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Canadian Poverty


            When thinking about poverty, one automatically thinks of Third World countries such as Ethiopia and Haiti, amongst many others. But the truth is many Canadians struggle with poverty as well. One can understand why there is poverty in Third World countries. The fact that they do not have the technological advances of agriculture that we do automatically sets them back. The fact that Third World countries have no booming exports to bring in money also greatly contributes to the mass poverty in those countries. Canada, however, is one of the richest countries in the world. There is a booming economy for most provinces, our technology is well advanced and being put to use. There is a large market for employment in most provinces as well. .
             A mentally and physically healthy Canadian, meaning an individual that is not mentally or physically handicapped, should not have any fears of sinking into poverty, so one would think. Yet there are thousands of Canadians struggling to find the money to feed their children. In fact, in 1997, 17.5 per cent of Canadians were of low income, below the poverty line. There are 200,000 Canadians living homeless on the street , concerned with how they are going to keep from freezing to death on a -35C night in the dead of winter, never mind if they are going to eat that day or not. .
             What exactly is poverty? John Kenneth Galbraith eloquently stated the case for a relative definition of poverty in his book, The Affluent Society:.
             "People are poverty stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls markedly behind that of the community. Then they cannot have what the larger community regards as the minimum necessary for decency; and they cannot wholly escape therefore, the judgement of the larger community that they are indecent. They are degraded for, in a literal sense, they live outside the grades or categories which the community regards as acceptable.


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