In the Quebec of the 21ste century, in the shadow of opulent condo towers, those left behind try to find refuge in tents. Homeless people’s camps are growing visibly, both in Gatineau and in Quebec and Montreal. Unheard of since the 1930s. It is in this setting that the great spectacle of private charity manifests itself, taking advantage of the ongoing sell-off of our public services.
In Gatineau, heated tents were set up near an emergency shelter, in a large parking lot. The company Devcore – a real estate developer, which is not always known for treating its tenants well – has posed itself as a savior. It financed the purchase and installation of around fifty tents. Faced with the absence of structuring responses to the housing and homelessness crisis which is growing dangerously, this makeshift solution certainly appears to be a lesser evil. It’s a question of survival: you have to do what you have to do.
But even though these tents are heated, they only temporarily remedy the symptoms of a social problem which, in the absence of lasting measures, risks getting even worse. It is also unacceptable that people are reduced to living in tents in a society that has the means to invest in the “battery sector” or in the arrival of a hockey team.
A few weeks ago, during the media food drive, people who enjoy a certain reputation managed to amass small fortunes in donations, banking on the empathy and generosity of ordinary citizens while attracting their admiration. Beyond good intentions, we are above all entitled to ask ourselves whether, collectively, we wish to live in a society where the State and solidarity are synonymous with charity and private enterprise. The magnanimity of the haves and those who adorn their conscience with a golden crown constitutes at best a superficial balm applied to the gaping wounds of a sick society.
Band-aid solutions provide only a fleeting respite from the gross underfunding of public services. Out of breath, at the end of their rope, the teachers, nurses and all the other strikers of the common front do not denounce them for nothing. By replacing the sustainable financing of the public sector and the community sector, this charity becomes a social parade, a smokescreen behind which the inertia of elected officials is hidden. It’s charity that doesn’t care about the hospital, as the expression goes.
Far from legitimate indignation at the social crisis in which we are plunged, the response of our elected officials seems to be taking shape in the cozy living rooms of multimillionaires, business people and self-proclaimed philanthropists. Poverty and homelessness, the housing crisis, food insecurity and the collapse of the health and education system, predicted for decades, cannot be repaired with donations. These social ills are the culmination of a neoliberal program that thrives on profit, enriching the richest and relegating to the private sector what is the duty of the State.
Beyond the food drives of the season and the philanthropic muses that accompany them, it is time to see beyond the end of our noses. Solidarity is not measured in gift vouchers, but in concrete acts of social justice, over time.
Rather than celebrating modern handouts, we must therefore forcefully demand, alongside all the strikers, structural responses and lasting commitments from elected officials. We must raise our heads so as not to lose it.