Dignity for All hosts over 80 events in every province and territory
FOR IMMIEDIATE RELEASE
Ottawa, ON, October 17, 2017 — Today is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, and Chew On This! events are being held by over 80 groups in more than 30 cities and towns across the country – from Vancouver to St. John’s to Yellowknife. Volunteers will be handing out 22,000 campaign postcards calling for a national anti-poverty plan that is based in human rights and fully-funded in Budget 2018.
In communities across Canada. volunteers are calling attention to the shocking rate of poverty and food insecurity in Canada. Chew On This! is organized by the Dignity for All campaign, co-led by Canada Without Poverty (CWP) and Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ).
Over 850,000 people in Canada visit the food bank each month. One in eight families struggle daily to put food on the table. Two out of every five Northern households are food insecure. 4.8 million people in Canada live in poverty.
Media Availability:
Where: Parliament building, Main entrance under the Peace Tower
Who: Members of Parliament; Senators; CPJ Executive Director Joe Gunn; and CWP Directors Leilani Farha and Harriett McLachlan
When: Tuesday, October 17th, 2017 at 12:00pm.
“According to Poverty Trends 2017, CPJ’s annual poverty report, the national poverty rate has barely moved over the past decade.” said Joe Gunn, Executive Director of CPJ. “With a host of provincial and municipal poverty plans already in place across Canada, too many Canadians are still slipping through the cracks. It’s time for a strong, accountable national anti-poverty plan focused on the dignity of all people living in Canada.”
“Poverty is a violation of human rights, and Canada is obliged to address it,” said Leilani Farha, Executive Director of CWP. “A rights-based strategy would be the first step towards the necessary federal leadership to successfully end poverty in Canada.”
Since it launched in 2009, the Dignity for All campaign has called for a national plan to address poverty. In 2015, the campaign released its model plan, Dignity for All – A National Anti-Poverty Plan for Canada, based on five years of consultation with 600 organizations and individuals across the country. The plan outlines six policy areas where the federal government can lead in to drastically reduce poverty: income security, housing and homelessness, food security, health, early childhood education and care, and jobs and employment.
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Contact:
Brad Wassink, Citizens for Public Justice, at 613-232-0275 x. 225 or brad@cpj.ca.
Laura Neidhart, Canada Without Poverty, at 613-986-7761 or laura@cwp-csp.ca.
Dignity for All: the campaign for a poverty-free Canada, headed by Canada Without Poverty and Citizens for Public Justice, is a multi-year, non-partisan campaign supported by over 11,000 individuals and 700 local and national organizations calling for a comprehensive federal plan to eliminate poverty.
ChewOnThis! is a national campaign to raise awareness of food insecurity, and call for the establishment of a national anti-poverty plan to address the systemic issues poverty in Canada. Thousands of Canadians are demanding the federal government establish a plan to eradicate poverty and hunger for the nearly 900,000 people in Canada who use food banks each month and for the millions of others struggling to get by. The United Nations has called for it, the Senate has called for it, and the House of Commons has called for it. It’s time for a plan.
Twitter: @DignityForAllCA & #ChewOnThis
