Government charity misplaced

Dear Editor: "When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor have no food, they called me a communist." That quote by former Brazilian Bishop Helda Camara summarizes the issue.

It is as if, for some, charity is good but social justice is evil. We need both. Charity is directed at symptoms. Social justice is about "looking up the river" for the source of problems.

When governments are charitable to business interests, it is seen as good sound economics by the wealthy and powerful recipients. When less than one tenth of the money is spent to support those living under the poverty line, there is a great hullabaloo about welfare bums. No mention is made then of the corporate bums who reap 10 times as much tax-payer largesse.

To those volunteers, numbering in their thousands in Nova Scotia, who give of their time, energy and funds in trying to balance the scales of social justice, goes our praise and admiration. As they dole out acts of charity and become their sister's and brother's keepers, they show themselves to be so far ahead of those who follow our mean-spirited government and its culture of catering to the greedy.

The other piece of Orwellian nonsense in this vein is that charities would be more efficient if they were run like businesses. Some charities pay no salaries or fringe benfits, accept all workers without prejuduce, collectively hold assets of billions of dollars, have negligible debt, rarely go bankrupt, are consumed by mission, driven by passion, and achieve social miracles with limited resources. Business has a thing or two to learn from charities.

Calum MacKenzie

Middleton