Just try donating your time at your local school board, government daycare, community centre, or long-term care centre. The unionized bureaucrats who work there will surely give you dirty looks. And even if we could volunteer, the impression that we all have is that government is taking care of everything, and that its employees are much more qualified than we are to help those in need. Therefore, we do little volunteer work.

          It's also hard to give money when the taxman leaves us with so little. If the State left more of our own money in our pockets, we might be able to give more to our favourite causes. But once we receive our paycheques and see how much we have "contributed" to the government's coffers (not to mention union "contributions" in many cases), it is enough to quell all passion for donation.

          Moreover, since the government is in charge of financing the local schools, daycares, and hospitals—in addition to whole sections of the cultural scene, retirement homes, community aid centres of all kinds, and just about everything else that moves in the Province of Quebec!—and that it has, in practice, supplanted the role of the church in our lives, the impulse to give does not come as naturally as it might. Therefore, we give little.

          It is surely not a coincidence that year after year, Quebecers are among the North Americans who give the least to charity. There is necessarily a link to be made between the fact that we are among the most taxed populations in North America, the fact that the State occupies a very large place in our lives, and the fact that we are among the least generous—although some, like Martin Boyer, professor of finance at HEC Montreal, have a slightly different take.
 

Parting with Our Paycheques

          You may be wondering, "How come I don't feel that 'Helper's High' when I give my money to the State?" The reason is that we don't give our money to the taxman; he takes it from us. And aside from a few committed statists who believe that government does a good job of redistributing our money, we get no pleasure from parting with fully half of our paycheques.

          The State, in addition to making us miserable by confiscating more and more of the fruit of our labour, makes us miserable through its numerous interventions that deprive us of the chance to give. We would all be happier if government was less present in every sector of social life, first of all because we would have more money in our pockets, and second of all because we could feel much more like we were having an impact by redistributing our money ourselves.

          I would give more to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. You might give more to Oxfam-Quebec. Your mother-in-law might give to the Sainte-Justine Hospital Foundation, and her husband to the Alzheimer Society of Canada. The idea is that in order for donating to contribute to your happiness, it must be voluntary, not coerced.

          Under the current system, the government takes our money and redistributes it to organizations it judges fit to receive it, but that might receive less (or none at all) if they had to seek financing from the private sector. Knowing that businesses like Bombardier and Pratt & Whitney receive money from me, or that organizations like the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU, a group promoting social housing) or the Action terroriste socialement acceptable (ATSA, a group promoting art with a political left-wing message) live off of my resources, makes my skin crawl and decreases my level of happiness. Others would disagree, and could give them their money freely.

          If we had the choice of giving to whomever we wanted, and we had more substantial means to do so effectively, we would all be a whole lot happier.