I found out from an Australian's blog that today is Blog Action Day on Poverty. I didn't know about these sorts of actions, but it makes a lot of sense to use this media to discuss issues worldwide, and I can add my two cents.
It's actually the time I want to raise this discussion - because today during my lunch break in Toronto I saw a man picking through a garbage can, finding the bits of food he could scrounge - leftovers in coffee mugs and styrofoam containers. It was a depressing sight.
And even more sad to me that a plurality of Canadians voted for a Party yesterday that seems to want the status quo on poverty. That didn't discuss the underlying economic, rights, environmental and mental health issues that allow poverty to develop in Canada - while the other parties at least all had discussions and goals in this area.
Parliament has made past committments but has failed. The election some allowed new discussion of ideas such as an annual liveable income and talk about poverty among Aboriginal peoples, but not a lot. Now we must keep up a dialogue of new ideas that can work in Canada and abroad and demand funding of programs that are working. We must think at the community level and get good housing and we must think long-term by working on a much greater change in attitude towards issues from mental health, to doing something about the climate crisis.