Samaritan's Purse - a process solves the problem

The Real Question Isn't Samaritan's Purse. It's Whether Anyone Vetted Them.

Ottawa is once again cleaning up after flooding, and once again a familiar disaster relief organization has shown up to help: Samaritan's Purse, the evangelical Christian charity that has assisted with cleanup in this city after nearly every major flood or storm since 2017. 

This week, two local politicians — Somerset Councillor Ariel Troster and Ottawa Centre MPP Catherine McKenney — publicly raised concerns about the organization's presence, citing its documented history in the United States of excluding queer volunteers and requiring a "statement of faith" from participants in past disaster response work.

Samaritan's Purse pushed back, calling the concerns a "non-issue" and stating there is "no discrimination whatsoever" in its current Ottawa operations.

The reaction to this exchange, predictably, split into camps. One side hears "don't let them help." The other hears "how dare you turn away free labour when people's basements are full of sewage." Both reactions are understandable. Both are also, I'd argue, missing the more useful question.

Nobody's Being Cancelled Here

Samaritan's Purse is on the ground in Ottawa, doing cleanup work, right now. 

Nobody blocked them. Two elected officials asked pointed public questions about an organization's track record and the city's judgment in bringing them in. That's scrutiny, not cancellation — and conflating the two lets everyone skip past the actual gap in this story.

The Question Nobody's Asked Publicly: Was There a Written Agreement?

Cities that bring in outside relief organizations during declared emergencies typically do so through some kind of memorandum of understanding — a document that spells out scope of work, conduct expectations, and often explicit non-discrimination terms. 

That's not an unusual or onerous ask. It's standard practice in disaster response partnerships, faith-based and secular alike, precisely because it protects both the city and the organization from exactly this kind of dispute.

So the question worth putting to the City of Ottawa isn't "should Samaritan's Purse be allowed to help flood victims." It's:

• Did the city require a written agreement before inviting Samaritan's Purse to operate under its emergency response umbrella?
• Does that agreement — if one exists — include a non-discrimination clause covering both who gets served and who can volunteer?
• Does it address whether religious content, statements of faith, or "spiritual care" components (Samaritan's Purse's Canadian operations are explicitly linked with Billy Graham Evangelistic Association chaplains) are opt-in only, and clearly separated from the cleanup work itself?
• Is there any complaint mechanism if a resident feels a line was crossed in their own home?
• Who, specifically, made the call to bring this organization in, and was that decision made with council awareness or without it?

A Samaritan's Purse spokesperson told CBC the organization doesn't currently require volunteers to sign a statement of faith — but declined to say whether that applies to managers. That's not a resolved answer. That's an ambiguity a written clause exists specifically to close.

Why This Framing Matters More Than the Culture War Version

If the answer is "yes, there's a written MOU with clear terms," then the concerns raised by Troster and McKenney are addressed by process, not by public argument — and residents can be told, concretely, what protections exist. 

If the answer is "no, the city just said yes because the organization has capacity and has helped before," then that's a real gap, and it's one that will resurface the next time Ottawa floods, regardless of which organization shows up.

Either way, the answer is knowable. It's not a matter of opinion about faith-based charities or queer rights in the abstract — it's a matter of public record that the city can produce or fail to produce.

That's the accountability test that actually matters here: not whether residents personally approve of Samaritan's Purse, but whether the city has a documented, consistent standard for who it invites into people's flooded homes on its behalf — and whether that standard gets applied before the disaster relief unit rolls into town, not debated on social media after it's already there.

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Have information on whether the City of Ottawa has a formal partnership agreement with Samaritan's Purse for this response? I'd welcome it — this piece will be updated if that documentation surfaces.