Western Standard - December 06, 2024


'Citizens must retake the role of social services before the state collapses rather than after.'

Topics
volunteering charities
Mentioned
Girl Guides
Should Canada annex America？ Police cam video released showing arrest of Johnny Gaudreau's drunken suspect

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

221.52

Word count

929

Sentence count

59

Harmful content

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about the decline in charitable giving in Canada, and why we need to go back to community-based care for each other, and the government's role as the sole provider of social services.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 So let's talk about the left and the right in politics.
00:00:02.740 I mean, on both sides, most agree, you know, because compassionate conservatives,
00:00:06.200 that society has a moral obligation to help care for those who can't care for themselves,
00:00:10.420 as opposed to those who won't care for themselves.
00:00:12.300 The difference between the left and the right and the issue, though,
00:00:14.440 tends to be on who they feel should be helping people out.
00:00:17.680 I mean, the left tends to support forming government departments and policies and programs to deal with social needs,
00:00:22.980 while the right tends to support charities and volunteers.
00:00:25.600 Well, let's face it, the left has been winning that battle as the government's grown exponentially,
00:00:28.960 while charitable donations and volunteerism are in sharp decline.
00:00:32.960 The federal civil service is growing at three times the rate of population,
00:00:37.180 while services, of course, anybody knows from the government are getting worse than ever.
00:00:40.860 But the big, you know, the losers in this trend, the biggest ones are the people who are in need and taxpayers.
00:00:45.800 In 2012, over a quarter of Canadians filing tax returns had made charitable donations.
00:00:50.200 By 2022, in just 10 years, that dropped to one in six people, and that decline is continuing.
00:00:55.520 Volunteer-heavy charity groups, from Meals on Wheels to Girl Guides,
00:00:58.640 have been scaling back their services as fewer people sign up to help out.
00:01:02.380 And again, meanwhile, the size of Canada's government and civil service has been growing out of control.
00:01:06.560 Every government department is bloated and inefficient,
00:01:09.200 but no politicians have found the courage to make any cuts yet.
00:01:12.420 But they're going to have to.
00:01:13.780 Austerity is inevitable.
00:01:15.060 Canada's government is on the brink of collapsing under its own weight,
00:01:18.200 and politicians won't be able to kick the can of cuts down the road much longer.
00:01:21.480 And when those cuts come, the pain's going to be very tough for people
00:01:24.820 because we've let so many people become reliant on government services. 0.94
00:01:28.740 As slow and as inept as Canada's government is,
00:01:31.100 is now the only thing separating a lot of people from actual homelessness and starvation. 0.99
00:01:34.660 I can't think of any institution worse to be dependent on than the bloody government,
00:01:38.460 if you're in that condition.
00:01:40.000 There have been several factors contributing to this mess.
00:01:42.520 I mean, some of it's just been sloth on the part of voters.
00:01:44.740 They vote for whoever promises the most goodies, you know, 0.99
00:01:47.300 whoever will blow the most smoke up their butt, 0.96
00:01:49.160 and whoever promises to take the most responsibility, 0.93
00:01:52.360 social responsibility, off their hands.
00:01:54.120 It's easier to think the government will fix it than to think
00:01:56.360 maybe you should be the one fixing things, right?
00:01:59.060 So let's just hand it off to them.
00:02:00.620 Unfortunately, governments rarely solve problems.
00:02:02.800 They just expand and create new ones.
00:02:04.840 Now we've got tough economic times contributing to the drops in charitable donations,
00:02:08.760 and it's a self-perpetuating problem.
00:02:10.560 As Canada's bloated, parasitic bureaucracy grows,
00:02:13.000 productivity drops, the dollar loses value,
00:02:15.580 GDP per capita shrinks and taxes rise.
00:02:17.580 Then fewer people can afford to donate to charities,
00:02:20.160 so the government expands to cover the void
00:02:22.040 and drives more people into poverty, thus needing more government aid.
00:02:25.320 More recently, of course, the postal strike.
00:02:27.620 They've hit charities hard.
00:02:28.780 Charities used to raise a lot of funds through mail-outs and getting checks.
00:02:32.740 The prime time for fundraising right now is right now,
00:02:35.420 and it's during the Christmas season,
00:02:36.520 and charities are having a tough time while postal workers try to fight against progress.
00:02:40.660 Everybody's losing as postal workers are striking themselves into obsolescence,
00:02:44.060 but it's also striking charities out of business.
00:02:46.720 The COVID lockdowns, they decimated volunteer-based organizations
00:02:49.960 as the state made it illegal for people to gather to help each other out.
00:02:53.240 Once the habit of volunteering has been broken,
00:02:55.040 it's hard to get back into the swing of things.
00:02:57.180 Again, as people got used to staying at home and began embracing the attitude of,
00:03:00.720 well, government will take care of everything.
00:03:02.700 We need to return to community-based care for each other, guys.
00:03:06.140 Charities, volunteer organizations, and a sense of personal responsibility,
00:03:09.200 that's the hard one.
00:03:10.040 For social ills, it has to return.
00:03:12.380 Unfortunately, things are going to have to get worse before they get better.
00:03:15.200 I know charities are far from perfect.
00:03:16.760 I mean, we can't forget the WE charity.
00:03:18.300 Many also have become top-heavy with administration,
00:03:20.680 and some are outright corrupt.
00:03:22.040 But for the most part, they did better work for people in need
00:03:24.800 than any government program ever could,
00:03:26.740 and they'll be needed more than ever soon.
00:03:28.660 A good competitive charity environment helps weed out the bad ones.
00:03:32.260 People are facing a tough Christmas this year.
00:03:34.020 I know our pockets aren't as full as they used to be,
00:03:35.760 but we should be seeking ways to dig a little deeper
00:03:37.560 and try and help our fellow citizens through some of the better charities
00:03:40.840 or maybe dedicating some time with the local organizations.
00:03:43.140 It's satisfying.
00:03:44.120 It's good for the community,
00:03:44.980 and it'll help far more people than the government ever will.
00:03:47.820 Look, we're in a rut right now.
00:03:49.460 We will dig ourselves up, but it's going to take some time.
00:03:51.780 We can shorten that time frame, though,
00:03:53.500 as we start changing our habits now.
00:03:55.420 We can shrink the government,
00:03:56.720 remind ourselves it's the people,
00:03:58.120 not governments that create a prosperous, cohesive society.
00:04:01.600 So let's take back our role from the government, guys,
00:04:03.680 and we can start with charities and volunteering.
00:04:07.560 Take care.
00:04:08.200 Thank you very much.
00:04:09.300 Thank you.
00:04:10.360 Thank you.
00:04:10.460 Thank you.