Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 18, 2001, Winnipeg, Manitoba B4 March 1 is forum Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights editorial the Challenge for charities the greying of Canada is great news for charitable fund Ais canadians dont just use More health services As they get they also give far More generously to statistics Canada announced this week that the number of canadians Over age 65 will double from the present four million to eight million in you could almost hear the Char Itable fundraisers Licking their canadians increase their giving dramatically As they the million canadians who reported charitable donations on their 1999 tax returns showed median giving of people aged 55 to aver aged each of annual giving and those Over age 65 averaged that where the big Money and that is the age group that is about to grow As baby Boomers reach their retirement the resulting effect on total giving in Canada could be the billion that canadians gave in 1999 is Likely to multiply several times Over As the Boomers age into the giving since Many will also enjoy the fruits of a mature Canada pension increasingly common employers on sorted pension plans and the registered retirement savings plans they have been setting aside since the the scale of giving May grow steadily to something Canadian charities have never before the Charity world have to respond with something More than open arms to the new wave of they May Start facing demands for Fuller More profession Al uniform external evaluation and effectiveness it is striking already How different the world of charities is from the world of companies enticing investors must show Large volumes of financial data reported in Standard form so that potential investors can ascertain earnings growth broken Down by business segment and by geographical Price earnings multiples and a Host of other Well understood ratios that Lead to an informed decision to invest or charities soliciting contributions often rely More heavily on a really heartrending letter of solicitation and a first rate sucker list purchased from a competing Charity in the same line of charities that want to Supply helpful reports can break Down their costs into administrative and pro Gram costs and Hope that these terms will be but donors cannot always be sure that All charities use these terms in the same charities that present tardy or unclear financial statements suffer no great nor is there a regulator comparable to the Stock Exchange executive or the securities commission to enforce uniform reporting the Council of better business bureaus is currently revising the Stan Dards by which it promotes ethical practices by philanthropic Organiza by its present a mature Charity should apply at least 50 per cent of total income to activities related to its purposes not to fundraising activities or executive salaries and fundraising costs should not exceed 35 per cent of the contributions related to those this Standard draws Atten Tion to the danger a donor faces that a part of each gift to a High powered Charity May stick to the fingers of the professional fundraiser or telemarketer who makes the one Issue in debate in the better business Bureau standards revision is whether to try to measure effective Ness of a great Many highly reputable bodies currently invite the support of Winni Eggers for their efforts at alleviating poverty and hunger in third world but the conscientious Winnipeg Ger has Little Way of telling which of these Agen cies achieved the most alleviation of poverty per Dollar of it is not even Clear How the most scientific pos sible approach would measure Progress toward the alleviation of yet that is the Challenge that Chari ties Are Likely to Start facing As the scale of giving rises and Competition for the donors Dollar the most successful charities Are Likely to be ones that submit to external evaluation of their programs and can show donors that they have eliminated pro Grams that were not cos effective or that overlapped wastefully with the efforts of better organized pictures of starving children with swollen bellies have been dependable ways of raising funds in the but increasingly they May raise a question Why years of giving have not notice ably thinned the ranks of the starving charities May increasingly be asked to offer sophisticated solutions to the evils they seek to define achievable goals and show Progress toward meeting sophisticated givers such As the Winnipeg foundation and family foundations Are already Miles ahead of the individual Small donor in spotting Well run in designing projects that Are Likely to produce lasting Benefit and in figuring out How to measure wider dissemination of the Wisdom and experience of foundations could be an Early step toward helping charities and givers to understand each Patent rights Trump life for aids victims of All the teenage boys in South Africa will eventually die of predicted a United nations report last the world has never before experienced death rates of this Magni tude across Young adults of both sexes across All social it added and noted that 70 per cent of All the worlds i positive people Are although africans make up Only 10 per cent of the human drugs already exist that could prolong the lives of Many of those africans Indef the triple aids therapy now on offer in the costs about per patient per year but an american generic asked to calculate the Price of the same therapy if he didst have to respect Patent came up with the figure of a move the manufacturing to Brazil or India or South and you would bring the annual Price Down even Haven the drug companies who hold the patents simply said go ahead and do Well make our profit in those parts of the world where people can afford to pay Large amounts of Money for our Africa is facing an immense continent wide humanitarian emergency and africans cant pay enough to make them an interesting Market for us so were not losing do and save some but they didst do when South Africa passed a Law three years ago giving it the right to circumvent Patent Laws during health crises to pro vide cheap drugs for the the worlds 39 biggest pharmaceutical companies challenged the Law in three years it has still not been put into and More South africans have died of it was very stupid of the pm to take its Case to a South african the threat to drug companies profits from South Africa action was actually mini since they could easily Stop the use of generic anti aids drugs from spreading outside Africa by a Judi Cious combination of diplomatic pres sures and direct court actions in the More lucrative markets in Public relations the Case was a Complete Nightmare huge White owned corporations insisting that Mil Lions of Black youths must die just to protect their Patent the likelihood that they were going to find a court in South Africa that was sympathetic to their Case was close to and they didst even have a Strong Legal since International Patent Laws include a clause that can be read As allowing countries to disregard Patent rights temporarily during National but the pm went ahead with its which finally came to court in Pretoria on March it was scheduled to last a week but on the second judge Bernard Ngo Epe adjourned the Case for six he ordered the drug Compa Nies to come Back to Pretoria at that time ready to disclose All the most closely guarded secrets of global pricing South africans know that the major pharmaceutical companies charge Dif Ferent prices for their drugs in differ ent markets in order to maximize their and keep information about this practice secret in order to avoid alienating the this is very hard on you if youre a poor person in a Rich where they keep the prices very High or if youre an so poor that you Are less a Market Opportunity than a threat to their markets it is quite Likely that the drug Compa Nies will now drop their Case in South Africa rather than publish full information about their Price fixing which would cause uproar around the they will wander off grumbling that Well All be sorry because this failure to protect their patents will discourage them from spending Money on research and development of new drugs in future omitting to mention that they actually spend twice As much on marketing As on and could easily shift some of that Money Over if they and africans May soon begin to have better Access to generic forms of the major ant aids on March Kenya health minister Sam on Gerim said the government would shortly introduce South Africa style legislation permit Ting the importation of generic ant aids drugs regardless of Patent they will remain expensive for most and Mil Lions will continue to but it is a step in the right what was said the following editorial appeared in the Miami Herald on thursday president George Bush reneged on a Campaign Promise the other saying he now rejects control Ling Power plants Carbo dioxide such controls would Hurt the Industry ability to pro Duce cheap he calling instead for a commission to study global where Green House mainly Carbon Dion can trap increasing the earths we dont need another commis Sion to Tell us that spewing Carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the Only unknown is How Bush is Correct that curbing car Bon dioxide emissions could raise Energy costs in the Short but unchecked global warming would devastate South putting our vaunted beaches underwater and flooding most scientists agree global warm ing is being Felt while the Earth goes through natural periodic heating and Cooling the Evi Dence indicates that the thickening Blanket of Carbon dioxide is hastening a natural even the few who dispute this theory agree on the dangers of air so president Bush erred in under cutting environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd whitmans Call for he missed a Chance for the United states to be a Leader in the Kyoto a 1997 International agreement to reduce heat trapping the president has adopted the stance of Vic president Dick a former Energy and Energy Secretary Spencer As a senator from had one of the worst voting records on air pollution once again Bush cites califor Nias self inflicted Energy crisis As justification for an anti Environ ment that like Many other Florida is taking a More cautious approach to at the same time fewer Power plants in Florida still use the biggest car Bondio Ide Bush and his advisers have reinforced the nations course As the worlds dirtiest Energy con according to the world watch inst this nation accounts for one Quarter of the global Carbo dioxide our descendants May some Day curse that As Ocean Waves Lap against Orlandos partial immortality captured in photos Christopher Dafoe Vancouver the a bit tattered around the but still Sharp and Clear in its sepia shows a Young infantry officer posing formally against one of those decorative Back drops that old time photographers used to have in their there is no Date on the Back of the but it was clearly taken around the time of the 19141918 also missing is the name of the he looks out of the picture with a serious and determined expression on his face Here i Anonymous and far Back in somebody great per pictured in Early we know nothing of his did he survive the War where did he live is he still alive who is he the photograph was offered for Sale among a miscellany of items at a rum Mage the person Selling it had no idea of its it was just an old you see them All the time in garage sales and secondhand somebody family history gone until the invention of photography in the Early 19th the faces of most of the dead lived on Only in the memo Ries of those who had known them in when these survivors they became Only a name and dates on a Tombstone or in a family the invention of the Kodak toward the end of the 19th Century made a form of immortality available to the image lives on in Many it confers Only a portion of immortality More often than they forgot to write their names on the every family photo collection contains a few lost looking at the old snap shots and portraits in the family col Lection we see Many once familiar faces at various stages on lifes there is aged in a Sailor there is looking much younger and thinner than we remember standing beside who looks girlish and it is their wed Ding circa deeper Down in the Box of family unfamiliar faces begin to who is this old gent with the Straw hat and stiff Collar great Grandfather a second Cousin visiting from Ottawa in 1902 great aunties first husband that looks like the old family but who is that person standing on the front Steps the face in the Daguerreotype has the family he is one of us to be but is he we All make the same we know who the people Are when we paste their pictures into the family album or store them away for future there is no need to write grandpa under a picture of we All know who it two generations Howe the dear old face is just a who could that be we May never that is How bits of family history end up in Yard sales and in the on Dollar bin at the junk shop and it is a great last when i was looking around for some old photos to illustrate my contribution to the Book about cottage coun i came upon a snapshot in an old album that seemed to be some sort of family quite a crowd of people in costume were seated around a picnic under the picture it said simply Winnipeg a couple of the people in the picture looked vaguely but the snap shot was so Small and dim that i was unable to make any positive ident Ifica i sent it along to the publisher and it subsequently much enlarged and in the final it was Only then that i made a pleas ing they were All people i there was my grandmother met newly arrived from in her big there were cousins and aunts of an older seen Here As children or Young but recon Best of it was Clear that two of the children in that picture taken around 1907 were my seated beside her is my aged about three or on the other Side of the table is my aged about nine or he and his elder my aunt had joined his future Mother inlaw at the Beach for a Day in the suddenly the years fell away and i was with them at that picnic almost 100 years ago on the Shore of Mani Tobas great other pictures in the old album Are harder to they Are shadows awaiting the lost Light of re Mem ;