By Rebekah Sears | Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 - 1:56PM
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Check out the photos from the Dish on Dignity, an event hosted by Citizens for Public Justice,Canada Without Poverty and the Dignity for All Campaign. The Dish on Dignity brought together parliamentarians, social justice advocates and low income folks for a conversation about the reality of poverty in Canada and ways to eliminate it. Read more »
It can be easy to get discouraged. We’re being governed by a precarious minority parliament, the economy is still in the tank, and despite a 20-year-old commitment to change, almost one child out of every 10 still lives in poverty in Canada today. All that, and the short, dark days of winter are upon us.
Still, there are reasons to be hopeful. Over the last few weeks we have witnessed a steady stream of small successes that encourage the belief that change is possible. Read more »
By Rebekah Sears | Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 - 9:00AM
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The gap between the rich and poor is a growing problem in Canada. It affects the general well-being of Canadians and especially that of more vulnerable groups in our society, including children.
Ed Broadbent, former leader of the NDP (1975-1989) and long time MP (over 20 years) is challenging Canadians to work towards narrowing this gap. While involved in politics, Broadbent constantly advocated for causes such as this in the House of Commons, gaining much admiration from supporters across the political spectrum.
Since his resignation a few years ago he has continued to speak out about issues of poverty and social justice. Speaking at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton on October 19, Broadbent outlined some of his proposals for narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor. Read more »
By Chandra Pasma | Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 - 2:49PM
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Last week I attended a conference sponsored by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, “Till Elections Do Us Part: What Makes a Coalition Government Work?” The event brought European and Canadian scholars and members of parliament together in a dialogue about creating and maintaining coalition governments, including lessons learned from Canada’s pre-Christmas experiment with a coalition.
The dialogue was extremely informative, and the comparative insights provided a lot of food for thought. It was particularly useful to view Canada’s system through outside eyes, and German journalist Gerd Braune provided a wakeup call to Canadians that while we smugly view our system as the best in the world, seen from another perspective our system is rather dysfunctional! Read more »
By Mariel Angus | Friday, March 6th, 2009 - 4:06PM
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This past Tuesday March 3, I had the opportunity to meet with Paul Dewar, the NDP Member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, to discuss CPJ’s recent work on advocating for poverty reduction in Canada. On Tuesday afternoon, Executive Director Joe Gunn and I walked the few chilly blocks from the CPJ office to meet with Dewar on Parliament Hill. Read more »
The last two weeks have presented a number of interesting opportunities for CPJ staff members to connect with and dialogue with federal members of parliament about the need to address poverty in Canada. Read more »
CPJ’s policy staff met with MPs across the political spectrum about poverty reduction strategies in January 2008, and it was clear from each MP we talked to that without genuine policy commitments, poverty levels in Canada won’t be impacted. In this article, CPJ policy analyst Chandra Pasma goes into detail about these meetings, describing various policy initiatives and strategies that could reduce poverty across Canada. Read more »
The saying that “where there is a will, there is a way” rings true in the fight against poverty in Canada: it requires political will. The momentum is building, and poverty is on the political agenda. The challenge now is for the government to find the political will to put an anti-poverty plan into action and create policies that will do justice for the poor. Read more »
The saying that “where there is a will, there is a way” rings true in the fight against poverty in Canada: it requires political will. The momentum is building, and poverty is on the political agenda. The challenge now is for the government to find the political will to put an anti-poverty plan into action and create policies that will do justice for the poor. 
