Commit to the Community Sector! Upcoming Demonstrations and Actions
Over the last decades, we have seen brutal budgetary cuts to social services and to non-profit funding. It puts community groups in a double bind: doing more work to reach people who are no longer being served by the public sector, with less resources than we ever had before.
As innovative, efficient, and creative community groups are at making a dollar stretch a very, very long way, there is a limit to how much can be done with so little. For the last several years, a coalition of Quebec-based community groups have been getting together to build a movement for better funding and support of community-based service providers, and of public services, including the first community-sector strikes, national demonstrations, and media campaigns. The campaign has some very specific goals:
- A 475 million dollar annual increase in funding for the 4,000 service providers recognized by the government, including groups who are still waiting for government funding
- Annual increases to funding, according to inflation
- Respecting the autonomy of community groups
- Reinvesting in public services and social programs
We at COCo wanted to highlight some of the actions of our peers as part of this campaign!
There will be a large demonstration on September 27th in Quebec City. Buses have been rented if you are travelling from Montreal; sign up here!
There is a petition outlining the demands for organizations to print, sign, and mail in by November 27th. You can find the petition here.
The FRACA has even created a Quebec non-profit themed Monopoly game, that tests us on our knowledge of the community sector and of social justice issues in the province! You can print it out from here, on their website.
