Leaning on charities to distribute government aid is a bad idea

This Opinion column was written by Danielle White, an artist and community organizer based in P.E.I. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

We need to talk, my fellow Islanders, and we should do it now — before the next hurricane season gets  underway.  

We can probably agree that the government should spend our taxes responsibly and that staffing large government departments full time is expensive. But we've entered some uncertain times that will require us to occasionally provide aid to our neighbours, and the current model of outsourcing the administration of government aid to charities like the Red Cross or the Salvation Army is not the way we should be doing it.  

In the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona, folks were forced to line up for hours and days at the Red Cross to prove they were eligible for their $500 cheque (a paltry sum, considering).  

And then this winter, months after the government was warned that energy prices would send a significant number of Islanders into a financial crisis, a poorly conceived aid program was slapped together and handed over to the Salvation Army to administer. The program will give up to $1,200 to help with folks in an emergency who can't afford to heat their homes — provided you're desperate enough.

Both programs were plagued with communication issues, arbitrary application processes and a total lack of public accountability.  

Public money is our money

The major flaw in the registered-charity-as-government-aid-distributor model is that, put simply, government aid is not charity.

Public money is our money, meant to benefit us. The government did not earn it and we are not begging when we demand some of it back. We are, in fact, entitled to it.

But these organizations don't work that way. It would seem they treat their applicants like naughty children who are meant to be meek and grateful for whatever help they can get.  

Meekness and desperation should not be a prerequisite for basic aid. Victims of a natural disaster or an economic crisis should not be made to perform their need or gratitude to receive aid. To require it is dehumanizing and none of us deserve that.  

We need to do better

These organizations are not by the people, for the people. And after these two latest events, it's clear they are not equipped to take on this work.

Their mandates do not reflect the mandate of the provincial government and, as such, they risk arbitrarily and opaquely deciding who is worthy of aid and who is not. Without the public oversight we demand of government  agencies, we have no way of policing these charities and ensuring they're respecting our rights.  

In short, our collective insistence on gate-keeping aid has very real consequences for people — often the most vulnerable citizens who have the least amount of time, energy and resources to prove they are eligible, advocate for themselves, and fight with organizations that don't respect them.  

We need to get past the idea that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay people to administer aid— to verify identities and determine need — is the most fiscally responsible of our options. The potential for fraud is far outstripped by the money we waste on administration fees to these charities. 

We're so concerned about a few people who aren't deserving of aid potentially cashing in that we're letting down hundreds — thousands, even — who are. We need to do better.