Will the Non-Profit Sector get a Home in the Federal Government in 2021? Senator Ratna Omidvar Weighs in.

It’s no secret that many in Canada’s non-profit and charitable sector feel left behind by the federal government’s pandemic response — from rules that make emergency funds inaccessible to some organizations to others who say there’s just flat-out not enough of it in the first place. And the struggles the sector has faced have been jarring: layoffs and closures have been widespread.

Things might have gone differently, says Senator Ratna Omidvar, if the federal government had heeded recommendation 14 in a 2019 report from the Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector, of which Sen. Omidvar is the deputy chair: “That the Government of Canada, through the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, create a secretariat on the charitable and non-profit sector.”

Meanwhile, a cabinet shuffle early last week saw Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains step down, and François-Phillippe Champagne move from Foreign Affairs to take his place. And last Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released supplementary mandate letters for all ministers in his cabinet. Trudeau’s letter to incoming Minister Champagne made little mention of the charitable sector, except to say: “You will continue to rely on and develop meaningful relationships with civil society and stakeholders, including businesses of all sizes, organized labour, the broader public sector and the not-for-profit and charitable sectors across Canada.”

But could a new minister be a fresh start for the movement for a non-profit and charitable sector home in government? We sat down with Sen. Omidvar for her thoughts on this and more.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been vocal about the need for a home for the non-profit and charitable sector in the federal government for a long time. Has the pandemic changed your perspective on this at all?  

During the pandemic, I did see what I’d call a makeshift home in government for charities at the federal level. That was an informal mix of ministers and departments putting together the emergency responses for the sector during the crisis — so there was an ad-hoc home in government that was organic and crisis driven, but I said to myself, this is interesting. It is a shift in the understanding at the federal level of how important the sector really is for the delivery of essential services. How do we take that shift and institutionalize it?

Read the full article on the Future of Good website