Grants In Aid Criteria: A Bed of Regulatory Obsessionby former CRD Director Dietrich LuthReference has recently been made to a review of the Grants In Aid disbursements normally made by Capital Regional Directors. Frankly, there was no need to set up criteria and less need to involve the Islands Trust in a process that is the CRD Director and Board's exclusive responsibility. There is also no indication that the criterion of eligibility which exceeds what the Municipal Act allows for, has been vetted, let alone approved by the CRD Board.In the process of setting up new eligibility rules for receivers of Grants In Aid, section 269 of the Municipal Act, which spells out the legislative intent, has been ignored by the Director, Alternate Director and Islands Trustees who designed the new rules. It is the CRD Board's responsibility to ensure that its Directors do not abuse their power and make rules that go beyond the intent of the Municipal Act. There is no validity to the current Director's and Island Trustee's eligibility criteria and the CRD Board should not have approved funds based on this ultra vires approach to public funds disbursement. During my tenure as Regional Director I was able to accommodate approximately 90% of all requests direct and referred and avail myself of professional service deliverers and members of the grass roots community who could comment intelligently on the merits of any particular application. My endorsement of the Core Inn's application to the Ontario-based Lawson Foundation, so I am told, resulted in a grant, notwithstanding the uncertainty of matching funds ever forthcoming favoured by both Directors in their campaigns. The Lawson Foundation certainly deserves some praise for holding up their end of the promise as this money was always intended to benefit the young through the establishment of a health clinic dedicated to them. Due to the failure to apply discretion in the disbursement process, there has been a glut of applications that have created screening problems that never existed before. These discretionary funds have always been the Director's sole responsibility for disseminating and it was certainly never the prerogative of the Islands Trust to have anything to do with them because the funds do not come under their taxation authority or mandate. Among other criteria, cutting off applicants simply because they've received money in the past is not a limitation outlined in the Municipal Act. Precluding grant money from being used for wages is an abuse of power since there is nothing in the Act to say you can't pay someone and it stigmatizes paid labour in the interests of the community thereby falling afoul of the intent of the legislation. Furthermore, there is no legislated requirement that a majority of islanders must benefit from individual grant requests as this is tantamount to discrimination against minority interests and goes counter to the needs of the few. Given the additional uncertainty surrounding ownership of equipment purchased with grant money, the CRD Board may find itself involved in ownership disputes and attendant liabilities that may be incurred by accidents with equipment whose ownership remains unclear.
Watching local community organizations attempt to fit themselves and their financial needs into this Procrustean bed of regulatory obsession is heart rending and needless to say has given satisfaction to no-one. Even those successful applicants who manage to sleep in it for now cannot be sure of ever walking again.
copyright 1997 Dietrich Luth
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