We Hear from Hinton

Kathy Dawson got a response to her open letter to the Mayor of Hinton, Alberta. Kathy wanted to know why the town gave $10K of its photo radar bonanza (total available: $100K) to a fake pregnancy clinic.

[via email from:] Lil Wallace, Executive Assistant - Office of the Mayor; Office of the Town Manager


Dear Ms. Dawson:
Thank you for your enquiry respecting the Quality of Life grant program that Hinton offers.  Hinton is a diverse community that works and builds together.  This includes improving several aspects of the quality of life for our citizens through grants such as the Quality of Life.

The West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre indicates they provide unconditional, non judgmental and long-term support to all individuals regardless of what choice they make.  One of their support programs includes a “clothing closet” where items like diapers, blankets, clothes, cribs, car seats and formula are provided to residents who are in need.  The Grant Funding Advisory Committee felt this “clothing closet” is a program worthy of supporting and council agreed with their recommendation.

Once again, thank you for your enquiry.

Rob Mackin
Mayor
Town of Hinton | Gateway to the Rockies

Pretty good eh? For double-speak babblegab, it really doesn't get any better than: "This includes improving several aspects of the quality of life for our citizens through grants such as the Quality of Life." Improving the quality of life through quality of life.

Hoo-kay.

And $10K for a "clothing closet"? That's a lotta diapers for a town of fewer than ten thousand souls.

And I guess "diversity" in the Gateway to the Rockies does not include reproductive rights. Because crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs) not only exist to scare the shit out of pregnant people seeking abortions, they also refuse to counsel on or offer contraception. Hinton's diversity includes abstinence-only birth control.

We did some research on West Yellowhead Fake Clinic here.

Its revenues and expenses run about $100K a year, which for a town the size of Hinton is pretty lavish.

We took a closer look at its CRA charitable filing for 2013. We wanted to see how much it was spending on its clothing closet before the generous people of Hinton stepped in.

There's only one paid employee, making $42K a year. The only non-financial revenue was donated rental space, value $21,600.

Let's have a look at that space, shall we?

Unless they have other premises, this is it. *

I have no idea what retail space costs are in Hinton, but do you think $21.6K covers the whole deal there? Or only part of the rent?

Because from Schedule 6 of the CRA filing, we find they report an "occupancy cost" of $25K.

So is that space worth $46.6K a year? Partly donated, partly paid? Or is there something odd going on here?

Other expenses: the employee, whose $42K gets up to $49K with perqs I imagine. Some other bits and bobs for a vehicle and professional services. Office expenses were just under $5K, "purchased supplies and assets" cost $5.5K, and "other expenditures" were $3.5K.

And that's it.

While adding the purchased supplies and other expenditures together we get close to $10K, there is nothing specifically for "clothes, diapers, car seats" etc.

So, it looks to me like the "clothing closet" is a fantasy and the $10K from the photo-radar scam is pure windfall.

Unless, of course, there was no existing "clothing closet" program and the generous folks at West Yellowhead Lies and Fantasies plan on providing a layette from Holt Renfrew to every child born to its clients starting this year.

At the very least, we can say that officials of the town of Hinton are pretty easily satisfied.

Because even a cursory look at the books would raise all kinds of questions.

But hey, maybe "due diligence" means something different out there.



*That image comes from Google Maps. Here are two more. Note handy proximity to booze store. Also its location on the Harley Street of Hinton, sandwiched between real health care providers of the dental and medical variety.

Note too the weird fuzzing out of the CPC's name. What's up with that? Especially since it's perfectly clear in the front-on shot.

Dear Alberta Lottery Foundation: We Have Questions

[This is a letter written to the Alberta Lottery fund on November 19, 2014, by Celia Posyniak, Executive Director, Kensington Clinic, Calgary. Some background on her concerns can be found in our series on public funding of three Alberta crisis pregnancy centres: Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre, Medicine Hat Pregnancy Support Society, and West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre (Hinton). Links to CAPSS added.]

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to express my concerns regarding the awarding of lottery funds to so-called crisis pregnancy centres (CPC) in Alberta.

Specifically, my concerns are with the Hinton Crisis Pregnancy Association, the Medicine Hat Pregnancy Support Society and the Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre Society in Red Deer, all of which were awarded Community Spirit Donation Grants in 2011/12 totalling $34,000.

At least two of these organizations are members of the Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services (CAPSS), a “Christ-centred national ministry “whose primary mission is to discourage women from having abortions through the operation of crisis pregnancy centres and to share their faith in the process. CAPSS is the umbrella organization that provides training and resources for CPCs and members must agree to adhere to CAPSS mission and service delivery guidelines. For your convenience I have attached a copy of their “Core Documents”.[pdf]

CPCs exist to discourage vulnerable women from obtaining abortions and have been known throughout North America to use misinformation and scare tactics to achieve this goal. In fact, the Red Deer centre was once publicly exposed in an undercover operation by CTV’s W5, describing surgical instruments used in abortion as similar in appearance to “barbecue forks”. While they claim to assist all pregnant women and new mothers in need, through donations of clothing etc., the most recent issue of the CAPSS newsletter which I have enclosed, appears to lament this outcome as the majority of recipients were not “abortion minded or abortion vulnerable”.

CPCs generally do not employ health professionals or professional counsellors as these people would not be able to operate under CAPSS governing principles without violating their own professions code of ethics. CPCs claim they provide accurate information about abortion, but their code of counselling ethics forbids them from providing referrals. How can they be trusted to provide accurate information about a healthcare service in an unbiased manner, when they refuse for ideological reasons to tell clients where to obtain those same services?

It is difficult to understand how the government can on one hand support comprehensive reproductive healthcare services for women in the province, and then hand out money to organizations who would like to take fundamental reproductive rights away from women, promote junk science, refuse contraception information to unmarried people, and beyond advocating sexual abstinence*, make no contribution in the education of Albertans on safe sex practices.

To give this another perspective, would an anti-vaccination group be awarded public funds to promote their agenda against immunizations? Could a Jehovah Witness group be given funds to counsel the public on their ideological objections to blood transfusions while proselytizing?

Does the ALF have any eligibility criteria regarding an organization’s mission? What due diligence did the Alberta Lottery Foundation do to ensure that these CPCs were legitimate community assets and not religious organizations with a clear agenda of dissuading women from accessing a legal medical service and sharing their faith?

Thank you for taking the time to consider this and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Celia Posyniak
Executive Director [Kensington Clinic, Calgary, Alberta]

*************

Good questions.

Celia reports that as of today there's been no response, but she promises to keep us informed.

If you'd like to pose some questions of your own, here's the contact information for Alberta Lottery Foundation.


* Link to Kathy Dawson's open letter to the mayor of Hinton about those "sex-ed" presentations.

Public Funds for Anti-Choice, Anti-Sex Religious Organizations (an ongoing series)

[Open letter to Mayor Rob Makin, Hinton, Alberta, by Kathy Dawson*. Background here. Links added.]

Dear Mayor Makin, Town of Hinton,

Your grant information indicates that groups that advance a specific moral or religious point of view are ineligible for your Quality of Life Grant. Can you explain why West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre (Hinton) was given $10,000 of public money?

West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre (Hinton) is a religious based mission, an affiliate of CAPSS and bound by CAPSS Core documents (which can be found here (pdf)). They are a Christ-centred mission that is known for opposing reproductive rights and providing religious interference in the choices of pregnant women.  CAPSS prevents them from counselling or referring people for contraception. I have been personally present at a CAPSS affiliate abstinence based sexual health presentations (in a public school no less) and can attest that it excluded LGBTQ, shamed sexually active people, and provided no useful information on how sexually active teens can avoid pregnancy and STIs. In Canada, we have the right to access contraception, protection, abortion and quality sexual health information free of religious bias. It is shocking that the Town of Hinton would provide money to support groups that oppose basic reproductive rights.

I would appreciate a response at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Kathy Dawson
Sexual Health Education Advocate

***********

*Kathy Dawson guest-blogged here recently and has a proven record of activism.

If you'd like to help chivvy an answer out of the responsible people, here are two Twitter accounts: @HintonVoiceInc (town newspaper) and @Hinton Parklander (local Sun franchise).

Public Funding of Alberta Fake Clinics, Part 3

In our series, Hinton Crisis Pregnancy Association is last of the three fake clinics in Alberta that have received public funds from the Alberta Lottery Foundation.

(The others are Medicine Hat and Central Alberta Pregnancy Care Centre.)

Hinton CPC seems to be doing business as West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre; the address is the same on its Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) annual filings.

The first thing to know about Hinton is that it's pretty small, with a population of 9,640 souls as of the 2011 census.

Another thing about HInton is that it has a photo radar system, the proceeds of which are doled out to deserving community organizations. More on that in a bit.

And now we've run out of things to say about Hinton.

The fake clinic seems a bit shy for these sorts of organizations. Its website is under construction and its Facebook page is rather desultorily maintained.

It is a member of the Christian Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services, the umbrella organization that the Ontario Trillium Foundation had an "issue" with.

I found a profile of the outfit in the local paper from 2007.

The pregnancy centre is a faith-based organization made up of volunteers from various Hinton churches. Church members also make up the board that operates behind the scenes.
…
The centre is made possible by donations from churches, local businesses and the United Way. In addition, the centre does three fundraisers per year including a banquet in October, a baby bottle campaign and usually a spring fundraiser. . .

Giffin said that his organization hasn't had much luck obtaining government grants, but that they are going to try again.

Now to the CRA filings.

2011

2012

2013

Expenses and revenue seem to run at around $100K a year. That's pretty impressive considering that costs at the Medicine Hat fake clinic, with a population six times Hinton's, run about $60K. (Maybe Medicine Hat has competition? Maybe the sluts in Hinton are extra slutty?)

And hey look, the Hinton fake clinic has been successful in getting the government money they were coveting back in 2007.

Some of that would be from the Alberta Lottery Foundation. From 2009 to 2012, it received $50K from ALF or more than half of all such funds given out to fake clinics in the province.

But the really genius part is that it has tapped into another source of public funds -- the aforementioned photo radar tribute.

In April this year, the local paper reported that it had done rather nicely.

Quality of Life grants were doled out last week, with a total of $97,116 for 18 local community groups.

Town council approved the grants at the April 15 meeting. Nineteen applicants had requested $281,068 in funding, which is nearly triple the $100,000 available. Recommendations to council on how to award the available funds were made by the Grant Funding Advisory Committee, which has five voting members. Quality of Life grants are allocated from photo radar fees. . .

The West Yellowhead Pregnancy Care Centre received the largest amount of core funding applied for ($10,000).

So unsuspecting Albertans have TWO ways to contribute involuntarily to the fake clinic: through their lottery tickets and their traffic tickets.

If one is of a religious, anti-choice, misogynist bent, it's beauty. One can say: Well, sheee-it, I didn't win the lottery/I got a damn speeding ticket, but at least the money is going to a Christ-fearing, slut-shaming, human rights-denying outfit.

Of course, if one is not of a religious, anti-choice, misogynist bent, one might say: Well, sheee-it. WTF?

You gotta admire these Christers though. Tricksy with pregnancy/abortion information, tricksy with fund-raising.


h/t to Kathy Dawson for the photo radar link