SLOBODIAN: Seriously? Free menstrual products is a job for the United Way?

Really, who is anyone to question the wisdom of United Way BC having spent $750,000 on a tampon task force? These United Way woke warriors are heroically fighting for “menstrual equity.” Not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds really, very important.There’s a “period poverty” crisis! Therefore, no “people” — presumably that includes females — shall be denied access to free menstrual products they can’t afford because they instead must buy food. Not on their watch!“United Way British Columbia works to support period poverty across our communities,” declared the charitable organization. It’s 2024 Period Promise campaign is underway — May 1 to May 31 — in partnership with CUPE Local 1816 and Pacific Blue Cross.In May 2022, $750,000 was funnelled to the Period Poverty Task Force from the BC provincial government. Of that, $220,000 in grants ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 was allotted to “research pilot projects” leaving $530,000 to spend on … what?One aim of the pilot projects was “increasing awareness of how to make the best and healthiest use of menstrual products.” Apparently, menstruating “people” are too stupid to read the instructions on product packages.But pilot projects? Really? This thing had long been in full swing.Since 2017, United Way BC’s annual Period Promise campaign has “been able to get almost 3,000,000 menstrual products into our community,” it said in a statement to Western Standard.In 2017, 30,000 menstrual products were collected and distributed by United Way of Lower Mainland. Annually that number steadily increased. By 2022, more than 700,000 products were donated and distributed through 90 community organizations.But suddenly, three-quarters of a million dollars was earmarked for a “multi-sector” task force to “further advance the province’s goal to end period poverty and remove the alleged “stigma” associated with menstruation. The seven-member task force that “met regularly over 18 months” was made up of members of the “menstrual equity movement” with priority given to menstrual equity advocates, indigenous, disabled, and diverse genders.That $750,000 could have paid for semi-trailers full of sanitary products. There might have even been some left over to better fund projects — doners may think they’re giving to — like feeding hungry kids, seniors’ programs, beds in shelters for victims of domestic abuse, etc.But direct purchases would get in the way of grifters latching onto make-work woke projects — task forces, researchers, pilot projects, surveys, distributing already widely distributed how-to use information, etc., that eat up funds from taxpayers and doners.To keep it in perspective, $750,000 isn’t that big a deal when one compares it to, say, the salaries United Way BC’s 160 full-time staff overseeing multi-million-dollar grants and private donations, receive. BC isn’t special. United Way has long had a tradition of generously paying employees overseeing charitable budgets.United Way BC peddles “period poverty” by wringing its hands over the plight of single moms who must choose between buying tampons and feeding their kids.According to the non-profit watchdog Charity Intelligence Canada, based on Canada Revenue Agency charities directorate filings, in 2022 the average pay for 160 BC staff was $76,453. One employee earned $300,000-$350,000, two earned $200,000-$250,000, three earned $160,000-$200,000, and four earned $120,000-$160,000. Presumably these charity-minded souls — certainly, with angels’ wings tucked under their designer T-shirts — have since had raises.Hopefully, the single moms they care about so much — those who don’t line up for free menstrual products but pay rising costs of hygiene products like toothpaste and shampoo — have had raises. That’ll help them pay through taxes for products given to “people” including trans and non-binary menstruators who can’t afford the 6.3% hike in the cost of pads and tampons.The United Way BC’s Period Promise campaign “aims to combat period poverty for those faced with financial pressures.”“Amidst the rising cost of living, choosing between menstrual products or food is a tough reality for many people in BC,” reads an April 25 United Way News release in a pitch to collect donations and money for 500,000 menstrual products.A suspicious mind might wonder if there really is a “period poverty” crisis. Or if the crisis developed after the federal government’s Budget 2022 pledged $25 million over two years to establish a national pilot project for a Menstrual Equity Fund under Gender Equality Canada to make products available across the country. How much of that available cash actually goes to buying products? The United Way depends heavily on product donations raised in schools and workplaces and unions.And how much lines bank accounts of people hired to study and research menstruation and the alleged poverty problem? A Period Promise final report based on 1,600 interviews claimed more than half of the “people” who menstruate in BC struggle to buy these products. Reports can be engineered to say whatever one wants them to say to justify accessing taxpayer money or donations. Just saying.A suspicious mind ponders whether this is born of necessity or insane ideology?For example, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government removed all doubt that they’ve lost their minds when they proudly announced that the needs of menstruating men would be met by stocking men’s federal washrooms — including those on military bases and airports — with tampons and sanitary pads.Meanwhile, United Way BC is hardly the only United Way to launch Period Promise campaigns. Others include Hamilton-Halton, Winnipeg, Niagara, Central Alberta, and Alberta Capital Region.Charity Intelligence Canada gave United Way BC, that serves 4.5 million British Columbians, a four-out-of-five-star rating.It, like all United Way branches, focuses on poverty mental health, food security, children and youth and seniors, and emergency response.Safe to assume that’s what most private donors who generously give to any United Way think they are supporting.Someone should do a survey on how they’d feel about spending three quarters of a million taxpayer dollars on a task force instead of directly meeting an alleged “period poverty” crisis allegedly threatening menstruating “people’s” food supply.Where does the demand, the expectation, for free stuff for everybody — paid for by everybody else — end?

SLOBODIAN: Seriously? Free menstrual products is a job for the United Way?

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