From Thomas Walkom's Toronto Star article:

"But in the end, politicians can't help but respond to the issues voters
care about. And that stark political fact says something very unpleasant
about us.

'Most Canadians would find it impossible to cope with the substantial
income losses that welfare households have experienced,' the council
writes. 'Coping is even harder for those who are already at the bottom of
the income scale, given their already meagre incomes. Yet there appears to
be little concern ...

'Have both governments and the Canadian public turned their backs on the
poorest of the poor?'"

Yes. Governments and politicians won't care until the general public cares.
And the general public won't care until arguments and examples are
repeatedly used demonstrating that EVERYONE's self interests are threatened
when poverty exists. 

Appeals to compassion won't work in this individualistic, materialist,
consumerist world and they may even be counter-productive. 

Where we once had socially-connected, vibrant communities in which residents
caring for one another was as natural as breathing, we now have population
densities in which Metropolis-like automatons work, then work some more;
spend, then spend some more; vote for their corporate-backed masters, then
vote for them again. The majority of Canadians are stressed to the max by
the growing corporatization of their lives, yet they're kept so busy
working, then spending, that they haven't the leisure to question the value
of what they're doing or how they're living. 

For Canadians to care about poverty, then need first to be woken up. Then
they need to be faced with the reality of how it threatens them.

Ocean

-----------------------------------------
Chrystal Ocean, WISE Coordinator
http://www.wise-bc.org/

NEW - Scarlet Letter Campaign
http://www.wise-bc.org/SLC/slc_intro.html

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