{"id":35250,"date":"2020-08-05T16:51:38","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T20:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/?p=35250"},"modified":"2020-08-05T16:51:38","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T20:51:38","slug":"stevens-legions-need-urgent-operational-funding-to-survive-not-training-grants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/05\/stevens-legions-need-urgent-operational-funding-to-survive-not-training-grants\/","title":{"rendered":"Stevens: Legions need urgent operational funding to survive, not training grants"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Jennie Stevens (St. Catharines), NDP critic for Veterans, Legions and Military Affairs<\/p><\/div>\n

Jennie Stevens (St. Catharines), NDP critic for Veterans, Legions and Military Affairs, says Doug Ford\u2019s re-announcement of existing capital grants will do nothing to save legions across Ontario that are on the brink of shutting down permanently due to the impact of COVID-19. Stevens says Ontario\u2019s legions desperately need operational funding to make it through the pandemic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cVeterans and legions don\u2019t need program support or fundraising training \u2013 which is what this announcement will provide. They need an urgent lifeline to cover operational costs like rent, mortgage payments or the power bills until they can fully re-open their services, which are so valuable to the communities they serve. As a proud legion member from a military family, I know the value of local legions and the services they offer. Ford\u2019s announcement shows he just doesn\u2019t understand what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stevens wrote to the premier three months ago urging him to help legions to make it through the crisis and explained that what they needed was operational funding support to avoid shutting down. Doug Ford\u2019s announcement Wednesday is not new money. It is a rebranding of the Ontario Trillium Foundation\u2019s Grow and Capital Fund as the \u201cOTF Resilient Communities Fund\u201d which only offers grants for fundraising training and professional development that fails to address the urgent needs of legions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYet again Doug Ford refuses to listen. Legions asked for operational support to get through the crisis, and what they got today was just a renamed grant program that will do nothing to save the legions struggling to survive.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLegions don\u2019t need or want training on fundraising or advice on \u2018re-imagining\u2019 service delivery through public-private partnerships. Ford is telling legions they\u2019re on their own, and won\u2019t step up with the funding they desperately need right now. Ford likes to talk about how much he loves legions, but in their time of need he\u2019s abandoned them.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s estimated that 124 Royal Canadian Legion branches are likely to close permanently, and another 357 are facing financial hardship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennie Stevens (St. Catharines), NDP critic for Veterans, Legions and Military Affairs, says Doug Ford\u2019s re-announcement of existing capital grants will do nothing to save legions across Ontario that are …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":35251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 09:21:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35252,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35250\/revisions\/35252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}