Montreal is taxing churches (2017)
Churches get a bad rap these days, for many reasons. I want to take a minute to defend them. Right away, I want to say that I am not defending religion-driven bigotry, nor megachurches, nor abuse.I don't know about Canada, but in the U.S. churches are still where communities meet, where people connect with the spiritual world, and also the ones doing most of the "heavy lifting" on any kind of charity activity.They are also generally nice and reasonably centrist-progressive, meaning treating everyone respectfully, nor expecting you to sit through a sermon like the old days. (I heard of one place where this may have been the case, but never saw it myself.)Food Not Bombs might have a weekly freegan cookout, but most of the e.g. feeding people, distributing donated clothes, counseling without having to do paperwork first, food banks, and so on, are done by churches, or church-like organizations, or by people who met at church. There are some exceptions, like in Western Mass and a few places in the Catskills.Source: Traveled around the U.S. with no base income. I don't go out of my way to take advantage of these things, but I'll go if a friend is going.