Future of Good

Kelly Lamrock speaks at a public forum at St. Thomas University in May. (NB Advocate/Facebook) Kelly Lamrock wants to change the way social services are delivered and paid for in New Brunswick. The New Brunswick advocate, who works to protect the rights and interests of children, youth, older adults, and vulnerable adults in the province under the authority of the Child, Youth, and Senior Advocate Act, wants the government to oversee and fund all social services, but have non-profits deliver them.

About 60 per cent of Canadian households are waiting at least two years for affordable housing. (Stock/Canva.) When Liam Griffin searches the BC Housing Registry to find a potential tenant in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, he’s met with 4,000 people looking for a home there.

The National Arts Centre Foundation has named its new chair. Susan Crocker is the new leader of the Ottawa-based performing arts organization. Susan Crocker is the new head of the National Arts Centre Foundation. (Tony Hauser/Submitted) A member of the Order of Canada, Crocker is part of the arts community in Nova Scotia and serves as the vice-chair of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and chair of the Sir Christopher Ondaatje Theatre Foundation.

Sonia Strobel and her husband Shaun created Canada’s first Community Supported Fishery in 2008 to support small-scale, independent fishing families in coastal and Indigenous communities. (Skipper Otto/Supplied.) When seafood company Skipper Otto couldn’t get enough halibut for its customers, co-founder Sonia Strobel had to make a decision: switch suppliers or solve the problem?

Over the past few years, I’ve been laying low. I took some time to reflect and reset, especially in my local community in Kelowna. However, this month I attended two events: The Philanthropic Foundations Canada Conference in Winnipeg, and BC Connect (hosted by Vancouver Foundation and Community Foundations Canada) in Kelowna.

Mexico has them, so does the U.S. Army. Toronto and New York City are planning to open a few. One of the Quebec parties, Québec Solidaire, is making it a campaign promise. Public grocery stores are getting Canadians’ attention, as the cost of food is a growing concern. Food Secure Canada, a coalition of organizations and individuals addressing food security and food sovereignty, has launched “The Public Grocery Project”. The project combines research, a national forum and movement building.

The Canada Revenue Agency’s Charities Directorate has issued its most recent look at charity activity in Canada. The Report on the Charities Program 2025-2026 shows some minor differences from the 2024–2025 report, but no dramatic shifts. According to the directorate, there are 85,348 registered charities in operation, including 73,563 charitable organizations, 7,132 private foundations and 4,653 public foundations.

Eli Milton, executive director of the Halifax Food Hub. (Photo supplied) Since last July, 30 Nova Scotia producers have been able to advertise and distribute the carrots, cauliflowers, beets and other food they grow on the Halifax Food Hub virtual store. After a customer makes an order, producers deliver it to a central drop-off for the hub’s rented truck to pick it up. The food is repackaged at the Dartmouth warehouse and then delivered to customers.

This summer, the group Investors for Paris Compliance issued its final report and sunsetted its activities, but now a new organization has arisen to further expand on I4PC’s mission.

The document is somewhere. Maybe it’s in a filing cabinet. More likely, it lives on a shared drive that nobody has opened in years. Or it sits quietly in a board portal alongside meeting minutes, bylaws, and other governance documents that receive attention only when someone remembers they exist. At some point, it was reviewed and approved. There was probably a riveting discussion about its contents. But that was then.