The "Empathy Gene"

The "empathy gene". Some call it the "sympathy gene", or compassion quotient. Real cynics call it the "bleeding heart syndrome".

But those are in the minority. Canadians, on the whole, have a very high empathy quotient. I don’t know what it is – it must be our breeding, or it could be our weather or geography, or maybe it's the fact that we or our ancestors came here from all corners of the earth seeking peace, solace and the chance for prosperity, often leaving behind places of persecution, lack of opportunity, or even lack of freedom itself.

Let me tell you about "my" empathy gene. I think I’m representative of many Canadians.

I donate occasionally to various causes. I have a young lad in Bangladesh who receives a monthly contribution through World Vision. I’ve given to animal shelters and other causes.

I’m also a sucker for the kids selling little ribbons or applies and things.

Then there are those guys who come up to your car window in the grocery store parking lot and ask for "spare change"? Some might say "get a job, buddy" but my own view is that somebody’s pretty desperate and their pride has taken a real "hit" if they’ve come to the stage of "begging".

Funny story: Many years ago, I was approached by a guy looking for lunch money. I was a struggling student, but I was wearing a long raincoat that must have looked like a business trench coat to him, so I guess I looked like I had money. Anyway, I felt awkward so I casually tossed him a quarter like some big shot flipping a morsel to one of his dogs.

Well, with his cold hands probably trembling with hunger, he fumbled the catch and wouldn’t you know it the coin fell right down to his feet and bounced into the sewer! I didn’t have anything else to offer him, but he still had enough pride to accept what happened and we both sort of put our heads down and went our separate ways.

In politics, empathy plays a critical role. If you want to succeed in Canadian retail politics, you have to have empathy – and be able to openly demonstrate it.

Once in government, though, often the problem with politicians is not "insufficient" empathy or even too much. Sometimes it’s misplaced empathy.

I’ve described empathy in ordinary Canadians, and in myself, but when it’s improperly employed by government – that is, those in positions of power or influence – empathy, as wonderful as it is, can cause trouble.

Some in positions of power may very well have significant empathy, but they lose most of the credit for it by being bullies in that "they" think they have the exclusive right to tell all the rest of us who should benefit from our collective empathy. In other words, "they" should pick the winners and losers in the great empathy give-away of our taxes.

For others still, who are in positions of influence, the overriding factor for them is that "they" are pre-eminent among the members of the "down-and-out" club and so "they" should benefit substantially, or disproportionately, from "our" empathy! [READ "TAXES"]

So, as individuals or as a society where we delegate the job to government, how do we best identify those who are needy, how do we separate the wheat from the chaff and ensure our empathy isn’t wasted, ending up in the wrong hands, or spent more on bureaucracy instead of on those who really need the help?

This is a high priority of Canadians.

Yet, when we’re in the empathetic mood, it doesn’t take long to spend $10 billion and more from the empathy bank account. Obviously, there are plenty of needy folks who are being missed. So where is that money going to come from? Is it new money, over and above what we already pay out?

Well, I believe we probably already pay enough. It’s just that we’re often paying to help those who aren’t really in need.

Let’s look at what’s happening: "Program spending" at the federal government level is measured in the hundreds of millions, or billions. The overall tax contribution Canadians make is about $250 billion – that’s a quarter trillion – every year! That’s "every year"!

With that kind of money floating around, don’t you think poverty and deprivation ought to be extinct in this country?

So how do we respond to this challenge? Well, some say that "we could spend our own money better, so give it back to us in tax breaks".

You’d have to look at another party if you think a tax break is what I’m talking about right away. With our national debt at nearly a half trillion dollars, we really have to be careful about doling out the tax breaks willy-nilly.

And you’d have to look at other parties if you think we should just raise taxes to cover the shortfall for the needy.

I advocate the "Mother of All Audits" [MOAA] to find out just what is happening to that $250 billion a year. I think 250 billion is plenty enough to do the things we’d ever have to do. And we must take care of the things we "have" to do before we spend billions doing things we "want" to do.

Anybody who’s ever handled a household budget knows that! It’s called "setting priorities". It’s just that political priorities are evidently quite unlike the priorities of ordinary Canadians.

Anyway, the Mother of All Audits will shine the spotlight on less essential things that have "blended" into the spending on high priority items, hiding in their shadows, their supporters and proponents "hoping" that their millions aren’t uncovered amidst the billions

What will be the likely result of the Mother of All Audits?

Well, I’ve worked plenty in the private sector and in the public sector. Every half decade somebody comes along and does a big audit or "re-organization" – "re-org" for short. They’re all about finding out where the money’s going.

So the re-org starts, and for a while, everybody involved in the re-org runs around like chickens with their heads cut off, trimming the non-essentials, downloading the costs, collecting old unpaid debts, and "suddenly" fine-tuning calcified policies and procedures that have been done the same way for a hundred years.

A lot of it’s political,. but I think these re-orgs are useful exercises. They’re opportunities to take a good look at what’s going on with an eye toward fixing it. They should be at least every five years, by default. The same transparency, if not actual methodology, should be how budgets are done annually.

Audits inspire change, and change sometimes inspires trepidation, but they’re all about the trimming of waste and streamlining of processes to achieve maximum results – we are talking about the use of taxpayers’ money here.

When greater transparency and care is taken, we'll be able to be more certain that the modest tax contributions each of us makes, which turns into untold billions by the time it reaches government, goes to the right place.

This is especially true for people such as myself. My empathy gene flitters and flutters and sometimes is hard to find, but I do care that the truly needy don’t fall through the cracks in this country. I have no hesitation handing over my hard-earned taxes for "good and responsible causes".

But as with any taxpayer, I "depend" on my government to ensure that the truly needy are helped first, and not those who are simply friends of the political party in charge.

Nor should the main beneficiaries be those who are "most efficient" or effective at complaining and demanding taxpayer aid, often year after year, to the point where they probably don’t even have to re-apply for help.