Beset by war, beleagured by poverty

from the CBC

Great analysis from the CBC here on Afghanistan. Canada still has many troops still in the country. Most of the write up is about politics, and that can be reached by the link below. - Kale

War, insecurity, poverty.

These are the hallmarks of life in today's Afghanistan. But they're also the dominant themes of the country's recent history despite billions of dollars in aid and military spending by Canada, the United States, Britain and other countries.

The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 toppled the repressive and unpopular Taliban regime that had given sanctuary to al-Qaeda.

Aerial bombing and soldiers' boots on the ground were part of another mission, though. They were supposed to secure the countryside so humanitarian work and economic development could take place.

So far, that hasn't happened, and statistics tell a grim story of problems that just won't go away.

Start with poverty. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178 countries on the Human Development Index, a ranking that mixes per capita income with public health statistics, crime rates and other indicators.

Out of every 1,000 babies born in Afghanistan, 142 die before reaching their first birthday. A woman dies in pregnancy every 30 minutes. Overall life expectancy is estimated at just under 42.5 years.

Afghans scrape by on about $1,000 per year. That's an average. More than half of the population earns less than $2 a day.

Most of those statistics are an improvement from 2002, but there's a long way to go. The task of reconstruction isn't made any easier by the persistence of violence and insecurity.
Hunger, malnutrition plague millions

While the per capita annual income of Afghans has gone up since 2002, nearly seven million people don't have enough food to meet minimum daily needs. That's about a quarter of the population.

The grim toll taken by malaria and tuberculosis has dropped considerably in the past six years, but Afghanistan is still beset by infectious and preventable diseases.

Perhaps most ominously of all, the opium trade has become far and away the most important economic activity in the country, worth more than $3 billion in 2007. That's about a third of the gross domestic product and a huge distortion of attempts to build a modern, legal, inclusive economy.

Part of the problem is geography.

Afghanistan is landlocked, bordered by Pakistan, Iran, China, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Only 12 per cent of its territory is arable land.

Almost all imports and exports must flow through neighbouring countries, and that leaves Afghans more vulnerable to regional geopolitics than many other countries.

Pakistan, for example, is far and away the largest trading partner, and its own challenges with poverty and instability frequently spill over into Afghan life.

Most Afghans feel that Pakistan's governments and shadowy military intelligence agencies take far too active a role in their country's affairs.
At the whims of history's empires

Throughout its history, Afghanistan has been subject to the whims of global and regional superpowers.

In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires jockeyed for control and influence over the fractious tribes between the Hindu Kush mountains and the Oxus River (now known as Amu Darya).

Neither were successful. In fact, Britain had to pull back from a disastrous attempt to install a new king on the Afghan throne in the 1840s, losing 15,000 soldiers to snipers and guerrilla attacks during its retreat from Kabul.

A 20th-century imperial force, the Soviet Union's Red Army, invaded in 1979 to prop up a faltering Communist regime and stem the influence of militant Islam on the mainly Muslim Soviet Central Asian republics along Afghanistan's borders.

That, too, failed spectacularly, although it took 10 years of brutal occupation and billions of dollars in aid, training and military support from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States for anti-Communist mujahedeen guerrillas to force Soviet troops to pull out in 1989.

That war gave rise to the world's worst refugee crisis; more than five million Afghans left their country, and half of them have yet to return.

It was also fertile ground for Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban movement.

Each emerged from the wreckage and devastation of a civil war among mujahedeen factions that refused to share power. Their fighting impoverished and isolated their country even more than the Soviet occupation.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

Working Below the Poverty Line in Canada

from The Tyee

A big pay raise for British Columbia officials put more attention to a widening income gap in Western Canada. - Kale

The recent steep pay hikes for B.C.'s senior bureaucrats triggered quite a controversy. Handing out raises in the 20 to 43 per cent range at the top end does seem a bit rich coming from a government that refuses to increase the minimum wage even by a few cents.

BC's minimum wage has been stuck at $8 per hour since 2001. That’s $16,640 a year.

Statistics Canada defines the "poverty line" (or low-income cut off) for a single person living in a major city in 2007 as $21,666 (before tax).

The stark contrast between the huge pay raises of top government bureaucrats and B.C.'s minimum wage illustrates the growing polarization of income in Canada. Over the past fifteen years, we have witnessed an increased concentration of income at the top, while wages and earnings have stagnated in the middle and fallen at the bottom.

A recent Statistics Canada report shows that while B.C. managers saw an average increase of 15 per cent in their hourly wages between 1997 and 2007, the proportion of jobs paying less than $10 per hour has barely budged.

Hourly wages remain stagnant

One would expect that years of low unemployment and strong economic growth would improve the economic well being of those at the lower tiers of the labour market. Wouldn't employers need to offer higher wages and better working conditions in order to attract and retain people in our tight labour market?

That's the conventional economic thinking, but it's not working out in practice. We only need to look to BC Stats' latest numbers to find out that in traditionally low paid occupations, such as trade and accommodation and food services, the average hourly wage rates have increased by a meagre 1 per cent between 1998 and 2007 (when inflation is taken into account).

As the labour market becomes less equal, the need for government action becomes more urgent. There are different policies that can help reduce inequality. A good starting point would be to increase the minimum wage to a level that ensures that no full-time, full-year worker lives in poverty.

B.C.'s minimum wage has been frozen at $8 for a staggering seven years. Taking inflation into account, it is worth 11 per cent less today than it was in 2001.

Back then, B.C. had the highest minimum wage in Canada. However, other provinces have since moved on. In fact, B.C. is the only Canadian province that did not increase its minimum wage this past spring. As a result, we have slipped down the rankings to having one of the lowest minimum wages of the country, on par with the Atlantic Provinces.

A number of provinces have committed to further increases over the next several years, including some of our fellow bottom-ranked provinces. For example, Newfoundland has announced plans to reach a $10 minimum wage by 2010.

$10 the limit for 300,000 B.C. workers

Critics claim that minimum wage policies have a limited effect because few people actually work for the minimum wage. It is true that only 4.6 per cent of B.C.'s paid employees earned minimum wage in 2006 according to BC Stats. However, a recent Statistics Canada study shows that more than 16 per cent of B.C. employees -- more than 300,000 people -- worked for less than $10 per hour in 2007. Increasing the minimum wage to $10 per hour would benefit this much larger group of workers who desperately need a raise.

That said, policy decisions are seldom clear-cut, and it is important to consider the potential problems with a minimum wage increase as well.

Some critics consider the minimum wage a "blunt instrument" to fight poverty, arguing that minimum wage workers are mainly teenagers or youth, many of whom are not poor because they live at home with their parents. Let's look at the numbers.

In 2006, BC Stats analysis reveals that the majority of minimum wage workers were indeed between the ages of 15 and 24, although a substantial minority of 42 per cent were 25 or older.

Similarly, among the much larger number of workers who earn less than $10 per hour, about 45 per cent were 25 or older (latest data is for 2003 and at the national level, but the figures for B.C. should be very similar).

Clearly, a large number of people are trying to live on and support their families on low wages and would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. Women and recent immigrants are disproportionately affected.

While increasing minimum wages might conceivably benefit some teenagers who are not technically poor, this is but a small price to pay for ensuring that those who are trying to support themselves through full-time, full-year work can escape poverty. Further, higher earnings for youth are not a bad thing, especially given the large hikes in BC post secondary tuition fees over the past decade.

Employers hurt by B.C.'s delay?

The main argument used to stifle calls for a minimum wage increases, however, is that it might cause low wage jobs to be cut because some employers would not be able to afford it.

While the research findings on this question are certainly not unanimous and individual studies can be endlessly cited on one side of the debate or the other, mainstream economists' opinion has shifted towards the conclusion that "modest increases" in minimum wages do not kill jobs. In fact, a joint statement issued in 2006 by over 650 US economists, including 5 Nobel laureates, stated that "a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed."

The key here is the size of the increase. Some studies point to negative employment effects, but when these studies are reviewed carefully, it turns out that modest job losses are found in response to fairly large increases in minimum wages.

Such sharp one-time hikes are only necessary if the government leaves minimum wages unchanged for long periods -- as B.C. has done.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

"Doctors need to help tackle poverty"

from the Peterborough Examiner

A new report by Ontario doctors, says they should take a more active role in identifying poverty. - Kale

Posted By FIONA ISAACSON

The report, by the Ontario Physicians Poverty Work Group outlines how poverty "substantially raises" the rate of chronic illness, infant mortality and lowers life expectancy.

Dr. Rosana Pellizzari, Peterborough County-City Health Unit's medical officer, is one of seven doctors in the poverty work group.

"Poverty in Ontario is a growing problem," Pellizzari told The Examiner.

"Ontario now has 50 per cent of Canada's poor children living here. We've seen an increase in our poverty rates."

The group outlines strategies for doctors to help identify poverty and help their patients reach services by working closely with community agencies.

Pellizzari said that could range from doctors encouraging patients to apply to the Ontario Disabilities Support Program or writing letters of support for affordable housing or rejecting income supplement applications.

"For many physicians this will be a new area," she said. "Many physicians aren't aware that their patients are living in poverty and so we've given them some tools, some sample questions, they can use to identify the patients that are facing poverty and that could benefit from their physician's support." In Peterborough, for example,

Pellizzari said, doctors could make health services more accessible to people living in poverty by going directly to shelters, or changing their hours.

"There are ways we can make our services more accessible to people who face low income," she said.

Click here to read more.

Critics: Province stalling on anti-poverty strategy

from The Chronicle Herald

By JOHN GILLIS

The provincial government is avoiding doing anything to end poverty in Nova Scotia by deliberating over a strategy due some time next year, anti-poverty activists said Monday.

Last week the ministers of community services and labour and workforce development received the draft report of a poverty reduction working group and promised to take its recommendations under consideration as they develop a plan.

Those recommendations included the creation of more affordable housing, a better minimum wage and social assistance rates and improved child care options, just like many reports that came before it, said Mark Wolf, a student with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service.

"At this stage, we don’t need more confirmation that those are the solutions," he said at Province House Monday. "We need the government to commit money and political will to reducing poverty in this province

The document itself cites 10 earlier studies on aspects of poverty, including seven produced in Nova Scotia since 2001. One was released by a coalition of community groups last October, just before the government struck its working groups.

Longtime housing activist Wayne MacNaughton said no one expects to see an end to poverty overnight but he’s run out of patience with people in power.

He said officials must have spent time figuring out the price tags for poverty reduction programs.

"If they haven’t been, what does that say about the competence of people in government?" Mr. MacNaughton said. "These solutions are not new. They’ve been out there and been proposed and proposed again for years. The government should be taking action on this stuff right away, not making us wait another whole year or more before they even come out with what their plan is."

The province hasn’t defined a clear poverty line for Nova Scotia or a target stating by how much it intends to reduce poverty over time.

"Poverty cannot be reduced in the abstract," Mr. Wolf said. "Indicators that provide an accurate measure of poverty have to be identified so that the government can know what is success and what is failure."

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

Food bank use increases

from The Toronto Star

Torontonians' useage of Daily Bread services up 7% from last year, according to program's 2008 report

by Emily Mathieu

Opal Sparks remembers when careful planning and a well-thought-out food budget was all it took to make sure families got enough to eat.

"I wasn't brought up on steak and lobster by any means," said Sparks, who was raised in Toronto but left the city in 1976.

When she returned in 2001, the number of people struggling to make ends meet – and still failing –was shocking. "It's appalling how my city has changed."

Sparks, in her 50s, is a poverty activist and has volunteered with the Daily Bread Food Bank. She is also a client. Sparks is on the Ontario Disability Support Program. She grows her own food to enjoy affordable access to healthy food but sometimes – no matter how careful she is with her budget – struggles to make ends meet.

Today the Daily Bread Food Bank will release the Who's Hungry Report for 2008. The report details food bank use in the GTA between April 2007 and March 2008.

According to the report, the number of people who were assisted through food bank services, sometimes multiple times, across the GTA within that time period was 952,883, or a 5 per cent increase from the previous year.

In Toronto the number of people served by food banks during that period was 799,315, up from 744,232, or an increase of 7 per cent from the previous year.

In the 905 region, the number of people accessing food banks dropped 5 per cent, from 161,311 in 2007 to 153,568 in 2008. The majority of the decrease was in York Region, which can primarily be attributed to a decrease in the number of food banks participating in data collection, according to the report.

Gail Nyberg, executive director of Daily Bread said the increase in the GTA is attributed to the opening of two new food banks in high-need areas, one in Etobicoke and one in Scarborough, during that period. In Toronto a boost in services for existing clients accounted for the increase. But overall there was still about a 2 per cent increase in food bank use across the GTA, she said.

"To see that once again food bank use is increasing is disturbing to me, keeping in mind we are looking at last year," she said.

The increased cost of housing continues to drive food bank use, said Nyberg. Food bank clients use an average of 77 per cent of their income on rent, up from 72 per cent in 2003. Individuals paying more than 50 per cent of their income on rent are considered at danger of becoming homeless, said Nyberg.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

Anti-poverty activist arrested at city hall

from The Toronto Star

John Spears
Paul Moloney

Police arrested an activist with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty this morning as he tried to enter Toronto City Hall to talk to Mayor David Miller.

Gaeten Heroux was detained when he tried to go into the building after being served with a notice of trespass by security staff.

The notice said Heroux was barred both from the building and from Nathan Phillips Square, where about two dozen anti-poverty activitists had gathered for breakfast in advance of a council meeting this morning.

Heroux spoke outside to reporters and demonstrators, saying he wanted to speak to Miller about the city's treatment of the homeless.

However, when he tried to enter city hall, he was handcuffed by Toronto police and taken to a police car.

Other demonstrators then entered the building, going to the mayor's office before making their way to the council chamber, where they demanded to be heard at a two-day meeting that was just getting underway at about 10:30 a.m.
Council speaker Sandra Bussin immediately recessed the meeting. Councillors filed out of the chamber, leaving it to the protestors.

Protester A. J. Withers claimed that police have been hassling homeless people.

"It’s shameful," Withers said. "People are suffering. You can do something today. You can tell the cops to stop harassing people on the street for being poor.”

“Bring in more beds,” she added. “You can do this today and you’re choosing not to.”

After security announced over the public address system that protesters risked removal or arrest, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty spokesperson John Clarke indicated that protestors would leave.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

Poverty seen through the eyes of the poor

from the Chronicle Journal

By PETER BURKOWSKI

For those viewing a new photo exhibit, seeing is understanding.

The display, “Poverty in Thunder Bay: This is Reality”, is a collection of “photovoice” pieces by seven Thunder Bay residents living in poverty.

Co-ordinated by the Thunder Bay Economic Justice Committee), it consists of 25 photographs with accompanying text, intended to show poverty from the perspective of those experiencing it.

“I just want people to realize that (poverty) is here, and that we have to do something about it,” event co-ordinator Karli Brotchie said Thursday.

The participants were issued disposable cameras and given roughly three months to submit between three and five images.

The display was inspired by a similar project undertaken previously by committee partner the Canadian Mental Health Association.

The subject matter of the photos varies from scenes of nature, to close-up still lifes, to shots of urban decay.

The results were surprising – even to those involved.

“I think a lot of these people coming into the project weren‘t aware that they had an artistic side,” said Brotchie, “and through this they realized they really do have some skill.”

One of the photovoice artists was Tracy Hurlbert.

“I took pictures of . . . hearing aid batteries and food, because often I have to choose between hearing and eating,” said Hurlbert.

She learned about the project through friends, and was immediately interested in helping to raise awareness about how poverty affects her and many others in the city.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

Reducing child poverty urged as health priority

from The Toronto Star

by Joanna Smith

Ottawa–Reducing child poverty will benefit the health of all Canadians, the country's chief public health officer recommended in his first annual report on the physical and mental well-being of the population.

"Every dollar spent in ensuring a healthy start in the early years will reduce the long-term costs associated with health care, addictions, crime, unemployment and welfare," Dr. David Butler-Jones wrote in his report on the state of public health in Canada.

Tabled on Wednesday by Conservative MP Steven Fletcher, parliamentary secretary for health, the report highlights the role economic, social and environmental factors play in physical and mental health.

"While some health challenges can be related to our genetic makeup, evidence shows that Canadians with adequate shelter, a safe and secure food supply, access to education, employment and sufficient income for basic needs, adopt healthier behaviours and have better health," Butler-Jones wrote in the introduction.

"I would argue that a society is only as healthy as the least healthy among us."

Reducing child poverty was one of his major recommendations for moving forward.

He said that to tackle child poverty, Canada should examine: income-redistribution policies; healthy early learning and childhood development and other levels of education; targeted interventions to support children in low-income families and "collective contributions" to alleviate child poverty.

The report also suggested adopting programs "with proven success in reducing child poverty rates."

It highlighted Pathways to Education – a support program for at-risk and disadvantaged youth in the Regent Park area of Toronto that reduced school dropout rates from 56 per cent to 10 per cent in that neighbourhood – as a program that should be adopted nationwide.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

Talking to community about poverty

from Inside Toronto

Series of meetings held locally as part of province-wide campaign
BY CLARK KIM

Three community consultations were held locally this week as part of a province-wide campaign to tackle poverty.

York South-Weston MPP Laura Albanese hosted the first two sessions on Monday, June 16 where local residents, social agency representatives and politicians attended to provide their input.

"The aim is to hear from everyone," said Albanese, noting a special cabinet committee on poverty reduction chaired by Deb Matthews, Ontario Minister of Children and Youth, has been formed to focus on this particular issue. "Minister Matthews and the committee will be travelling across the province to hear from a wide range of people and consult with them to figure out the best way to reduce poverty."

A public meeting was held Wednesday, June 18 at York Memorial Collegiate Institute - one of two community consultations taking place in Toronto with Matthews in attendance as well as representatives from various social organizations.

That meeting was closed to the media.

But about 35 people came out to the afternoon session on Monday, consisting mostly of members from local community groups including the Learning Enrichment Foundation, Macaulay Child Development Centre and Faith Sanctuary Church.

The attendees were divided into smaller focus groups and were asked to answer questions, which include:

* How can we improve opportunities for children living in poverty with existing resources?

* What new ideas could be incorporated into the existing supports that would increase opportunities for children living in poverty?

* What are the long-term goals for improving opportunity with respect to groups other than children?

* What measures will best show progress in improving opportunity for Ontarians living in poverty?

Peter Frampton, executive director of the Learning Enrichment Foundation, noted the province should assist local organizations that have been working with low-income families for many years.

"We know what works in the community. We actually have been quite good at moving people out of poverty but we could do quite more," said Frampton, asking the province to enhance the investments made into existing programs. "Fund what works and not necessarily what's new."

Some possible indicators to mark progress in reducing poverty suggested at the meeting included a 50 per cent reduction in the demand for food banks, increased family income level and higher employment rate.

Just looking at the employment rate could be misleading since people with two or three jobs would all be listed as employed, noted Weston resident Mike Sullivan.

More higher-quality jobs are needed with an increase in the minimum wage, Sullivan said.

Another concern is the government seems to be focused on how to use existing resources for its poverty reduction plan, added Sullivan, implying the province isn't prepared to spend more money.

Residents can still provide input online by visiting www.ontario.ca/GrowingStronger

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Click here to read more.

Toronto hears 'banker to poor'

from the Toronto Star

Need can happen here, Nobel Prize-winning microcredit messiah tells business people

by Rita Trichur

Muhammad Yunus doesn't talk like a typical banker. He believes that access to credit is a fundamental human right.

Nicknamed Bangladesh's "banker to the poor" for motivating a global microfinance movement, the Nobel Prize-winning economist told a Toronto business audience yesterday the financial system shuts out nearly two-thirds of the world's population, denying the poor both opportunity and dignity.

Poverty is often perceived as a dilemma of the developing world, Yunus said, but the problem is alive and well in North America.

"You'll be surprised how many people in Toronto do not qualify to do business with the banks," he said in a keynote address at the 2008 Top Employer Summit. "In the United States, a neighbouring country, there are millions of people who cannot open a bank account."

He told conference delegates "poverty is not created by poor people. It is created by the system." He challenged his audience to inspire "institutional change."

A bank for the poor is a hard sell in Canada's financial capital, especially at a time when big banks are bracing for more credit losses. Still, Yunus makes a strong business case for allowing people to borrow with dignity

He established the Grameen Bank, or village bank, about 25 years ago in Bangladesh with a mission to eradicate poverty through microlending to destitute craftspeople.

Grameen Bank now has 7.5 million borrowers, about 97 per cent of them impoverished women. The bank lends out about $1 billion each year in small loans to help stimulate the most basic entrepreneurial activities, such as processing rice, raising chickens or selling eggs. And even with no required collateral or default penalties, Grameen Bank boasts a repayment rate of more than 98 per cent.

"Conventional banks' principle is, the more you have, the more you can get," Yunus said.

"We reversed it. We said, the less you have, the more attractive you become. If you have absolutely nothing, you get the highest attention."

The Grameen Bank model has been successfully replicated in more than 100 countries.

In late April, Yunus officiated at the opening of the first branch of Grameen America in New York City.

Grameen America, which already has 225 borrowers, makes loans ranging between $500 (U.S.) and $3,500.

"We follow exactly the same thing we do in the village in Bangladesh," Yunus said. "In all these months, not a single weekly instalment has been missed."

He is now receiving inquiries from around the country, including from cities such as New Orleans, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Newark. He believes this proves the need for microcredit is great, even in the world's largest capitalist economy.

Nevertheless, Yunus continues to encounter skeptics.

"People said that maybe microcredit is good for Bangladesh, but in a rich country, another context, it will be difficult. We always say, 'It is not difficult. People are people. People need money.' "

Click here to read more.

MPP plans public round table on poverty

from the Guelph Mercury

Nicole Visschedyk

GUELPH

MPP Liz Sandals will hold a public forum at the end of June with the goal of tackling local poverty, and how the provincial government can be involved.

"We will have a round table so we can get input from interested organizations," Sandals said. "I will make sure the information gets back to the ministers' table."

George Kelly works with the Guelph-Wellington Coalition for Social Justice, which works to end poverty. Kelly said Guelph has some serious poverty issues. An increasing number of people can't pay for food and housing, he said.

"People have to be pretty desperate to use a food bank," he said.

Kelly thinks another big part of the problem is a lack of quality employment.

"We need ways to replace blue-collar jobs with green-economy jobs."

Sandals identified three main groups of people living in poverty who will be the focus of the forum.

People identified with some kind of disability, or who are on disability support, is the first group. The second is people on welfare or in welfare-to-work programs; people without jobs, "who we hope will eventually go back into the workforce," Sandals said.

The third group is the working poor -- people who have jobs but are still unable to meet their food and housing needs.

"From an Ontario government perspective, how do we set up a program that helps all three?" Sandals asked.

Kelly believes a key component is guaranteed income.

He hopes there will be discussion around a guaranteed wage for all Ontarians.

"We need an income floor of some kind so people aren't falling through the cracks," he said. "The city also needs more affordable housing so people don't have to spend more than 30 per cent of their money of a house."

Sandals said the annual influx of university students exacerbates the housing issue.

Children are often the first victims of poverty in the city and their concerns need to be front and centre during any discussion, she said.

"The support for children needs to be tied to the child and not to the reason for the low income," Sandals said.

Kelly agrees, and said the best way to find working solutions is through partnerships with the poor, who should be included in any policy discussion.

"We don't want to go in assuming we know what's best for people," he said.

For more information about the upcoming forum, contact Sandals's constituency office at 519-836-4190.

nvisschedyk@guelphmercury.com

if you're interested

The public forum is scheduled for late June. Anyone wanting more information should call MPP Liz Sandals's constituency office at 519-836-4190.

Click here to read more.

Fighting poverty, helping children at risk key to public heath care

from the Chronicle Herald

By JOHN GILLIS

Many of the problems that traditionally fall in the domain of public health have clear solutions, such as vaccinating people against diseases.

But as people in the field turn their attention to more fundamental problems, such as the roots of the poverty that puts many people at risk of poor health, they’ll need to collaborate to find more complex solutions, a renowned thinker and author said in Halifax on Wednesday.

"Don’t think that there’s a magic bullet to something like public health," Thomas Homer-Dixon of the University of Toronto’s Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies told an audience at the Canadian Public Health Association’s annual conference.

The conference has focused on how to reduce social, economic and other inequalities that predispose some parts of the population, such as aboriginals and women, to poorer health.

The best way to build the multi-faceted approaches that will have an impact on complex problems like poverty is not by gathering experts in a room but by having many people in different places and situations experimenting on their own, said Mr. Homer-Dixon, who has a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And that includes front-line workers dealing with everyday situations, he said, earning applause from the audience.

Their intuition and innovation is a form of evidence as valid as that of rigorous scientific studies, he said.

Mr. Homer-Dixon noted the failure of some of those efforts is an inevitable and fruitful part of problem solving.

"The more heads working on a problem, the better off we are," he said.

Nova Scotia’s public health system has moved in that direction in recent years, Dr. Robert Strang, the province’s chief public health officer, told the conference.

The SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003 focused attention on public health and sparked a renewal process that led to the creation of the provincial Department of Health Promotion and Protection.

Dr. Strang said the agency works as a system that transcends the traditional divisions of government departments and district health authorities.

"You have communities in the centre," he said. "And how do we organize around those communities to be most efficient and effective in addressing their health needs?"

A good example was the department’s involvement in the creation of a child and youth strategy for the province, he said. This was part of the response to the Nunn inquiry, held after the death of Halifax teaching assistant Theresa McEvoy three years ago in a crash involving a young offender in a stolen car.

Dr. Strang said the strategy aims to support children before they head in the wrong direction.

"How do we take prevention all the way back to early childhood and look at the total population of children and families and not just the ones who ultimately and up in trouble at age 10 in the youth justice system?" he said. "That’s been a fundamental shift in thinking across government."

Click here to read more.

Indigenous Canadians protest poverty

from AFP via Google



OTTAWA — Canada's indigenous people marched en masse Thursday to protest poverty in their communities, but much of the anger displayed in similar events last year appears to have dissipated.

Thousands demonstrated across Canada, chanting, dancing in the streets and beating traditional native drums, but the fires burning on rail lines and ramshackle buses parked across highways that blemished last year's protests were visibly absent this round.

"I don't think this year is going to be as it was last year," organizer and national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, told public broadcaster CBC, adding there would be "no violence" this year.

"This is really a day of reaching out to Canadians to educate and inform Canadians of the situation that our people find themselves in," he explained.

"Too many (indigenous) people live in impoverished conditions. Too many of our children are going to school hungry. Too many of our (schools) are in a terrible state of disrepair."

"We need to move urgently to deal with First Nations poverty."

Protestors again this year called on the government to beef up funding for native communities and education, as well as expedite settlement of some 1,100 unresolved aboriginal land claims now twisting slowly through the courts.

However, they were heartened by the recent promise of a government apology on June 11 for the segregated boarding schools blamed for the loss of native culture and misery over more than a century.

Starting in 1874, Indian, Inuit and Metis children in Canada were forcibly enrolled in boarding schools run by Christian churches on behalf of the federal government in a misguided effort to assimilate them.

The last such school closed in the 1990s.

Survivors alleged abuse by headmasters and teachers, who stripped them of their culture and language.

Such experiences have been blamed for the loss of indigenous family ties, gross poverty, and desperation in native communities that breeds abuse, suicide, crime, and civil disobedience.

In April, Canada appointed the nation's top indigenous jurist to head a probe of the abuses, decried by Fontaine as "one of the darkest chapters in Canada's history."

Click here to read more.

A hard look at poverty; Plan in works to help district's poorest

from the North Bay Nugget

Posted By Dave Dale

Surging inflation was the biggest story in Canada Wednesday at the same time a "comprehensive" plan was taking shape to help Nipissing District's poorest residents.

Longtime social activist Jim Sinclair said the time is ripe for positive news with growing fears it's going to get even harder to obtain basic needs as living costs rise.

"I've never seen a table like this with so many helping agencies gathered around and putting resources forward," Sinclair said, adding the provincial government in particular has committed to act on the issue.

A community briefing on poverty reduction in Nipissing District is scheduled May 30 at the North Bay Public Library's auditorium.

The agenda includes a statistical portrait of poverty, a summary of what people experience under those conditions and recommendations to turn things around.

"This opportunity is quite unique," Sinclair said, referring to the agencies joining forces against a common problem.

Health, education and business representatives are involved, as well as the full spectrum of social services programs, delivery agencies and groups needing the most help.

Sinclair, chairman of the working group, said Northern Ontario communities have a lower wage, higher costs of living and suffer more health problems than southern Ontario residents on average.

The recommendations coming out of the working group, he said, will be founded on the "most creative and responsible way the city and citizens can respond."

Income security, affordable housing, adequate food and educational opportunities top the list of challenges, as well as the waiting lists for all kinds of services such as eye glasses and baby programs.

Mayor Vic Fedeli said he won't be at the community briefing because the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is gathering in Quebec City to push the federal and provincial government for more affordable housing money.

Fedeli said 12 to 18 social housing units under construction beside Mother St. Bride Elementary School are the first of 118 units approved by the District of Nipissing Social Service Administration Board.

Other units will be built in Mattawa and East Ferris as well, he said, but none of it would happen if provincial and federal governments didn't agree to share costs with municipalities.

Click here to read more.

Big ride for microcredit

from Surrey Now

Ted Colley
Surrey Now

Surrey's Kamila Romanowski has made a major commitment to microcredit.

On May 31, the third-year SFU student will join 26 others on a 3,000-kilometre bike ride from Vancouver to Tijuana, Mexico to raise money for micro-loans to poverty-stricken people in other lands.

Thirty seconds into a phone interview, it became very evident Romanowski is at the very least, a bubbly personality. Or as she put it, "an eternal optimist."

"When you look at a map, Canada is on the top and Mexico is on the bottom, so technically, it's all downhill," she said with a laugh.

Romanowski said she was planning a bike trip to Mexico anyway when she came across the website of Global Agents For Change, a Vancouver-based non-profit dedicated to using microcredit to change the world.

Organizations like GAFC provide small loans to entrepreneurs in developing nations who don't qualify for financing through normal channels. Once repaid, the money goes back into the pot to be lent to someone else.

Each rider must raise $3,000 to cover the cost of the trip with the balance going into a loan fund.

"I didn't know anything about microcredit before, but it's a fantastic idea. I don't think people should have to depend on handouts. This gives people more dignity," Romanowski said.

Sonia Paul, another young Surrey resident, will also ride to Mexico.

Romanowski has been racking up two-wheel kilometres getting herself in shape for the journey. She said the drill will be 90 clicks a day with a rest day once a week. Is she ready?

"One way or another I'm going to Mexico."

The riders are scheduled to arrive in Tijuana on July 18. Romanowski plans to spend some time in Mexico before reluctantly returning home.

To learn more about the bike ride, microcredit and GAFC, take a look at http://globalafc.org.

Click here to read more.

Toronto's white underbelly

from the Globe and Mail

Globe reporter Kate Hammer, recently from New York City, asked a question almost no one else had thought to: Why, in a city that is nearly 50-per-cent visible minorities, are the homeless mainly white men? As she hunted for answers, she discovered the status quo is already shifting

KATE HAMMER

With reporting from Rick Cash

David White, 50

He's been homeless since his wife and daughter died in a car accident.

'Sometimes [living on the street] is better. You don't have to deal with people and you don't have to worry about people.'

Adam Matthew Mansillo, 29 He is a crack-addicted panhandler.

'Part of the [problem] is the way the immigrants are living here and creating competition for jobs.'

Ber G., age not given

He has lived on the streets for 15 years and has four teenagers he rarely sees.

'I don't have to live on the street. I chose to. I'm a heroin addict.'

Pressing his face against the shelter's cold iron bars, Russell Mulligan stared across George Street at his brother's house.

Mr. Mulligan, 41, has been living on the streets and in homeless shelters for more than a decade and he knows his family worries about him. He has four sisters and a brother, his parents are still alive, but he can't bring himself to ask for help.

He is thin, tired, addicted to crack and alcohol, and like most of Toronto's homeless, he is white.

White men have long been overrepresented in Canadian politics, company boardrooms, academia and newsrooms. In the City of Toronto, they are also overrepresented in the homeless population: As much as 70 per cent of the homeless population is white, compared to only 50 per cent of the general population, according to academic surveys.

As one of the world's most diverse cities, Toronto could be of particular interest because the pale monochromy of its homeless population defies the trend set by other major North American cities.

New York surveys indicate Caucasians make up only a small percentage of the homeless population, which is primarily black and Latino. City surveys indicate that in Boston, the racial breakdown of the homeless population closely mirrors that of the general population. In Vancouver, aboriginals account for a disproportionately high percentage of the population.

"A native-born ethnic minority that has suffered from discrimination and poverty is going to be overrepresented in the homeless population," said Dr. Stephen W. Hwang.

The University of Toronto professor, who investigates inner-city health, says, "that's true for aboriginal people, it's true for African Americans."

But, for the moment, "street" Toronto still represents the white, Anglo-Saxon place the city was only a few short decades ago.

Experts refer to a group called the "chronic homeless." The majority of the homeless population, they have been living on the streets for years, or even decades.

These street veterans echo another era, when visible minorities constituted only 17 per cent of the population of the whole Greater Toronto Area (in 1986), according to Statistics Canada. For the 2006 census, visible minorities constituted nearly 43 per cent of the population of the GTA. In Toronto proper, the figure is higher, at 46.9 per cent.

FROZEN MOMENT IN TIME

Mr. Mulligan, also known as "Mugsy," stood outside the Seaton House homeless shelter on a recent sunny afternoon catching up with his friend "Pops." Mugsy and Pops compare their pale skin colour to date stamps. Both are middle-aged white men who have struggled with drug addiction and have been homeless for years. And both have a network of family members they won't turn to for help.

Pops declined to use his real name because his family isn't aware that he has been living in a homeless shelter for years.

"Canadian men are taught that you're supposed to leave the house at a certain age and stand on your own two feet," Mugsy said sarcastically.

"We're just a snapshot of an old Toronto. ... " said Pops.

"It's certainly true that there are certain ethnic groups that are very well represented in the general population of Toronto but who are rarely seen in homeless shelters," said Dr. Hwang. His data, which are some of the only statistics on race and homelessness in Toronto, have indicated people of southeast Asian descent, in particular, aren't filling the city's shelters or sleeping on its benches and subway grates.

This may be due to the fact that homelessness and mental health are tightly entangled: Nearly 70 per cent of Toronto's homeless population report a history of mental illness.

In what Dr. Hwang called a "healthy immigrant effect," foreign-born Toronto residents are less likely to suffer from mental illness than Canadian-born residents. This may be due to the fact that immigrants are screened for mental illness before they are allowed to reside in Canada.

Another factor which may inoculate Toronto's immigrant population against homelessness is the wide network of family support that exists among residents of a new country. When Ruichun Tang came to Toronto seven years ago with her husband, she left a large and far-flung family at home in China. Soon after she arrived she began receiving e-mails from distant cousins and uncles, asking for help in finding housing in Toronto.

"I remembered it was such a struggle coming here that I helped them any way that I could," she said.

Her family passed her phone number on to more distant cousins, and the neighbours of cousins, and before long Ms. Tang became a settlement counsellor at Woodgreen Community Services. Many of her relatives cram several families into small apartments, they co-operate to pay the bills and care for their children, and they support each other through financial difficulties.

"To let people just drift out onto the streets just isn't part of their culture," said Michael Shapcott, a senior policy analyst for the Wellesley Institute, an independent urban health research and policy institute based in Toronto.

CHANGE IS COMING

Holes are beginning to show in the safety nets provided by Ms. Tang and others like her. According to Maisie Lo, director of immigrant services at Woodgreen, Toronto's Asian community has exploded over the past 10 years and the city's homeless population will begin to reflect that growth. Asians won't be alone. The city's swiftly changing population can't help but be mirrored in the streets.

Pops and Mugsy, for instance, said that they have only recently begun to see shelter beds occupied by people of Asian or Latino descent.

"We never used to see the immigrants in the shelters - but we're seeing more of them all the time," said Pops.

Outside Seaton House sat Fernando Lopez, 44, a political refugee from Colombia. Mr. Lopez stared through dark aviator glasses across George Street, but where Mugsy had seen the family, Mr. Lopez saw a row of anonymous houses occupied by strangers whose language he doesn't speak.

Through a translator, Mr. Lopez said he's only met one other Latino in Toronto's shelter system, a Cuban man who stayed only briefly. He said he was sometimes lonely.

Mr. Lopez and the Cuban could be part of a growing trend. But without hard data, no one knows for certain.

Though Toronto's ethnic diversity is well documented, routinely measured and scrutinized, the racial breakdown of its homeless population remains a sensitive issue.

For the 2006 Streets Needs Assessment, a homelessness survey conducted by the City of Toronto, more than 100 questions were asked. Respondents were not asked about race unless they were of aboriginal descent.

As city council prepares to vote whether to bolster the Streets to Homes program, a city strategy aimed to help take panhandlers off the streets and into housing, with a $5-million-a-year budget, questions about how to most efficiently and effectively address homelessness in Toronto have rippled through City Hall.

While race has not coloured that discussion, some argue that statistics on ethnicity and race could galvanize the way Toronto deals with homelessness. "We need to have more culturally appropriate shelters, detox centres and support," said Lesa MacPherson, a housing worker at Regent Park Community Health Centre, who said she has seen a growing number of African men who have been ostracized by their families, kicked out onto the streets because of addiction or mental illness.

Ms. MacPherson suspects that this population of single African men is growing. Without a more intimate understanding of where these men come from, the languages they speak and the obstacles that act like bars, both real and imagined, to accessing help, she can't tailor her support.

"There's been a reluctance to collect statistics based on racial categories," said Mr. Shapcott.

According to the Wellesley Institute analyst and other experts, Toronto's city officials have distanced themselves from their urban American neighbours - who have wrestled with race in very public and sometimes violent ways - by "burying their heads in the sand."

The experts say there is a prevailing nervousness that observing homelessness through the lens of race may lead to segregationist policies, but that there's important potential value in these data.

And, "there are cultural realities that need to be accommodated," Mr. Shapcott said. Muslim men, for instance, sometimes experience shame in asking for help with an addiction, or Asian families sometimes need housing that can accommodate a network of extended family.

Contrarily, some experts feel that the practical applications of data on race wouldn't significantly benefit the homeless population. According to Katherine Chislett, a director for the City of Toronto's Shelter, Housing and Support division who is part of the Streets to Homes initiative, there are more important data to collect. "I'm not saying it's not important, but it just wasn't important enough for us in terms of providing support," she said.

Click here to read more.

Poverty rate still tops in Hamilton

from the Ancaster News

Kevin Werner

There was few silver linings within the Canadian census data released last week that still featured Hamilton’s poverty rate higher than the provincial average.

The city’s poverty rate has become a blight on its community when the last census shocked the community pegging the Low Income Cut-Off (LICO) rate at about 20 per cent.

Hamilton’s poverty rate had dipped to about 18.1 per cent, according to Statistics Canada’s 2006 census results. But Hamilton’s rate, which includes a high number of seniors and Aboriginal populations, exceeds Ontario’s 14.7 per cent poverty rate. The census figures include the years 2005 to 2006.

Hamilton has almost 90,000 people living below the LICO, while almost the same amount of children, 23.6 per cent from 24 per cent, or about 21,600, live below the poverty line, said Liz Weaver, director of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.

“There are still a lot of people who live below the low income cut-off line,” she said. “And the number of children hasn’t decreased.”

The community focus to eradicate poverty was still in its early stages two to three years ago, said Ms. Weaver. It was then that the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction began to compile important demographic information, examine the issue and establish a partnership among the city’s community leaders so that a comprehensive strategy could be found to tackle the poverty reduction issue.

Since the organization released its recommendations, the city has taken action that has improved the lives of people living in poverty, said Ms. Weaver.

For instance, the organization urged more investment in the lives of children, youth and their families to tackle the root causes of poverty and break the cycle of poverty for families.

In response, the city has returned the municipal portion of the National Child Benefit in 2006 and 2007 which has boosted people’s income, approved a pilot affordable transit pass program, the city is supporting individuals to own their homes, and funds have been earmarked for early learning and child care programs. The province has also responded to Ontario’s poverty rate by establishing a minister responsible for poverty reduction.

An Ontario-directed task force is scheduled to hold public sessions later this year, and Ms. Weaver is hoping one of the meetings will occur in Hamilton.

“We want to share our challenges and successes with everybody,” said Ms. Weaver. “But any big changes (for poverty reduction) will only happen at the provincial and federal levels.”

In addition, businesses, the city and social service organizations have created about 90 initiatives to fulfill their mandate to Make Hamilton the Best Place to Raise a Child.

The census figures confirmed some startling demographic trends that began a few years ago and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

The median income for a Hamilton worker dropped by 4.3 per cent to $17,380, while the median income for a high-end person in the city increased 2.7 per cent from $67,753 to 69,566. The trend of an ever-widening income gap between the haves and have nots reflects what has been occurring across the country.

For 25 years wages have stagnated, reported Statistics Canada. The median income for Canadian workers had increased to $41,401 in 2005, from $41,348 in 1980, which amounts to about $1 extra per week.

The richest Canadians increased by 16.4 per cent while incomes of the poorest fell by 20.6 per cent over the last 25 years.

“It is disturbing,” said Ms. Weaver.

To link the roundtable with further poverty reduction goals, some of its members, including Ms. Weaver, sit on the recently created Jobs Prosperity Collaborative, which is seeking to boost Hamilton’s anemic economic development landscape. She said one of the best ways to reduce poverty is for the city to attract companies to the area.

“It would turn the environment around for the whole community,” she said.

The roundtable’s own statistics reveal the city can make even more of an impact on its poverty rate by targeting the so-called working poor - those people who are full-time employees, yet their earnings are below the LICO.

Click here to read more.

Low income stats questioned

from The Richmond News

Richmond's child poverty highest in region: First Call

Nelson Bennett
Richmond News

Richmond has the dubious distinction of having the highest child poverty rate in the Lower Mainland, according to the youth advocacy group First Call.

However, it's a distinction based on a faulty definition of poverty, according to the Fraser Institute.

Census figures for 2006 show Richmond has the highest rate of what First Call defines as child poverty rates: 26 per cent, compared to 24.4 per cent in Burnaby, 22.8 per cent in Vancouver, and 17.3 per cent in Surrey.

Mayor Malcolm Brodie acknowledges there are pockets of low-income residents in Richmond, but he wondered how First Call came to the conclusion that it did.

"I would like to know what are the criteria that are being set out," he said.

The income rates used by First Call are pulled from what Statistics Canada calls "low income cutoff" benchmarks, which Niels Veldhuis, an economist with the Fraser Institute, says is not an accurate definition of poverty.

"This cannot be used to measure poverty," Veldhuis said. "What a low-income measure is, is how well off people are relative to the average."

The 2006 Census is the first one to contain income statistics based on income tax returns. But using those numbers to get a handle on how Canadians are actually faring can be tricky.

Click here to read more.

Food Aid Increase Merely a Band-Aid Solution to Bigger Problems, Critics say

from Embassy Magazine

A CIDA plan to increase funding for agriculture development programs is collecting dust on a bookshelf, while the world faces starvation.

By Jeff Davis

Despite the government's decision last week to step up its spending on food aid in response to the burgeoning global food crisis, experts are hungry for a more meaty response to a shortage they saw coming long ago.

Opposition politicians are also calling on the government to more than double funding for agriculture projects in the developing world, something they say should have been done long ago.

Last week, CIDA Minister Bev Oda announced that "the government's response to the world food crisis" was the donation of an additional $50 million to this year's food aid budget. This, the minister said, represents an increase of Canadian food aid to a total of $230 million for this year from $180 million last year.

In addition, Ms. Oda announced the government was "untying" aid contributions, dispensing with the previous requirement that a certain portion of goods and services be purchased here in Canada. While welcoming the announcement of the desperately needed money, international food experts say more is needed than short-term solutions.

"When you've got a bleeding finger, a Band-Aid is a very good thing," said Stuart Clark, senior policy advisor at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. "But you have to find out why you got cut in the first place."


Agricultural Aid Went Out of Style

Experts from NGOs such as Oxfam and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank told Embassy last week that over the past few decades, support for agricultural capacity development has gone out of style among both international donors and the governments of least developed countries.

Behind this, said executive director of Oxfam Canada Robert Fox, was the belief radiating from international financial institutions that agriculture for export, not agriculture for subsistence, was what the world's poor needed.

"The world's attention shifted from support for agriculture to other areas, particularly trade facilitation," he said. "Global co-operation for agriculture and agricultural development has fallen significantly.

"There is a bias at the World Bank and at some of the major global actors, that trade at a global level is the principle avenue for economic growth," he added.

Under pressure from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, said Mr. Clark, developing countries were pressured to cut funding for agriculture to around four per cent of total government budgets.

When considering that agriculture is the mainstay of developing economies, Mr. Clark said, this is an "absurdly low level," especially when some of these same countries spend 20 per cent of public finances on weapons.

The faith in the free market caused support for agriculture among international donors to drop to historic lows around 2000.

By this time, Messrs. Fox and Clark said, the liberal economic orthodoxy of the international financial institutions had changed the face of agriculture in the developing world.

Mixed subsistence farming, based on local techniques, was swept away by large-scale monoculture of products meant for export, they said. This has led also, they said, to increased reliance on imported seeds and fertilizers, land exhaustion, and soil erosion.

The plight of the world's poor farmers, they said, has been further exacerbated by agricultural subsidies in the Western world.

Messrs. Fox and Clark said that, in recent years, there has been an increasing recognition that export-oriented agriculture policies were hurting the world's poor.

In 2001, the International Fund for Agricultural Development said in its annual Rural Poverty Report that in the 1990s, global support for "aid to agriculture, the main source of income [for the world's 1.2 billion extremely poor], has fallen by two-thirds."

The World Bank has also come around, pulling a u-turn away from its past policies. The Bank's 2008 World Development Report calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries and warns that the agricultural "sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized."


CIDA Agricultural Policy Died Stillborn

When making her announcement last week, Ms. Oda mentioned that the government is "working with the international donor community to find a longer-term approach to food aid, including the question of food security."

However, it appears such a plan is currently collecting dust on CIDA's own bookshelves and websites.

Susan Whelan, a former Liberal MP under the government of Jean Chrétien, became CIDA minister in January 2002 and quickly determined Canada was not doing enough on the agricultural front.

During her initial briefings as minister, Ms. Whelan told Embassy, she repeatedly heard that 70 to 80 per cent of world poor live in rural areas and subsistence agriculture was main source of food.

Ms. Whelan then asked CIDA officials how much was being spent on agricultural development, and was met with "blank stares." She said the officials told her CIDA used to spend 15 per cent of their budget on agriculture, but that funding had been cut back to around six per cent.

Ms. Whelan, who grew up on a farm, decided it was time to launch a new policy for agriculture and rural development.

Elements of the policy, she said, included using Canada's world-leading agricultural expertise to develop co-operatives and marketing strategies. By stepping up support for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, she added, Canada would help ensure farmers on the parched soils of Sub-Saharan Africa have crops they can grow with less water.

The policy also came with a significant planned increase in funding. The plan was to see spending on agriculture ramped up to $500 million per year by 2007-2008.

Unfortunately, said Ms. Whelan, her plan for agriculture went off the rails after she left CIDA in 2003.

"Basically, after I left, CIDA decided to turn the clock back again," she said. "My understanding is that its not a focus anymore."

Ms. Whelan said she welcomes the recent food aid announcement, though she doubts $50 million is enough to alleviate hunger at a time when grain prices have tripled. More importantly, she says, it is not addressing the causes or poverty and hunger.

"We need long term development," she said. "If we don't have long-term agricultural development, than food aid is just Band-aid and that's not good enough.

"It's that old cliché," she said. "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."


Show Us the Money: NDP

And while the Liberal government of Paul Martin, as well as the current one, have ignored Ms. Whelan's target, it has not been altogether forgotten.

NDP International Development critic Alexa McDonough remembers the Liberal policy, and its $500 million target, and has been pushing the current government to re-instate it.

Ms. McDonough wrote a letter to Ms. Oda in December calling for action.

"In 2003, the government of Canada committed to increasing its annual financial commitment to agricultural development under the auspices of CIDA from an historic low of $80 million to $500 million by 2007-8," she wrote in the letter.

"Today, CIDA spends between $200 and $230 million on agricultural development projects. I call on you to urgently redress this significant financial shortfall, and ensure CIDA receives the required public funds to meet its financial obligations for 2007-8 and effectively support the vitally important development of the agricultural sector in the world's poorest communities."

Click here to read more.

McGuinty defends Ontario's closed poverty consultations

from The Globe and Mail

The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Premier Dalton McGuinty is defending his government's invite-only consultations on a new poverty strategy after people were thrown out of the first meeting.

Several protesters and a New Democrat member of the legislature were ejected from a public hearing in Peterborough on Monday, while at least one Liberal who wasn't on the committee was allowed in.

NDP finance critic Michael Prue was also refused entry today to the government's second public consultation on poverty in Cobourg.

Mr. McGuinty says the government wants to meet with selected groups behind closed doors to hear their ideas for dealing with poverty.

He says there are lots of ways for people to give government their opinions on poverty without attending the public consultations.

But the New Democrats say the government should at least let the public in so they can hear the ideas being put forward. The NDP says holding so-called public consultations in secret is counterproductive.

Click here to read more.