The Salvation Army on Parliament Hill

What place does The Salvation Army have in the halls of government? Aren't we supposed to be "apolitical"?

On this episode, we get political with Major Rick Zelinsky, territorial director of public affairs. Major Zelinsky gives us an inside look at the recent Salvation Army Week on the Hill, which brought 60 Army representatives to Ottawa to influence and inform lawmakers and politicians on behalf of the people we serve.

And we look at the "how" and "why" behind events like Hill Week—how the Army uses its voice to address issues such as poverty and gender-based violence; and why public affairs is kingdom work, going all the way back to the Founder himself.

Transcript

Kristin Ostensen  

This is the Salvationist podcast. I’m Kristin Ostensen. Last month, the Canada and Bermuda Territory held its second annual Salvation Army Week on the Hill—“Hill” as in, Parliament Hill. Sixty Salvation Army representatives, from front-line workers all the way up to the territorial commander, went to Ottawa to influence and inform government on behalf of the people we serve. Now, that might come as a surprise to some listeners. What’s all this about “influencing” government? Does The Salvation Army even belong in the political realm? For Major Rick Zelinsky, territorial director of public affairs, the answer is a resounding yes. In this episode, he gives us an inside look at the events of Hill Week, including a particularly meaningful meeting with the Speaker of the House. But more than that, he shares the “how” and “why” behind this work—how the Army uses its voice to address issues such as poverty and gender-based violence; and why public affairs is really about building the kingdom of God.

Hi Major Rick, and welcome to the Salvationist podcast.

Rick Zelinsky  

Hi Kristin. It's great to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, it's my pleasure. So you're just coming off an amazing Salvation Army Week on the Hill. Before we get into all the exciting details of this year's event, can you give us a little bit of background? This is the second time we've done this event. So how did it come about? And what's the purpose of the week?

Rick Zelinsky

Our purpose for going to Ottawa and for holding this Hill Week, or “lobby week,” if you want, was three threefold. One is to inform, also to influence. And the third “I” for good alliteration is intersection. So let me just share a little bit about what that looks like and what that means. So, when it comes to informing government, you would think that The Salvation Army, as the second-largest provider of social services in this country, that people would really know who we are. But as most of us know, that public perception of The Salvation Army, unless you've accessed our services, or work alongside us in a particular service, probably the biggest perception is that The Salvation Army has thrift stores, and everyone knows us for ringing the bells and the kettles. And it's not a bad thing to be known for because, really, what we can do is we take that conversation and say, “The ringing of the bells is about ensuring food security, because we don't get money to provide people with groceries at our food banks; we raise the funds. And when you see people ringing those bells, that's about putting food on people's tables.” And so, Hill Week gives us that opportunity to speak to government and really show them the breadth of our work, and ultimately to connect government, elected officials in communities across Canada to the mission of The Salvation Army. When we talk about influence: it's about influencing policy. It's about getting to the roundtables, helping government understand that we have 141 years of experience, and we are here to lend our thought leadership on the issues that face people who call Canada their home. We have incredible practitioners who work on the frontlines in communities, in 400-plus communities across Canada. And it was our feeling that we really need to bring them along to tell their story. And the third purpose, intersection, I think another, maybe a better word would be alignment, asking the question, how do we approach government? You know, there's no shortage of people who want to poke the government in the eye on a myriad of issues. If you line people up and say, what should we be speaking to government on? People say, we need to tell them they have to do this. And I've had many of these conversations. But is that really how we approach government? And the answer to that is no. And to expand on that: first of all, we are nonpartisan. Some people say we're apolitical; we're not apolitical, we are political. We live in cities, we're part of communities, we want the best for the people in our community, we want to use our voice for those people. Therefore, we are political. It's just that we're nonpartisan. We don't align with one particular party. We will work with whatever government is in power. And so, for example, we unveiled a poverty research report when we went to Ottawa this year. And we didn't just give it to one party that, you know, we think can advance the work within the report or the suggestions within the report. We made sure that every party has an opportunity to see that, every party has an opportunity to ask us questions, because we want to work with everybody to ensure the best for the people that we serve. And people say, Well, how do you know what government priorities are? Well, it's like, it's almost like church. If you look at the church budget, you will, I will be able to tell you based on what you budget for your congregation, what your priorities are for your congregation, for the community that you serve. In the same way, we look at the government budget and we see what are the priorities that they have for Canadians. And so, we see that budget is that monetary reflection of government priorities. And so, as The Salvation Army, we put in pre-budget submissions, based on conversations we have with the front-line leaders and those, on behalf of those we serve, and we make recommendations to the government. Once the budget is outlined, then we look for opportunities. Where are the opportunities that align with the work of The Salvation Army? So, for example, there was recently an announcement by this government to say that they're going to put funding into school feeding programs. Well, that's great, because The Salvation Army has school feeding programs all across the territory. In fact, in some communities, we're the only people providing school feeding programs. So that aligns perfectly with the work that we do. So then we enter into that conversation, and we say, we want to inform you, this is where The Salvation Army's working, and as that funding and how that funding is going to be rolled out, once that's announced, we will then step in, and we will lobby and influence to try to get money for The Salvation Army at the local level, to provide funding for this kind of program. 

Kristin Ostensen

Thank you for that good overview. So, thinking about this year's event in particular, can you give us an overview of what actually happened, what it all involved and entailed?

Rick Zelinsky

So just to give you a quick overview, we brought 60 people to Ottawa to engage elected officials and their staff, for the purposes of influencing them and seeing an impact on the work that we do for the people we serve. We had executive leaders, we brought the public relations professionals and representatives from across the territory, in each division. We brought specialists in the field representing various services that we provide, from west to east to north. And we also had our public affairs team who were there. And our focus was on four pillars that represent that alignment I was speaking about between our mission, the services we provide, and the priorities of government as we saw them outlined in the budget. So, the four pillars were housing and support that we provide for that. Our response, as a Salvation Army, to gender-based violence and support of victims of the same. We talked about cost of living, and that's where we rolled out our poverty research that week in Ottawa. And it was completed just weeks before we went to Ottawa, so it was fresh off the presses. And as a little bit of as a little bit of a commercial, it will be available next week at salvationist.ca/research. The fourth pillar was our emergency disaster services. And that's actually a big one for us because the government has been very generous to us over the last number of years through Public Safety Canada, where we've received over $18 million to build our capacity to respond to disasters in Canada. That funding will go through until 2026. And so, this was an opportunity to talk to government about the impact that their support and their funding has had. In fact, as I was walking from Parliament Hill to a meeting this past week, I got a call from Public Safety, and from one of the staffers there, and she said, I just want to give you a heads up that on Thursday morning, there's going to be an announcement that The Salvation Army is going to receive more funding from Public Safety Canada. Yeah, so we're pleased to say that—and it's been announced so we can speak about it as well—that there's an extra $130,000 coming, just specifically to make sure that we are positioned and ready for this disaster response season. And so that's going to translate into providing some storage in areas that we can put supplies if we're cut off from forest fires or wildfires. And in B.C. that means it's going to be in five key locations across the province to ensure that they can provide services to communities in need. 

Kristin Ostensen

Amazing!

Rick Zelinsky

We had a reception with over 75 MPs and staff where they can meet our specialists talking about the four pillars. And those people represented the four divisions in our territory, including—we had Major Tony Brushett from Yellowknife, who was able to talk about the impact of the wildfires last year. We had 45 targeted meetings where we brought specialists, public affairs professionals, as well as others, people with lived experience, into conversation with elected officials who also share our passion or interests on the pillars that these people represent. We attended, along with all the Salvation Army local corps officers, the National Prayer Breakfast; hosted an executive lunch and learn with chaplains and legislatures. We held our own dinner where we invited guests to hear the work of The Salvation Army on the International Social Justice Commission, as presented by Colonel Wendy Swan who is the director of the ISJC. We attended Question Period, we had lunch with MPs representing the Ministry of Health, as well as the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. We also had an opportunity for the professionals that we brought, the specialists and experts, to network and we saw a really organic engagement emerge from that, whereby people are now saying, Could you come to my shelter in a different province and help us understand the program that you're offering here in Ottawa between Bethany Hope, for example, and the Winnipeg Centre of Hope? So those kinds of things were happening all week. It was a great opportunity for us to learn from each other. And the final thing just to highlight is that we also had the opportunity to have our executive leadership team meet with the Speaker of the House, Greg Fergus. And it began as a photo opportunity. But it morphed into a half-hour discussion on faith, the decline of congregations, the loss of generations, and how do we address that? And that in and of itself, you know, shouldn't be surprising for The Salvation Army to talk about that. But what's surprising is, we did not initiate that conversation. It was the Speaker of the House who said, I'm experiencing this in my own denomination. How are you handling this in The Salvation Army? And that was just a beautiful conversation about faith with the Speaker of the House. And a really great reminder that you can't just judge people, you know, because of a political leaning, or because of what we see on Question Period—which tends to be a bit of a, you know, a dramatic theatre. You have to understand these are people who live in community that want the best for community, including the Speaker. And to be able to share our faith in that room was a real privilege, as far as I'm concerned. 

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, no, that's wonderful. So, you've talked about having 45-plus meetings with MPs and government officials. That is incredible to squeeze into such a short amount of time. I'm curious about how you actually approach having those kinds of conversations, especially when some of these issues, the four pillars you talked about, some of that stuff can be difficult, or maybe even contentious. So how do you approach that?

Rick Zelinsky

That's a really great question because I think that that question gets at the heart of the success of this event. Someone said to me, How was Ottawa? I went, OK, it was—our team, this group of people knocked it out of the park. And I'm not just saying that because, you know, I’m a very loyal person—people who know me will know that about me, and I'm extremely loyal. And I really do like to promote my team. I think they're wonderful people. But this team, this bigger team really knocked it out of the park. And I'm not just saying that because of my fierce loyalty. But I think what's at the heart of that is in answering your question, and also with the conversations that happened in communities across the territory, because I think great public affairs work is being done in those places as well. So, the success of that as well, ultimately, I think is due to two factors. And in large part, it can be summarized with how we use our voice. And so, first, we are speaking truth from a faith conviction that I believe is at the heart of God and it's at the heart of our mission, revealed in Jesus, that we are to love the unlovable, befriend those without friends, speak on behalf of the cause of the widow, the orphan, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the grieved, visit people who are incarcerated, and the list goes on and on. We live out the Founder’s vision for a better world. He outlined it in Darkest England and the Way Out. He spoke it in frustration, in his address called “Who Cares?” If you want to read a great address by the Founder, just Google “Who Cares?” by William Booth. And Booth offered it in his final instruction to a fledgling movement, basking in the height of popularity, in his address, “I’ll Fight.” And I think that's the first key to the success of public affairs, and also, how do we step into this arena and have these conversations. The second thing—and I think is actually almost more important. But it is this: that our success is because we speak on behalf of those who have no voice. We advocate for their needs and their concerns. We are not in Ottawa, to say, Wow, look how great The Salvation Army is. We are in Ottawa to raise their voice in the room, the voice of the over three million people that we served in 2023, who struggle to meet their basic needs. And I think it also, the way we approach that with government also speaks to alignment that I spoke to earlier. And that is—and I also think it's good leadership principle. And so how do we enter a room and have this conversation on behalf of those we serve? This is the leadership principle: praise publicly, criticize privately. We're not here to embarrass the government. And oftentimes we’ll say that: We're not here to embarrass you, we're not going to stand out in the street corner and call you evil. That's not how we approach this. We want to enter into a conversation. We're nonpartisan, we don't embarrass. And, as well, as a service provider, we have this unique ability to mediate the conversation at a round table by inviting those who are activists with those, you know, those loud voices and the megaphones. We actually have relationships with them and, because they care about the same people that we care about. But we also have relationships with government, because they fund the work that we do—they help us to do this good work. So, in this unique perspective, we kind of straddle both worlds. And we can sit at a roundtable, bring both of those partners into the table, and mediate the conversation. And in Ontario, two years ago, our public affairs manager at the time, Taylor Brisco, she actually had the opportunity to do that when the government was rolling out its priorities on housing. And so, I think that's unique to The Salvation Army. And I think there's another reality that we hold in tension. And it's this: that our politicians, regardless of who people support, are Canadians who want the best for their communities, and to see the people who call Canada their home thrive in those communities. And, even in that conversation, we had a unique opportunity to remind our elected officials and their staff that when we say all Canadians, that includes that long list of people that I spoke about earlier. In one of the conversations with a policy staff from a particular party, we had the opportunity to share that fixing the housing crisis isn't just about shifting all of our attention to building more housing, but that it means that we add that as part of a continuum of care. So as The Salvation Army, we provide emergency shelter, we provide supportive housing, we provide more long-term sustainable housing, and we want to see the government provide a solution to the housing crisis by providing affordable housing to people over the long term as well. So it was interesting because we were able to bring that perspective and say, Don't abandon this to get to this. It's not an either-or; it's a both-and. And, in fact, you can't just hand somebody a broom and say, “Here, go sweep the street—now you have a job, and now you should be able to thrive in community.” No, we have to begin where people are at, and for a lot of the folks that we serve, it's like Booth’s model of “soup, soap, salvation.” People will be ready to have that conversation, hear the message, when their bellies are full. The soap is that giving people dignity and seeing them as being a valuable part of society, made in the image of God. And salvation—well, Booth, that would be a very theological word for Booth. If we were to translate that into a political conversation, salvation is about people thriving; it's about people being their best version, so to speak, and having an equal opportunity in this nation. So again, that's the kind of conversations that we have, and we don't stand on the street corner and poke them in the eye and call them bad. It doesn't work, and that's just not how we approach that. Some people might criticize and say, Wow, you know, we're not speaking up on an issue because we're receiving funding from the government. It’s like, no—we're not speaking publicly out loud on every single issue. We have to be very careful on how we use our voice. Because if we keep using our voice, on every issue that people phone my office about, our voice will be, it will just vanish. It'll be a vapour out there because we will be speaking on every single thing. We have to say, what are our priorities? What are the important things? When will we use our voice? So that when we use it as The Salvation Army, stand alone, it's heard, and it has some power. Sometimes we do that. Sometimes we add our voice to a network, whether that's Canadian Council of Churches, and priorities that they're trying to put forward to government; whether that's with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada; or any of the other groups that we that we add our voice to the mix so that together, we are stronger, and we can speak respectfully to government. We do it that way as well.

Kristin Ostensen

Now, that makes a lot of sense, yeah. Because if you sort of, if you spread yourself too thin, then it kind of dilutes the overall effect, right. And I love how you added in that historical perspective, tying it all the way back to the Founder. Because, as you mentioned, The Salvation Army has sometimes been described as apolitical. But obviously, having an event like TSA on the Hill, having a public affairs department at all really shows that, no, we have a place in politics. And I'm wondering if you can just talk about that a little bit. What do you see as our place in politics, in the political realm as The Salvation Army?

Rick Zelinsky

I know that we belong here because we serve in 400-plus communities in this territory. And, you know, the word political at its root is polis, and that means city, town, community. And so, if we are part of a community, then we are political, and we belong at the political tables, because we serve people in community. And we believe that we are called to elevate that voice. If we're going to usher in the kingdom of God, we have to be active outside of our church walls, in our communities. Sometimes we need a reminder that we don't exist for ourselves, just to be The Salvation Army inside of a geographic location or, you know, a pin on a Google map. But that we are actually called to step, to be filled and built up and trained and strengthened inside those walls for the purpose of going out and turning on the light in the darkness in our communities. And there's a lot of dark places and so we belong there. So, we're in that political realm. And it's also my conviction that I don't think that we can just be passive recipients of government funding. It's not enough for us just to hold out our hands, take the money, serve the people that we do, and say thank you. But if we're going to receive funding, and if we're going to participate in that way and lobby on behalf of people, we actually have to be partners, and we have to see ourselves as partners. And I'm going to extend that as well. Because it would be very easy for us just to say, well, The Salvation Army, we're this big—and we are, don't get me wrong. But we have a lot of other community partners that we work with. On the EDS front—that government funding I talked about earlier, 18-plus million dollars, we received that as part of a partnership with other NGOs, and the Red Cross, St. John’s Ambulance, search and rescue. And just recently, in the most recent announcement, we have Team Rubicon. So, we are one of five partners that the government looks to and says, You are reliable partners that we can call on, on people's darkest days to provide support. And so, it's about having those relationships with government, with other NGOs, and together, we combine our voices. And Lt-Colonel John Murray had the opportunity, last week we were standing with the leader of the king's Loyal Opposition, Mr. Pierre Poilievre, and John had the opportunity to say that, we as a Salvation Army, we work with everybody, and we work with other organizations, and it is our belief that we are stronger and better together.

Kristin Ostensen

It's very, very true. So, can you talk a bit about what kinds of projects you have in the works right now? And what's on the horizon for the public affairs team?

Rick Zelinsky

For sure. I have a team that is just chomping at the bit to get moving and to advance this strategy for public affairs. We're like a SEAL team. So, if there's a concern or a situation or someone needs a door opened, whether it's funding or over an issue, our team will go in, in advance of the issue, to open the door for government, get the conversation flowing, help the priority to be, you know, announced, executed, help that conversation to happen. And then we extract ourselves from the situation and just allow that conversation, that relationship to build towards resolution. If our help is needed, we will step back in. So that's kind of how we work. That's one way that we work. And so that's support to the divisions, that's another thing that's happening right now. Over the last year, we've been building a public affairs team so that in every division there is a public affairs manager and there's a public affairs analyst. We have one analyst in the Prairies and Northern Territories Division. And we are adding, by the end of, I think, next week, or the week after, we will have a public affairs analyst in each of the divisions as well. That's going to provide us with the opportunity not just to advance the relationships, but to provide research, to provide briefs, to provide budget submissions, you know, to do all of that kind of background work to prepare us for having those conversations and building on that. We're planning over the summer, as a public affairs team, to engage in listening exercises with our front line all across the territory so we can hear what they're interested in, so we can learn from them, and also so that we can support them divisionally. We were hoping to have smaller versions of our Hill Week reception, where we invite elected officials and their staff to meet The Salvation Army, or we will have an open house in a centre to do the same. And we're hoping to support and assist in having those conversations with local elected officials, municipal elected officials, as well as provincial and federal. And as well, the final thing I would say—I mean, there's more—but one of the other key pieces is to bring training to people on the front lines on how to have these conversations, how to engage with government, in a way that's respectful and nonpartisan, and to do that across the territory. Because we're a team of 13 people—or we will be—but our greatest strength is if we can leverage those local conversations and support them in how to have really great conversations as well. 

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, yeah, because you can't be everywhere all at once—

Rick Zelinsky

[laughs] That’s true, yeah!

Kristin Ostensen

—so empowering the front line, that absolutely makes sense. Well, thank you so much for sharing about your work. I'm wondering, as we wrap up, you mentioned this incredible meeting that you and some of our leaders had with the Speaker of the House. When you look back on the week, were there any other significant highlights for you?

Rick Zelinsky

So many highlights, but I want to share this story because this is how public affairs works. For two years, we have been meeting with elected officials on modern slavery, human trafficking, gender-based violence, issues affecting women who have experienced trauma and the supports that we provide in community because when someone is fleeing gender-based violence and they come to a local shelter, we don't just provide shelter and refer them on for other help, emotional support, opportunities for training, volunteering, etc. We don't just do that, but we provide a wraparound service at our shelters that supports people who seek, are seeking that refuge and that rescue. So, for two years, we've been having these conversations. We have been putting in submissions to government. We have been drawing up our strategy that helps the modern slavery human trafficking professionals in the territory. We lobbied the government on getting funding for a program that helps women who are escaping trafficking and who have experienced trauma and gender-based violence. So, these are the activities we've been doing to try to have a bigger voice. About a week before we went to Hill Week, we got a call through a local shelter in Sudbury, Cedar Place. The executive director, Barbara Ridley, reached out because she was invited to speak to a hearing on coercive behaviour and gender-based violence to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. And I'm going to connect all the dots in one second, because this is the incredible thing and this is really how public affairs works and what gets me excited. So, Barb gets in touch with our team, you know, through all the right channels and that, and immediately we brought to bear on Barb's opportunity to testify: a government relations consultant at Edelman, Katrina Draper, whose master's degree is in this field; we had our own assistant public affairs director, Taylor Briscoe, who is a lawyer by training. And she and Katrina and Barb took the testimony that Barb would give, crafted it, making sure it was speaking to the local statistics, statistics of Salvation Army work, the police statistics in Sudbury, as well as then bringing in the data on potential questions that might be asked. And how do you know questions are going to be asked? Well, you look at all the members, you see what their priorities are. And so, they engage in an intense research to determine this. And they did this in five days, by the way. We brought Barb to Ottawa. Barb participated in our events—at the last minute, she joined in with us. We put Barb into a room where we gave her opportunity to share her testimony in a mock hearing, and we asked her questions. And then the Thursday afternoon, on the end of Hill Week, Barb Ridley sat in the committee hearing and Taylor supportive her, and Katrina behind them to provide support, and provided testimony and answered questions for almost two hours on coercive behaviour. And they kept coming back to The Salvation Army because of our experience, because of our influence, and I believe because of two years of having relationship building and conversations. And sitting in the room were two MPs who had attended our reception, had a meeting with us, attended our leadership dinner, as well as had lunch with executive leadership. And it all came together, all the pieces at once. 

Kristin Ostensen

Amazing.

Rick Zelinsky

That’s how public affairs works. We do all the work, we do the research, we partner with the front line, and we bring our voice, asking the government that when they are looking at coercive behaviour, that they engage in educational programs for women to help them understand they're not alone. If they flee gender-based violence, there is support with places like The Salvation Army and other places. And that was probably the crowning moment, for it to happen on the Thursday. And it was a really God thing because it was about all the pieces worked when they were supposed to, and we had five days to do it, which is incredible. Usually, you get called to a public hearing, you're told, we need your response by the end of day tomorrow, and you'll speak the end of day two days later. And so you're writing, you're sitting there writing your notes, scribbling them, you know, or speaking into your phone as you're driving so that you don't forget what you want to say at the meeting. So, it was a really great opportunity. And the end of the day, why was it successful? Why do people come back to The Salvation Army to ask those questions? Because we're not talking about how great the Salvation Army is. We're talking about the desperate situation that our people find themselves in, and we want the government to understand that and to help us help them.

Kristin Ostensen

Brilliant. No, thank you so much. This has been really, really fascinating and love the behind the scenes look at both the Hill Week and the work that you're doing more broadly. So, I just want to thank you again so much for your time. And just pray God's blessing on all the amazing work you and your team are doing.

Rick Zelinsky

That's terrific. Thanks, Kristin. And, yeah, it's really great to be able to participate in the podcast. It's really nice to see you and great to share with you this morning. 

Kristin Ostensen

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Salvationist podcast. For more episodes, visit Salvationist.ca/podcast.