FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ottawa, ON: October 17, 2013 — On October 17, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, food bank volunteers will walk away from their lunch lines to serve up food for thought on street corners in major cities across the country. They are asking everyday Canadians to re-consider food charity as the solution to hunger and are calling for a federal plan to address poverty.
Impromptu lunch lines will be popping up from Whitehorse to Halifax from noon until 1 p.m.—including sites at Parliament Hill in Ottawa and at Bay and King Street in Toronto’s financial district. But instead of handing out free lunch, volunteers are brown bagging a call to action for the Prime Minister. They want him to take a proactive approach to eradicating poverty and hunger for the 882,000 people who resort to food banks each month and millions of others struggling to get by. Chew on This! volunteers are joining the thousands who have endorsed Dignity for All: The Campaign for a Poverty Free Canada.
Toronto Chew on This! participant Yvonne Kelly is a coordinator of the Freedom 90 Union, a spirited group of long-time food bank volunteers who are fighting to hang up their aprons by age 90.
“I grew up in Saskatchewan where a family earning a moderate income didn’t have to have both parents working multiple jobs to make ends meet,” she says. “I am completely uncomfortable living in a world where the food banks have become accepted and entrenched as the grocery stores for the poor.”
Food banks were launched in the early 1980s as a temporary solution to hunger but were never meant as a permanent measure.
“Hunger in Canada is now clearly more than a food issue: it’s about the general cost of living in light of insufficient incomes and social supports,” says Leilani Farha, Executive Director of Canada Without Poverty. “We’re never going to solve hunger and poverty in Canada through charitable acts like food donations – we need federal leadership and an action plan.”
A national poverty action plan is the main recommendation in “Poverty Trends Highlights: Canada 2013,” a report by Citizens for Public Justice.
“The statistics show that when the federal government makes it a priority, poverty can be reduced,” says Executive Director Joe Gunn. “We need a comprehensive poverty plan. The House of Commons has called for one, the Senate has called for one, and the United Nations has called for one, but we haven’t seen any action.”
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 10,000 individuals and 600 local and national organizations calling for a comprehensive federal plan to eliminate poverty.
Media contacts:
Megan Yarema
megan@cwp-csp.ca
Simon Lewchuk
simon@cpj.ca
