credit Alvesgaspar – CC-BY-SA
rjb
Credit Craig Sunter – CC-BY
To be misunderstood is bad enough. To then be used as back-up for some wingnut’s conspiracy theory is going too far.
rjb
“Volunteer Appreciation Event 2010 067”by thewomensmuseum is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
I think we should reward volunteers for all the good they do. Here is a copy of an email I sent to my MP toward that end.
Richard Cannings
MP, South Okanagan — West Kootenay
Dear Mr Cannings
Canada depends on volunteers. Many of the services we depend on would not be available or would be too expensive without them. We don’t do much for them in return. We might tell them how great they are and buy them lunch once a year, but we don’t give them anything tangible.
I would like to suggest a way that the country, and all of us collectively, can reward our volunteers. We can donate to the Canada Pension Plan in their name. Ideally we could make contributions commensurate with the value of the work they do; with what we would otherwise pay a person to do that work. More pragmatically we could tie the contributions to the minimum wage. Whatever method we choose, we would be rewarding them with a little extra income in their retirement.
Let’s tell our volunteers how much we really appreciate them.
Jim Bowering
If we’re going to use volunteers to do things we would otherwise have to pay people to do, the least we can do is thank them in a tangible way.
rjb
ISBN 978-0-9919532-0-2
