Dear Editor
Re: Businesses pitch in to help Burnaby man, Burnaby NOW, Sept. 9.
Voluntary association and charity will always be more powerful than the government. We barely have any community. It used to be the church or your neighbour, back in the day now we need a news story in order to help someone, and we resort to saying that “the government should do this.”
The expectation the government should and will do everything ultimately diminishes our culture of charity and compassion, which, as we see, does so much more than the government ever could. Many a person has walked by a homeless beggar and thought, “Well, he’s on welfare.” This attitude has manifested itself on a grand scale over the past century.
Humanity is becoming kinder, gentler, and more compassionate, yet charity is in decline.
Let us continue to empower each other, not the government. The obvious good will of society can not and does not need to be limited by taxation, which should, in principle, remain low. Magnum Nutraceuticals and Popeyes should have their taxes reduced for helping out. That should be an official policy to encourage charity everywhere and in everything.
Elias Ishak, Burnaby
