This year’s Community Living Month theme is Relationships: The Heart of Inclusion, recognizing that at the deepest level, inclusion is rooted in the mutuality of all relationships.
It is no small irony that while we celebrate the importance of relationships, we are in the midst of sorting out a crucial one with the provincial government.
While celebration and gratitude are at the core of this year’s community living month, we are also caught up in a surprisingly different process. Community Living Month 2013 finds us debating about what was agreed to at the collective-bargaining table, basically coming down to “did the government promise additional funds to cover the three per cent wage increase that was agreed to at the collective bargaining table?” We know that within collective bargaining, the Co-operative Gains Mandate requires a savings plan be approved in advance, offsetting increased costs.
On one hand, bargaining panels representing 200 community agencies assert that the government committed to fund the wage increase from within ministry budgets. On the other hand, our government states just as strongly that it agreed to the increase but that agencies must find it through “efficiencies” in their own budgets.
In April of this year, these same agencies voted 96 per cent in favour of ratifying a collective agreement, including the three per cent wage lift, most knowing they couldn’t fund it within their current budgets.
If funds were not to come from government, where were the savings to be found? These are committed hard-working agencies with more than 10,000 dedicated staff supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our province. We also have a government committed to the co-operative gains mandate for its plan to manage the provincial budget.
Inadequate funding for community services leads to increased dependence on other, higher-cost, government-funded health and social programs. Sustainable funding for community agencies is good social and fiscal policy. While elected leaders are tasked with choices, balanced decision making is not about spreading the pain to those least able to bear it.
For all involved, the stakes are high, but they are the highest for those directly supported by community agencies. Their lives and ability to contribute fully are really at the heart of this dispute. Community agencies build up their communities effectively and efficiently, with Community Living Month showcasing only some of the amazing stories.
For decades we have adjusted, reorganized, reduced and retooled, delivering on our commitment to those we support. This community system works because it must. The costs of it not working are far too high, measured in people’s lives.
At Inclusion B.C., our members innovate and lead, setting the bar high in our sector provincially and nationally. As a result, our 60-year legacy of human rights stands strong. But we know that continual re-adjustment without the necessary resources and collaboration threatens this legacy.
An unreasonable demand to find “efficiencies” will dismantle the very system of supports that we know delivers good value at all levels. The day has arrived when “efficiencies” come with unacceptable costs: the safety and security of vulnerable people now and in the future.
It boils down to the fact that if community agencies have no choice but to shoulder the burden of this three per cent wage increase, many stellar, long-standing organizations will shut their doors.
Many will survive, but only by making huge sacrifices in the quality of life of those they support. Innovation will take a back seat to existence.
Thousands of people, their families and their communities will flounder. Many thousands more will wait in uncertainty and despair.
Now is the time to really talk, rather than debate about who said what. Now is the time to celebrate and support strong, vibrant and sustainable community agencies. If we don’t do this now, it will soon be too late. The costs of rebuilding community supports and reclaiming inclusion will quickly surpass the “efficiencies” we are seeking today.
Let’s get back to building community, so those we support and are responsible to can have the lives they deserve and we know are possible.
Faith Bodnar is the executive director of Inclusion B.C., a non-profit provincial federation with more than 70 member agencies dedicated to promoting action, supporting abilities and advancing rights for people with developmental disabilities and their families.
