Now that Canadians have had nine months to tell Ottawa what they want to see in a national poverty reduction strategy, people like Mary Boyd are hoping to increase pressure on the Liberal government to fulfill its 2015 campaign promise to set targets and measure progress on poverty nationwide.
Budget 2018 should focus on personal well-being, social cohesion and a healthy environment, and not just on productivity. Productivity and competitiveness matter. They are important economic indicators and key to the success of private sector business. But they make up only a portion of who we are as citizens. And focusing the budget discussion narrowly…
“I think there’s been a thin gruel of achievements in 2017 so far,” said Joe Gunn, executive director of Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ), a Christian social justice think tank. “On the issues that we are concerned with, we would have hoped for a little more movement forward.” Gunn pointed out much of the infrastructure spending is…
Elder Josephine Mandamin, an Anishinabek initiator of the “Mother Earth Walks,” takes the responsibility to care for water very, very seriously. Now moving about slowly herself, with the aid of a walker, she once lead Water Walks around the five Great Lakes, and even covered the length of the St. Lawrence River on foot. She believes that women, as life-givers,…
Ending poverty in Canada – just thinking of it can be overwhelming. Where do you start to find solutions to the range of problems that need to be addressed? It’s not easy. There are economic, social, and, of course, policy considerations. But when you think about the people living each day weighed down by the…
Have you ever planned a party, but worried that nobody would come? In February, the Liberal government launched consultations with Canadians on what should be included in the country’s first-ever poverty reduction strategy. Similarly, the Minister launched a “national conversation” at the end of June 2016 — but on the specific and more limited topic…
I recently heard the story – as told by the Anglican National Indigenous Bishop, Mark MacDonald – of a Lakota elder, who, upon hearing a proposal to develop a list of “green” scripture passages, replied, “But isn’t the whole Bible about caring for creation?” This perspective, one that sees environmentalism at the heart of Christian action,…
Even as the Ontario government moved to enact new labour laws and increase the minimum wage to $15, experts agree there is no quick fix to protecting workers from the threat of poverty. “When we look at poverty statistics, there are an awful lot of people who are working and are living below the poverty line,” said…
Imagine that you are a member of a church that was so moved by the refugee crisis in Syria that you decided to sponsor a Syrian family. Imagine further that the family you sponsored was not among the first 25,000 to come to Canada after the Liberal government won a majority mandate, and that family…
“The prairie landscape,” Trevor Herriot says, “has become one of the most altered on the planet.” Herriot is a Canadian writer, naturalist and activist whose new book, Towards a Prairie Atonement, laments how early settlers mistreated not only Indigenous peoples but also the land. He spoke in Ottawa last month at an event hosted by…