Letter addressed to Mathieu Lacombe, Minister of Families
The boards of directors of help centers and other NPOs partly funded by your ministry are facing a serious crisis which you must take an urgent interest in. This crisis cannot be resolved in a year or in six months, you must find a cure now. The problem is simple, and the solution is equally so: NPOs, community centers and other charities funded by the Ministry of the Family are at risk of losing their employees due to the excessive competition that companies now offer them. in the labor market.
Inflationary pressure
Every day we hear from our employees that they are tempted to go elsewhere, because they could take a much better paying job there. The recent decisions of the federal and provincial governments in the wake of the pandemic certainly had their merits, and the emergency aid received was greatly appreciated, but all of these measures created enormous inflationary pressure on wages. which makes it strictly impossible for the boards of directors of our organizations to offer employees competitive salary conditions. Our employees don’t want to leave us, but inflation will make it impossible for them to do otherwise in the short term.
One-off services and assistance
If you must act immediately, it is not only because our employees deserve a salary allowing them to live a decent life, but because their departure would deal a fatal blow not only to NPOs, but especially to hundreds of thousands of Quebec women and men. Quebecers from all walks of life who every day receive from them a thousand and one services and one-off aids that are nowhere counted, but which strongly contribute to making our nation more human. The organization of which I chair the board of directors is only one example among hundreds, but thanks to it young people from a disadvantaged environment of the island of Hull do sports activities every weekend, take advantage of help with homework, see their neighborhood animated by neighborhood parties, learn to read before entering school, learn to garden, cook, discover the joys of the sugar shack, have fun at our summer camps, among dozens of other activities.
Indispensable employees
The know-how, experience, talent and commitment of our employees are valuable and we cannot afford to lose them. Employees of community centers and charities are essential. They have a real effect on the daily lives of those who need our solidarity the most. Losing these employees will be fatal to our organizations, and the departures have already started. To overcome this problem, we have been trying for years to increase our income from donations, but it is very difficult to convince donors to help us pay the salaries of our employees.
The real solution is simple and within reach: you must immediately and substantially increase the grants to fund the mission of community organizations. You can force the NPOs that receive money from your department to devote the new amounts thus allocated to increasing employee salaries. But this decision cannot be postponed. It is the sustainability of a vast network of solidarity, which has operated for so long in the shadow of our collective wealth, and carried at arm’s length by admirable women and men, which is at stake. The employees of the ONBLs whose mission is funded by your ministry devote themselves body and soul to caring for their fellow human beings. It is time, Minister, to offer them a salary commensurate with the gratitude that we collectively owe them.