October, 2008

Canwest has a story today reporting comments by Preston Manning that climate change is too important to be politicized by partisan debate. He argues that nobody wants to destroy the environment or to destroy the economy, so arguments that portray opponents as wanting to do that are simplistic and unhelpful. Read more »

Prime Minister Stephen Harper named his new 38-member Cabinet this morning. This new Cabinet is larger and contains more women than the previous Cabinet; it also contains a younger roster of Ministers, many in their 30s or early 40s. Diane Finley, MP for Haldimand-Norfolk was named Minister for Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Read more »

On October 27, 2008, the Growing Gap project of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released Ready for Leadership: Canadians’ perceptions of poverty. This report, written by Trish Hennessy and Armine Yalnizyan, reflects on national polling data collected by Environics Research this fall and provides some encouraging news regarding the Canadian public's readiness for government action on poverty.  Read more »

This week’s web feature deconstructs some of the assumptions that underlie concerns about guaranteed livable income (GLI) and work disincentive. There is another good reason for not being scared off of GLI by work disincentive though – research demonstrates that the impact is actually rather small. Read more »

The National Post had two excellent and thought-provoking articles on the environment this weekend. Read more »

Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak with a number of journalists about CPJ’s poverty work. Despite the short time frame, the context of each of these conversations was unique: the federal election campaign, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, and, most recently, the release of the OECD report, “Growing Unequal.” The question that comes up again and again is: why is poverty an issue in Canada? Read more »

CPJ supporter Harold Jansen has a post on his blog about the recent election results and why they mean Canada's electoral system should be replaced.  Read more »

Because the environment and poverty did not seem to be “ballot questions” in last week’s election, there is a risk that political parties will view that as evidence Canadians are not concerned about these big issues and will not vote for political parties on the basis of these issues. Understanding the reactions of Canadian voters to these is thus important to understanding how to address them in the future. Here's my list of suggested reasons why poverty and the environment weren't big issues in this election. Read more »

Because so few seats changed hands last week Tuesday, it is tempting to believe that this past election didn’t mean anything: that we are exactly where we were before the election took place. However, I think there were two big issues that suggest this election will have major implications for the future of Canadian politics: the low voter turnout, and the minor role given to issues like the environment and poverty in the election campaign. Read more »

In this week’s web feature, Jordan Stellingwerff asks the question: how can we measure poverty in Canada? Reading his feature made me think more closely about the perceptions that exist about poverty in Canada. Read more »

Last Friday and Saturday I was in Ancaster and Oakville for a couple of events. Here are the highlights of my trip, including Redeemer University College, John Knox Christian School in Oakville, and the Day of Encouragement in Ancaster. Read more »

As CPJ’s new policy intern, it has been fascinating experience to have had an election campaign held during the first two months of my internship. Over the last six weeks, we have sent election Ola!s out on a weekly basis, written articles on a variety of public justice issues, and held many discussions at the office about campaign platforms and policies. Read more »

Like many Canadians, I have spent a lot of time over the last five weeks following the election. Somewhere along the line, I allowed myself to hope that today, we’d be heading towards a better Canada. Read more »

CPJ will be across the country this weekend. I’m heading down to Southern Ontario tomorrow for two days in the Hamilton and Ancaster area. Karri will be speaking here in Ottawa on Friday.  Trixie Ling is doing a workshop on affordable housing in Vancouver on Saturday.  And Joe is speaking on ecology and justice in Edmonton on Monday.  If you’re in one of these areas, please check us out! Read more »

Sometimes when reading really disparate books at the same time, I nonetheless find a common theme in what I’m reading. I had this experience recently reading A Persistent Peace by Father John Dear and Economics for Everyone by Jim Stanford. Read more »

Joining a public policy organization in the middle of an election campaign has offered me a unique and exciting experience. I've had the chance to work with several CPJ partners, to exchange information with other organizations engaged in the fight against poverty in Canada, and to meet some of the members of supporters of CPJ. Read more »

It’s been a long time coming, but after months of hard work, CPJ launched its new website and advocacy toolkit yesterday evening. There were a few moments when I thought this day would never come, but with the dedication of our communications team, it came through without a hitch! Read more »