I wrote the following April 20 2005, when I first heard about this campaign.
Comments from SDOH subscribers about the matters I raise would be appreciated:

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I applaud your compaign to erradicate poverty worldwide. Its celebrity
endorsement may mean that governments start listening, which would be great.
It's too bad, isn't it, that celebrity is what it takes, that the voices of
'ordinary' people, especially those marginalized by poverty, are not given
equal attention.

I've a couple of concerns with respect to the wording used on your website
and in the recent ACT NOW e-newsletter you sent out. I hope you will take my
comments as intended. I want to help and support what you are doing.

1. As someone who researches and writes on poverty, I'm disturbed by the
tendency in Canada to focus on CHILD poverty, as opposed to poverty period.
By talking about 'child poverty', a term which the federal government began
using decades ago, public and media attention is effectively turned aside
from the far larger societal problem. Poverty in our country is widely
systemic and affects all generations. We are unlikely to uncover the broader
societal patterns that permit (increasing) poverty in Canada if we turn our
focus only to one segment of the population. I urge your organization to
talk of ending poverty in Canada, not to use the words 'child poverty',
which could suggest you're buying into the language set by government.

2. On the What We Want page on your website, there are these two paragraphs:

"In January, Prime Minister Paul Martin said 'the number of people who live
on a dollar a day in this world is just unacceptable. I'm not going to leave
that to my children and my grandchildren nor to yours'.

"In 2004, Canada produced a surplus of $9.1 billion - its seventh
consecutive. Money is available for these urgent issues."

It's important to make clear that the $9.1 billion surplus results from
policies which have caused increased poverty in Canada, both in depth and
the numbers of people affected. Also, that the $1-dollar-a-day phrase is an
obfuscation and another diversion. It attempts to put in absolute terms a
phenomenon that defies such reduction. It suggests, for example, that people
in industrialized countries can't possibly be living in poverty, whereas we
know that increasing numbers are. That is, we know that someone whose income
is $16/day is in desperate circumstances due to the cost of land for housing
and to grow food, clothing, and so on.

Chrystal Ocean, Coordinator.
Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically
http://www.wise-bc.org/
250-748-8093

ORDER NOW! Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the Front
http://www.wise-bc.org/CVProject/book.html

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