Canada’s $12-billion charity gap is the bill for six decades of Ottawa crowding out civil society

# Editorial Summary This well-researched commentary argues that six decades of expanding government social spending has crowded out private charitable giving in Canada—evidenced by donation rates falling from 24.5% to 16.8% of taxfilers—and warns that the civic practice of charity itself is hollowing out despite aggregate dollar concentration among large institutions. The piece excels at layering empirical detail (food bank visits, GDP contribution, income quintile data) to build a systemic argument, though it relies heavily on correlation rather than establishing causation, and somewhat glosses over the author's own caveat that competing explanations (religious decline, financial insecurity) remain plausible.