives to allow low-income people to retain more of their own working income.

[margrace]

Isn't this just another way to create a money making orgaization. Make money off the backs of the poor.

[Sean Hayward]

Isn't this just another way to create a money making orgaization. Make money off the backs of the poor.

No. Its a way to ensure that the money actually gets to the poor, and that it isn't spent on bureaucracy.

[August1991]

Have you been to church lately. In our area the only people going and supporting them are the elderly. You Want to put us to work.

Margrace, I don't know how old you are, how wealthy you are or what your family situation is. But somebody has to care for the elderly.

In all likelihood, if you live long enough in Canada and based on current trends, unless you have children who like you, when you're 80 or so, you will find yourself in a long-term care facility organized and operated by unionized government bureaucrats. You'll be too old to object to your treatment. Such is socialism.

By starting this thread, I simply meant to say that personal care is best made through family, and churches. The State is not good at providing personal care. I think this will become an issue soon for many (Leftist, childless) boomers who expect the State to care for them. Well, the State is bureaucratic, and politics drive governments.

Despite what the NDP/Liberals/Feminists say, parents are best placed to care for their children, and children are best placed to care for their parents. And church members are best placed to care about parishioners. Bureaucrats are good at rules, spreadsheets and excuses. Bureaucrats can find a job but they won't give a hug. Government bureaucrats can give money to people; bureaucrats can't solve people's personal problems.

Socialism? Personal care is best privatized. That's why family exists.

Edited March 22, 2008 by August1991

[charter.rights]

Margrace, I don't know how old you are, how wealthy you are or what your family situation is. But somebody has to care for the elderly.

In all likelihood, if you live long enough in Canada and based on current trends, unless you have children who like you, when you're 80 or so, you will find yourself in a long-term care facility organized and operated by unionized government bureaucrats. You'll be too old to object to your treatment. Such is socialism.

By starting this thread, I simply meant to say that personal care is best made through family, and churches. The State is not good at providing personal care. I think this will become an issue soon for many (Leftist, childless) boomers who expect the State to care for them. Well, the State is bureaucratic, and politics drive governments.

Despite what the NDP/Liberals/Feminists say, parents are best placed to care for their children, and children are best placed to care for their parents. And church members are best placed to care about parishioners. Bureaucrats are good at rules, spreadsheets and excuses. Bureaucrats can find a job but they won't give a hug. Government bureaucrats can give money to people; bureaucrats can't solve people's personal problems.

Socialism? Personal care is best privatized. That's why family exists.

Poverty isn't a money problem. It is a community problem - the loss of which causes poverty, homeless and other socially rooted dis-eases.

The state is responsible for the social safety net because the other community support systems have failed. Some who have managed to survive have fallen into the poverty industry quagmire and destroyed any real chances they ever had at helping people along the way.

Carl Marx believed that by removing the class system and treating everyone the same, the margins between wealth and poverty would narrow. However we all know that this kind of system only works in a vacuum were participants are isolated from the spoils of capitalism. The point is that even in his perceived egalitarian society, poverty still existed in one form or another.

In some sense Marx was right about wealth being at the root of poverty but it isn't a money problem. It is the concept of wealth - the thinking behind it that destroys families by making them believe that obtaining something (that is really beyond their reach) requires sacrifice and devotion. It is the kind of thinking that usurps real communities and supplants them with pseudo corporate ones that are simply means to condition employees to the corporate mantra. From the beginning of the industrial revolution we have been conditioned to sacrifice ourselves, our families and the communities we once use to thrive in, in order to pursue a dream of independence and unrequited wealth. For a few that kind of success can be realized. However we do understand that it has more to do with who you know than what you know or how hard you work. For the majority it is just a dream where we wake up and do our duty, and "the man" keeps us believing that our success is just around the corner. And when we doubt that, they are quick to threaten us that our "success" - our benefits and securities - will never be found anywhere else.

It all boils down to one single problem, the root of where poverty lies: we have our priorities mixed up!

As human beings living in a collective, our first priority is to ourselves. If we put ourselves in danger, at risk or allow our health to deteriorate in order to serve some other priority then not only are we removing ourselves from our collectives, be it family, community or work, but we also put others at risk, by exposing them to our illness, dis-eases or by putting them in a position of having to expose themselves to dangerous conditions to rescue us. (Being "self-centred" in this regard is not the same thing as being egotistical).

Our next priority is our family. If our family becomes disjointed then we lose our safety zone. And if our safety zone is exposed to the ravages of other's looking for their own connections to something safe then we increase the rates of infidelity and divorce and expand the possibly of deviant behaviors. Children emulate us as parents and for the most part over the last era children have perpetuated family dysfunction as the principle means of child rearing. Sure there have been some social experiments were adult children have attempted to change the way their children will be raised, but at the end of the day many of those attempts are thwarted by injunction of the corporate philosophy that requires absolute patronage to "the man". It is the unseen things that we pass on.

Our next priority is to our community. It is our individual responsibility to ensure that our communities remain viable and healthy. It is our responsibility to contribute to and participate in our community safety systems - helping those who are having trouble raising their families and asking for help when ours is beyond our capability. When we are healthy and well, our families are healthy and well. Then are communities will also benefit from that wellness. In healthy communities there is less sickness, dis-ease and poverty. In healthy communities people are not offered hand-outs, but have their needs are met by gifts from the community that will be returned in kind at sometime in the future. At the top of all communities is a guarantee that all needs are met by or through the community.

The last priority is work, and the global situation. While we do need to hold jobs in the way the current society and economy is constructed, our thinking energy should only be focused on work and employment after the other priorities have been taken care of. Work is not "a family" and it is not "a community", nor can it act in any capacity as such. Our co-workers are not our friends as the managers would have us believe but are people like us from other communities trying to fill their needs through work. They might become our friends should we invite them into our community circles but we are not obligated to be friendly towards them in the same respects that we let our close friends know all of our personal information. The only reason we are asked to treat our workplaces like communities is because workplace dysfunction lowers productivity and productivity affects the company bottom line. Even in today's heavily invested workplaces the bottom line towards productivity is becoming less important than investment profit. So workers are discarded in favour of profits - even to the point of taking jobs out of the cities where they were born and exported to low wage countries where workers can more readily be exploited.

The problem we face between mixing up our first priorities with the work priority is that we have been led to believe that our wants ARE our needs and that the constant pursuit of ~things~ will satisfy us when we just have enough of them. In a healthy society system our needs will always be met. They are simple needs. In a soceity such as ours in an abundance of wealth they are easily obtained. Wealth then is not a matter of a corporate pursuit game where we literally work ourselves to death in search of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Wealth is a mind set - a "belief. It is knowing that all needs have already been met and that all else is extraneous wealth to be used and passed along and donated to our family's needs and our community's needs.

And therein lies the difference between the wealthy and the poor. The latter don't believe that their needs have been met (and will always be met as long as they are alive). One need not be concerned where that comes from but be ready, healthy and well minded when the gift is offered, to receive it in grace and humility. Wealth is not a measure by which we hoard things, but a means by which we give it all away, and in turn receive more 10 fold back quantity.

I'm rich!