Better a hand up than a handout
Times Colonist (Victoria)
April 30, 2007
Comment -- By: Jim Hackler, adjunct professor in sociology at University of Victoria
EXCERPT

The motivation to help others is complex. Some have argued that charity is degrading. It sends a message that we are better than someone else.

I don't wish to open this debate, but there is a difference between a handout and a hand up. As a society, it is clearly better to provide a hand up, to help people get into a position where they are contributing members of a society....

Governments can change handouts to programs that help people get ahead. They can deliver programs in a way that degrades people, or they can help people maintain their self-esteem.

During the 19th century, most European countries treated the old and disabled as charity cases. Some existed in homes for the poor. In 1889, Prince Otto von Bismarck of Germany argued that those who could no longer work had a well-grounded claim to care from the state. Government action transformed charity into a social program....

Similarly, systematic social programs by nations have turned charitable deeds into the rights of citizens in a civilized society.

My education, my health care, my extensive use of libraries, and now my Canada Pension payments were not charitable gifts. Instead, they were a civilized society's intelligent investment in my potential. Such investments help the vast majority of us make useful contributions to society and feel that we belong.

I am bothered by a governmental mentality, both at the federal and provincial level, that prefers a handout to a hand up; that is dominated by a market mentality. Let the profit motive dictate all decisions. Health care should pay for itself. Housing is a commercial matter.

The decision to cut support for day care fits this mentality. Most of the developed world knows that investing in families with young children is not a handout; it makes young families and their children better and more productive citizens. Prime Minister Stephen Harper thinks a handout of $100 a month will somehow create adequate day-care programs.

Harper and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, who could make a difference to those living on the edge, are content to let charity, food kitchens and emergency shelters keep marginal people alive, as long as they not be too visible.