poverty

An idea that would fundamentally change the way governments provide income support has received renewed attention in Canada and around the world. The idea: replace the current complex tangle of government income support programs with a single cash transfer to individuals or families.

After several months of labour activists putting pressure on the Ontario government to increase the provincial minimum wage, Premier Kathleen Wynne finally succumbed and announced that she will increase it to $11 per hour from the current $10.25 rate.

Any time of year is a good time to discuss poverty but the subject has obvious resonance at Christmas. Thus, unsurprisingly, Pope Francis recently wrote about the necessity of compassion for those on the margins.

In Evangelii Gaudium, the Pontiff covers much ground. He urges deliberate, thoughtful action for the world's poor and warns against the folly of loving money and worshipping consumer goods. These are calls with which no thinking, compassionate person should disagree.

Every year around this time there’s a flurry of studies, reports and media stories about the state of poverty in Canada, especially child poverty. We are told that as many as one-seventh of Canada's kids live in poverty. And the accompanying descriptions of the predicament of those children paint a picture of hunger and of serious deprivation.