The Canadian Non-Profit Sector: Neoliberalism and the Assault on Community

Neoliberal restructuring has left individuals and families scrambling for survival and increasingly reliant on the under-funded and over-regulated non-profit sector to patch over the steadily growing fissures in our society. The book examines the creativity and resilience of nonprofits in maintaining and expanding their services. This book also delves into the vital role of non-profits in advocacy for human rights, anti-racism, Indigenous claims, and improved health and social services.

The decades-long turn towards marketized solutions to social needs has created the conditions under which privatized modes of service delivery have become the norm. The extraordinary rise of the non-profit sector is an under-analyzed consequence of neoliberal restructuring in Canada. In this timely corrective, Ted Richmond and John Shields analyze the place of the non-profit sector in neoliberal times in Canada. The authors take a critical political economy approach, providing a vital analysis of the significance of the non-profit sector, and bring clarity to its dimensions and roles in society. The book pays particular attention to the provision of social, human and health services in Canada’s changing welfare state system.

Ted Richmond has worked in the non-profit and government sectors for some forty years. He is an active community-based researcher with many social justice-oriented publications to his credit. He has also been a part-time university teacher of non-profit sector studies.
John Shields is professor emeritus in the Department of Politics & Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he taught for thirty-five years. He is an active researcher in the areas of the non-profit sector and immigration and settlement studies. He often works in close collaboration with community-based researchers.
Axelle Janczur has been the executive director at Access Alliance for the past twenty-one years. Axelle’s work includes the opening of community hubs in east and west Toronto, the launch of a successful social enterprise, the opening of the Non-Insured Walk-In Clinic, the creation of a safe, welcoming space for LGBTQ+ newcomers and much more.