Toronto is a town where it’s not unusual for activists who fight for therights of the homeless to be roughed up by the police and vilified by themedia. But when Hannah Taylor, a nine-year-old from Winnipeg who started acharity for homeless people, showed up, she was the toast of the town. TheEmpire Club, where the city’s movers and shakers go to eat rubber chickenand listen to big names talk, invited her to speak a couple of weeks ago andby all accounts she was a big hit.

A little girl in braids who had to stand on a box so the audience could seeher face above the podium — it was all so picture-perfect cute. And thenthere was her message, a little homily about why you should be kind tohomeless people. “If they’re cold, share your mitts. If they’re sad, givethem a smile. If they’re hungry, give them a sandwich.” When she was donethere wasn’t a dry eye in the house. One top exec blubbered to a reporter:“Who says bankers don’t cry?”

All this sugar and spice leaves a bad taste in the mouth. If this weren’t achild talking, the sentiments expressed would be laughably banal. But thatseems to be the point — a kid’s sincerity being manipulated for a cynicalpurpose.

Take the front-page picture the Toronto Star ran of her: it has her posingas a homeless waif, clutching her teddy bear and crouching down against astone wall on the city’s mean streets. In fact, Taylor is from an uppermiddle-class family: her father is a lawyer, she goes to a private schooland the family usually stays at the decidedly un-cheap Four Seasons Hotel ontrips to Toronto.

No doubt the Star was looking for a catchy shot toillustrate its story, but there is something repugnant, even obscene, inthis play-acting at being homeless: it makes the real homeless invisible — just what official society constantly does — and instead substitutes theface of a pretty little girl. It’s hard not to see this as a form of childabuse.

A visit to the website of Taylor’s charity, the Ladybug Foundation, leavesthe same sort of impression. You are immediately struck by how wellconnected she is. There are shots of her with political heavyweights likeher “friend” Paul Martin and Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz.

The charity’s boardreads like a Who’s Who of the Winnipeg élite: Gail Asper of the CanWestGlobal fortune, Hartley Richardson of the Richardson family fortune (who isalso a director of Dupont Canada, the Royal Bank and Richland Petroleum), aRoyal Bank vice-president, a partner with PriceWaterhouse Coopers, long-timeLiberal cabinet minister (and now president of the University of Winnipeg)Lloyd Axworthy, to say nothing of the Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor who actsas the charity’s official patron.

It’s interesting that with this high-powered support, all the charity hasraised in four years is $200,000, which is little more than chump change forthis crowd. But in the exalted realm of the corporate élite, philanthropy istypically viewed as an investment, a way of marketing one’s personal image.In that sense it’s not so different from what aristocrats used to do in theMiddle Ages when they’d pay to have their faces painted in alongside theVirgin Mary or some saint, although nowadays an angel-faced child takes theplace of an icon and you can get a halo at bargain-basement prices.

Of course these “leading Canadians” — as they style themselves in astatement on the website — claim to have only the noblest intentions. They“embrace and understand Hannah’s passion, and have wholeheartedly offeredtheir talents to Hannah’s mission.” Heaven forbid that anyone should raiseawkward questions, say about how all these bankers and businessmen profit — often in the most direct way through real estate — from the very system thatperpetuates homelessness.

Or about how politicians like Martin have savagedthe social safety net while Axworthy oversaw the gutting of unemploymentinsurance — decisions which produced the largest spike in homelessness ever.In the warm glow of a child’s innocent smile all such questions melt away.

And that seems to be very much the key to Hannah’s “mission” — putting a“happy face” on homelessness. The web site is full of the sort of“feel-good” rhetoric of her Empire Club speech, and she states quite openlythat one of her goals is “to teach people that homelessness is not sad ifyou help.”

It’s a message sure to please corporate crowds like the CanadianReal Estate Association, where Hannah spoke a week before the Empire Clubdate. (The realtors were feeling so little sadness that two days after herspeech they issued an upbeat press release titled “Housing Affordable for Most Canadians.” The word homelessness doesn’t appear once.)

The way to get rid of the homeless blues is to “make change” — which you doby putting spare change into charity boxes painted with Hannah’s ladybugmotif. There’s even a picture of Hannah and the Winnipeg mayor decked out in“Make Change” t-shirts. If you were deliberately trying to parody socialactivism, you’d have a hard time doing better: making social change isliterally reduced to small change. Needless to say, this is anothersure-fire corporate crowd pleaser.

And finally there is the “Big Bosses” lunch. The website explains: “EveryMay Hannah invites ‘Big Bosses’ for lunch. Although this event is invitationonly, it is the one opportunity Hannah has each year to educate some ofCanada’s top business executives about the homeless. Hannah has selected thetheme ‘Big Bosses Rock’ for this major fundraising event this year.”

Big Bosses Rock — what a perfect combination of childish naiveté and adultshamelessness.

The homeless don’t need charity, they need social justice. The kindness ofchildren like Hannah is being manipulated to hide that fundamental truth.And that truly is an obscenity.