Alberta

Now that we’ve passed the halfway point of the year, it’s a good time to check out some of the trends reported on in Bearing the Brunt, CPJ’s study of the recession and poverty. How is that recovery coming along?

Statistics reveal a mixed bag – some improving trends, and some discouraging ones. Overall, the picture is less robust than headlines about economic recovery would suggest. GDP may be growing steadily, but recovery has yet to trickle down to those who suffered most from the recession – the poor, economically vulnerable and unemployed. Read more »

The 2008-2009 recession hit Alberta very hard, creating poverty and economic insecurity for Alberta’s families. Proportionally, Alberta lost the more jobs than any other province as unemployment shot up. Employment Insurance coverage was very low, forcing many Albertans to turn to social assistance. Low income Albertans had to stretch their dollars further as food costs increased far more than core inflation. The effects of the recession on Alberta can be seen in the skyrocketing number of bankruptcies and the largest increase in food bank use of all Canadian provinces.

Standard measures of poverty are published with a two year lag time. But while we need to wait until 2011 to see the recession’s effect on those measures, new research by Citizens for Public Justice, with funding from World Vision Canada, already reveals the impact of the recession on key economic indicators and poverty trends. Read more »

This week, from May 28-31, over 1,500 representatives from municipalities across Canada will convene in Toronto for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) annual conference.

Earlier in 2010, Calgary City Council put forth a motion that the FCM endorse Dignity for All – The Campaign for a Poverty-Free Canada. This week, representatives from across the country will be able to vote on the motion. Read more »

As promised, here are the slides from my presentation at the BIEN conference on Montreal. Read more »

On Friday, Statistics Canada announced that 108,700 jobs were created in April 2010. Newspapers were almost breathless in their rush to declare this as good news for the economy and a sure sign that our recovery is stronger than anyone anticipated, complete with the requisite quotes about stimulus being unnecessary and speculation about interest rate hikes.

What I didn’t see, however, was any coverage that went beyond the headline. Yes, 108,700 new jobs are good news. But Friday’s report also contained some troubling details. Read more »

On Tuesday Food Banks Canada released their annual report, Hungercount 2009, on food bank usage across the country. The report revealed that almost 800,000 individuals used a food bank during March 2009. This is an increase of 18% from March 2008, the biggest year-by-year national increase (by almost 10%) ever recorded by Food Banks Canada!

For over a decade, Food Banks Canada has been keeping track of the number of people using food banks during one month out of every year. Numbers of food bank use peaked in 2004 with over 840,000 people served, but since then usage has been gradually declining- that is until this year. Read more »

Yesterday, the government of Alberta released a ground-breaking new plan that aims to end homelessness in the province over the next ten years.The Alberta Secretariat for Action on Homelessness has created a Plan for Alberta with the objective of ending homelessness by 2019. Read more »