What a year! There are many reasons we may look back on 2016 as a period that saw encouraging social change in Canada and around the world, including in Canada’s philanthropic sector. Yet we will also surely remember it as a year of immense political upheaval that will doubtless affect the social sector (and social…
Issue Area: Poverty
This article is the sixth in a series on Poverty and Human Rights in Canada. SUMMARY: This article explores benefits screening, a system of auditing patients to identify those living in poverty and the benefits they may be eligible for, as an innovative step towards realizing the right to health in Canada by advancing health equity.[1]…
This article is the fifth in a series on Poverty and Human Rights in Canada. SUMMARY: This article addresses the regulatory challenges posed by human rights approaches to charity, focusing specifically on the charity/politics distinction. It develops a simple point, which is that Canadian charity law is currently ill equipped to apply the charity/politics distinction…
This article is the fourth in a series on Poverty and Human Rights in Canada. SUMMARY: This article traces Canada’s legislative progress following the federal government’s ratification of the two Covenants that codified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 40 years ago – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant…
This article is the third in a series on Poverty and Human Rights in Canada. SUMMARY: In this personal narrative, social activist Michael Creek traces the changes in his life from its modest and ordinary beginnings to his long fight with cancer and a subsequent downward spiral that left him homeless and despairing. Creek also describes…
From time to time, the Editors of The Philanthropist reflect on the themes featured in the Journal and summarize and affirm the sector’s collective work on important issues. Recent writing in The Philanthropist has focused on the role and limits of the charitable sector in the furtherance of good public policy in Canada. These discussions…
This article is the first in a series on Poverty and Human Rights in Canada. SUMMARY: This introductory article by guest editor, Elizabeth McIsaac of Maytree, provides an overview of the strategies and policies for rights-based poverty reduction in Canada beginning with the need for common language and goals. Referring to the International Covenant on…
This article is the second in a series on Poverty and Human Rights in Canada. SUMMARY: In this article, Mark Holmgren interviews Mayor Don Iveson and Anglican Bishop Jane Alexander about the Mayor’s Task Force “EndPoverty Edmonton” which sees poverty as an issue of human rights and social justice. Poverty is also a condition to be…
Ottawa has become a source of optimism and opportunity for the nonprofit sector. It’s worth re-reading that sentence and thinking about how different the situation was a few months ago. In the wake of controversial charity audits and questionable funding announcements, the relationship between the sector and the federal government was tense and lacking in…
This article is the eighth in a series on Canadian Charities Working Internationally. SUMMARY: In this opinion piece, Philanthropist editor Gordon Floyd takes a look at the recent flurry of charity audits by CRA’s Charities Directorate and notes that many have been of charities, such as environmental groups, whose views are at odds with those…