Candidates running in the provincial election in both Lethbridge ridings had a chance to answer questions from local non-profits at an all-candidates forum on May 4. Volunteer Lethbridge and the Nonprofit Vote hosted the forum at the Galt Museum, where a moderator posed questions to each candidate. There was no question period for the audience or open debate.
The Nonprofit Vote is a nonpartisan collective, formed in 2021, according to director of policy and research at CCVO, Alexa Briggs.
Her organization has created a policy advocacy guide for the election period, along with a list of priorities for nonprofits.
“We have an active campaign currently to share all of these priorities with all party leaders and we will be looking for these priorities to show up in party platforms and we will be doing an analysis of party platforms once they are all released,” Briggs said. “Our first ask is for appropriate funding. We are asking for a total of $300 million, $100 million each year for three years and that we are looking to address the impacts of inflation, the growing stress on community needs and opportunities for organizations to be able to innovate.”
The group is also calling in leaders for a workforce strategy for nonprofits to fill vacancies, better data collection, easy access to government and shared decision making on allocating government funds to nonprofits.
The forum was split in half, with Lethbridge-West and Lethbridge-East candidates taking questions separately. Each of them had two minutes to answer each question.
NDP candidate Shannon Phillips and UCP candidate Cheryl Seaborn answered questions for the Lethbridge-West portion of the event — Pat Chizek with the Alberta Liberal Party and Braham Luddu with the Alberta Party were absent.
Many of the questions were focused on funding for the nonprofit sector, with the first being a general request for candidates to demonstrate their understanding of the impact nonprofits have on the Lethbridge community and beyond.
“Nonprofits oftentimes are so disparate and diverse that they share little more than a societies act registration number, given what I see in this room her today—I see people who work with people with disabilities, I see some of the larger employers here in the city of Lethbridge,” said Phillips. “These are all an important part of our community, they make us who we are, they respond to need and at no time do we see this more than during the pandemic, when all the organizations came together and we also see it on the level of advocacy and this is where Lethbridge really shines. This is where Lethbridge really, I think provides an example for the rest of the province.”
Phillips added she knows there is a worry about funding in the sector and it needs to be appropriate and adequate, not just predictable.
Seaborn was then posed the same question.
“I reflect the comments of miss Phillips in saying that it is a wonderful thing here in Lethbridge to have so many nonprofit organizations that work together collaboratively as often as they can,” she said. “Nonprofits are essential to our communities — they are proven partners in the delivery of essential services, providing food, basic needs, senior support, sports recreation, arts and culture, entrepreneurship, environmental health and so much more. Nonprofits employ nearly 300,000 Albertans and make a difference in the lives of countless others. The nonprofit sector has communicated that it is facing five key areas of crisis, funding, the impact of the pandemic, inflation, surging demand and labour shortages—nonprofits and their employees, volunteers and beneficiaries have done their part by speaking up about issues that nonprofits have as demonstrated today by our initial speaker [Briggs]. As a candidate I believe in a collaborative approach and support the need to enforce this with nonprofits to ensure the vitality of this essential sector.”
She added she believes the best ideas come from conversations with people who have diverse experiences and cutting red tape to empower the sector is important. She said she believes her experience as a registered nurse gives her a unique understanding on how to support frontline workers across all sectors.
The same question was asked of Lethbridge-East candidates later in the event and Neudorf was given the first opportunity to answer.
“Lethbridge has long been a hub for the south of the province for all kinds of services, not least of which is our nonprofit sector. The demand for the services keeps growing, sometimes exponentially. Fifty years ago people tended to live closer together as extended family, work together with their neighbours and were nearly all part of a religious or charitable community—that’s how things worked. Now society has changed and we have smaller families, often living much further apart. We don’t always know our neighbours and fewer people are members of these kinds of charities and religious organizations so the reliance on our nonprofits to fill that void has increased and we thank you. Nonprofits also have the unique challenges related to funding, either through grants or donors and even their volunteers, even their employees tend to volunteer so much more above and beyond the compensation they receive. I am glad that our government was able to provide $225,000 in food bank grants to our community and its incredible generous residents who added a further $100,000 in donations to maximize the matching portion of those grants. I am very proud of Lethbridge residents and their generosity.”
He added his daughter has worked in the nonprofit sector and this gave him an opportunity to learn more about the sector and challenges they face.
Miyashiro was the last to answer the question on his understanding of the impact nonprofits have on the community.
“I don’t have to tell the people in this room about the contributions that not-for-profits make in our community and the province. I could read you off the numbers and the billions of dollars that you contribute to the economy and the millions of volunteer hours that we leverage and the hundreds of thousands of Albertans that we employ in this province. That’s not the story of who we are as a sector. We are the ones that are there when people need help and we pick them up when they fall. We are the ones that build safe, caring and connected communities. We are the ones that help people through crisis; we are the ones that help people avoid crisis and we are the ones that look after them after they have gone through crisis,” he said. “that’s the real story of the sector that you miss if you just talk about numbers. I work in the sector and I know the sector. I know our stories and when I am elected, I will bring those stories to Edmonton and make sure the government understands the complexity and the work that our sector does.”
There is another all-candidate meeting scheduled for May 16 at the Enmax Centre, hosted by the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce.