Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids:
The Tragedy and Disgrace of Poverty in Canada
by Mel Hurtig (McClelland & Stewart).
Hurtig continues to fight
the good fight in crusade
against poverty in Canada
MICHAEL VALPY
Thursday, December 2, 1999
It is breakfast-time in a downtown Toronto
hotel. Across the table from me is Mel Hurtig.
I have two thoughts. One: His shirts are the
most dazzling white in the country. Two: The
country still has definitive Canadian heroes.
A third thought, a question, comes later. It is
this:
What keeps Mel Hurtig at it -- years after
Canada's elites (in which Mr. Hurtig has
platinum-card membership) have ceased
admiring people who write about the country
with love, who write about economic activity
as if it should serve the goal of national glue,
who write about the mythology of a Canadian
compassionate society as if it should exist,
who write about Canadian poverty?
The answer, in all certainty, is that the notion
of being in or out of fashion has never
occurred to him.
Between us on the breakfast table is the
67-year-old Mr. Hurtig's new book: Pay the
Rent or Feed the Kids: The Tragedy and
Disgrace of Poverty in Canada
(McClelland & Stewart).
It started out to to be a book exploring
Canadian myths and reality. Just three of its
chapters were going to be on poverty. The
rest undoubtedly would have tilted at those
who assault the iconography of Mr. Hurtig's
creed: the nation's social programs, the tatty
garments remaining of economic sovereignty,
the frail last stand of government to protect
Canadian identity and distinctness from global
capitalism's careening Zambonis.
But as he travelled across the country doing
research, interviewing people, visiting
socio-economic nooks of Canadian society
formerly alien to him, Mr. Hurtig got angry.
He discovered -- the italics are his -- what
poverty really means.
He discovered, at a downtown school, a
seven-year-old girl sneaking her two
preschool siblings into the school's hot-lunch
program. The family had no father. The
mother had been sick in bed for months. They
always ran out of money before the end of the
month. There was a utility bill to be paid or
the threat of child welfare taking the children
away. There was nothing in the house to eat.
Mr. Hurtig discovered, at another inner-city
school, the story of the businessman who
donated six pairs of warm winter boots. Out
of 240 children at the school, probably 150
needed the boots. So the school held a draw.
One little girl -- who had been coming to
school in minus-30 weather wearing running
shoes, won a pair. Once having put the boots
on, however, she refused to take them off,
even for gym class. Several days passed
before her principal discovered why: The little
girl whispered to her that she didn't have any
socks.
Mr. Hurtig discovered the mother --
consumed with guilt -- who had lost her
temper at her daughter for eating a piece of
toast after school that was supposed to be
next day's lunch.
He wrote a book that was all about poverty in
Canada. About how poverty is growing,
about how government supports are declining,
about how the rich are getting richer.
It is a book with charts, graphs, tables,
numbers comparing Canada -- dismally --
with other member-countries of the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development. It is a book written by the great
guardian of Canada who feels betrayed.
Several times through breakfast, Mr. Hurtig
identifies the villain as Finance Minister Paul
Martin.
It is a book of barely restrained rage.
"How is it," he writes, "that, as our country's
economy has expanded, as our gross
domestic product has increased every year,
there have been growing numbers of poor
men, women and children in Canada?
"How is it that somehow Canadians seem
prepared to tolerate so much hunger,
homelessness and suffering in such a relatively
well-to-do country?
"How is it that, as the country's economy has
grown, the income gap between the rich and
poor has widened?
"And how is it that, while our government tells
us repeatedly how well we're doing, there are
growing numbers of families and individuals
across Canada who are increasingly insecure
about their future."
Canada's elites will smile fondly at Mr. Hurtig,
and ignore him.
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Where a great proportion of the people are suffered to languish
in helpless misery,
That country must be ill-policed and wretchedly governed:
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
-- Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1770
******************************************************************
Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Associate Director,
Masters of Health Science Program in Health Promotion
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
McMurrich Building, Room 101
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
voice: (416) 978-7567
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