I partook (an entry on my list of favourite whimsical words) in a community turkey dinner last Sunday, not far from my home. The dinner event has become a holiday tradition for the “Forties” community that is well-supported by local residents and beyond. This small community pulls together, most of whom don their aprons to dish out delicious meals, feeding more than a thousand over the two-day offering. I looked around the community hall at the grey-haired participants who work tirelessly to remind us of the positive benefit of community, their big fund-raiser that allows them to do good work within their community the rest of the year. And … it got me thinking.
We can’t help but think of poverty this time of year and its growing concern, an ever-increasing number of families struggling to make ends meet, turning to food banks, losing homes, unable to find affordable accommodations, while the big grocery chains are seeing unprecedented profits. And for a reason I can’t explain, I stumbled upon the writing of Matthew Desmond, whom I had never heard of previously. Not all of life is random; sometimes a message is meant to find us. We like to call it coincidence.
Matthew Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University and a Pulitzer-prize winning writer for Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City published in 2016. He has since written Poverty, by America, published in 2023 and another must read. With his writing, Desmond asks the question of why there is so much poverty in a country as rich as the United States. We can ask ourselves the same question. Desmond is convinced and provides proof that we “not only allow [poverty] but also are complicit in its creation”. Desmond goes on to say that a lot of people benefit from the poverty of others. We exploit and segregate the poor, but a solution is easily within our grasp, he tells us. We have a habit of looking at the failures of government to the south of us, smugly thinking “not in Canada”. Though Desmond is speaking of the issue in terms of the United States, it differs little from other nations and our Canadian story of poverty is as concerning.
Statistics Canada tells us that with figures from the survey of the years 2017 to 2021, 7.4% of the population lives below the poverty line. Other sources tell us that number is higher. We know from the multitude of studies and statistics that the cost of poverty is greater than the cost of solving poverty, yet our focus wanders, our voice of outrage quiets, and our demands of government soften. Canada ranks in the bottom third of industrialized countries in terms of child poverty. Our children are our greatest resource, yet we seem more concerned with new roads than we do with education and programs to lift children out of poverty, to ensure the cycle stops. We know that poverty begets poverty; that is a given.
Jim Silver, a professor of Urban and Inner-City Studies at the University of Winnipeg, has for more than three decades written extensively on poverty in Canada and the issues related to poverty. He has authored and/or edited eighteen books, including Solving Poverty published in 2016, as well as journals and chapters focussing on how to get it right. He has lived a life of advocating for social justice and addressing poverty and its solutions. He has created and continues to encourage public discussion on the matters of poverty and is part of the process to create change, to build on creative solutions, not Band-Aids, but policy that will help eradicate poverty and its detrimental effects on society that touches all our lives, even in our blind unawareness.
This time of year, we drop coins and small denominations of paper money into the Salvation Army kettles. We participate in toy drives and food drives. We say yes to the request at the check-out of various stores who promise to divert our meager donation to those in need. Is it enough? Are we listening to those who tell us how we can do better? No child should go hungry. Every child should have shelter and opportunity.
wendistewart@live.ca
