When vital help is privatized

For nearly five years, the Government of Nunavut has touted the Ilisaqsivik Society of Clyde River as a splendid example of how community-based do-it-yourself style health and social programs ought to work, holding it up as a model for other communities to follow.

That’s understandable. Since its start-up more than 10 years ago, the society is now close to being the biggest employer in the community, offering full- and part-time jobs and training to about 60 people.

And it offers a long list of valuable services to a long list of people who need them. On average, about 100 people a day come into the centre. What they get can be as simple as a cup of tea and a friendly conversation, or as vital and life-giving as counselling, literacy programs, and advice on basic nutrition for mothers and children. The centre, obviously a focal point for commmunity life, acts as host to a variety of groups representing elders, youth, women, and men.

It also gives the Government of Nunavut an opportunity to brag that it’s created what bureaucrats call a “one-stop-shopping” approach to social and public health services in the community. That simply means clients can find everything they need in one place, rather than in widely scattered offices whose staff don’t talk to each other or co-ordinate their work.

To pay for all those programs and services, Ilisaqsivik relies on a patchwork quilt of short-term grants from a variety of federal and territorial handout programs. To survive, they’ve become experts, apparently, at the art of grantsmanship: knowing how to sniff out pots of money, then hunt them down and bring them home.

So what’s wrong with this picture?

For starters, it’s a way for governments to provide essential public health and social services on the cheap, by exploiting the unpaid, or low-paid, labour of volunteers and idealistic community activists without having to make long-term financial or political commitments.

In short, it’s a way of outsourcing, or privatizing, community services.

Given the GN’s tight financial situation, its hard to blame territorial officials for adopting this approach, which gets them, as the bureaucratic buzz-term goes, more “bang for the buck.” And it’s appropriate that some services, especially those related to recreation or culture, be handled by volunteers. It’s equally important for government to encourage voluntarism and mutual aid within communities.

Some services, such as those aimed at suicide prevention, nutrition education, and family counseling, are vital. Given Nunavut’s well-known realities, they’re services that ought to become permanent programs of government, whether they’re delivered by third parties or by government employees.

But they’re not. Essential though its programs may be, the Ilisaqsivik Society’s fate hinges on the fate of a large number of here-today-gone-tomorrow funding programs that could be reduced or eliminated at any time. The Ilisaqsivik Society’s workers spend large amounts of time writing proposals and letters to keep the money flowing, instead of running programs. They operate under the fear that at the end of every fiscal year, they may have to shut down. And because of that uncertainty, it’s difficult for them to plan.

As many Nunavummiut know, this problem plagues numerous community groups, and some have collapsed under the strain, such as Iqaluit’s Illitiit Society.

It’s no wonder, then, that for more than a year now the Ilisaqsivik Society has begged the GN for “core funding.” (“Core funding” is bureaucratic jargon for a guaranteed amount of money every year to pay for basic administration costs and permanent programs.) That, they say, would compensate their workers for time spent hunting down grants, and provide them enough security to plan for the future.

The territorial and federal governments deserve praise for encouraging the growth of groups like Ilisaqsivik. But in nurturing that growth, they’ve created a new set of problems. Sooner or later, the GN will be forced to consider whether such groups should be made permanent and that will cost money. JB