Panelists:
Facilitator: David Welsh, President, Social Planning Council of Ottawa-Carleton
Linda Snyder, Coordinator, A Just Society Where Everyone Counts: Promoting Social and Economic Inclusion in Atlantic Canada, Maritime Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health
Peter Clutterbuck, Coordinator, Social Capital Formation Project, Social Planning Network of Ontario
Vivian Labrie, Coordinator, Collectif pour une loi sur l’elimination de la pauvrete
What’s new about social inclusion? Is it a more effective rallying cry around which to mobilize for progressive social action than “just society” or “sustainable development”? And how does it differ from good, old-fashioned community organizing that we used to do before funding for such work was gutted?
Facilitator David Welsh said that social inclusion frees us up to form new working partnerships with new people by breaking us out of economic and identity-politics based models.
Peter Clutterbuck’s experience with the Halton Food for Thought program clearly demonstrates this notion. Moving a school-based breakfast program away from a model targeting needy students to a universal program emphasizing the importance of nutrition brought together a social planning agency, a school board, the YMCA and business into new partnership. Breaking out of the traditional breakfast program model created a lived experience of social inclusion for kids, parents, teachers and principals—“the program expands the boundary of the family to include the community,” as one satisfied participant observed.
Linda Snyder stressed how social inclusion practices can link doers at the ground level with policy makers from on high, and how it can ultimately work to dissolve these exclusive categories, in her description of the work of the Maritime Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health. Diverse players from all four Atlantic provinces worked together to build trust and new relationship.
“When you’re working on social inclusion issues, there should be no turf,” she said. You need to let go of exclusive ownership and truly come together to work as a community.
Vivian Labrie said whether social inclusion is a new concept or not, “words are words,” and if reality isn’t changed in what we do, the language is of no value. Her organization is a collective that has petitioned the government of Quebec to make poverty illegal. They have written draft legislation now being considered by the provincial government, which has created two ministries to deal with the issue. Their phenomenally broad coalition collected 200,000 signatures in support of their initiative.
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