Poverty Reduction Strategy - Share your stories
Share your Stories
Consultation has concluded
We encourage you to share your story to help us better understand how we can address poverty in Canada. We are interested in your personal experiences, and information on any supports or programs that helped you, or where you experienced gaps in social supports.
When you share your thoughts, please tell your story as anonymously as you can. That means avoiding names of people you know and the names of organizations. Instead, please use more general names such as “my aunt,” “our local food bank,” “our school” and so on. We also welcome photo or video submissions.
Selected stories or excerpts may be posted on this site or used in other communication activities for this or other Government of Canada activities.
The views expressed are those of the contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of the Government of Canada.
CLOSED: This discussion has concluded.
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Another Working Poor
First I want to comment that the small number of entries here suggests that this is not an effective means to gather information - typical government move. Multiply each of these by 100,000 and you'll be getting there.I share a common thread with several of the entries. I am educated - a teacher with two university degrees and over twelve years of teaching experience; I was a single parent - abusive marriage and the resulting poverty that that brings; I work part time - making too much money to qualify for any government assistance, but not enough to live...Continue reading -
My Real Time, Story as apart of the Working Poor Group from Dec 2016 - 2017 +
A little history about me I've been living below the poverty line for over 30 years.My story will start from last year 2016, in real time to June 2017 + and I'll update it as things and time change.Last year 2016 in Dec, the place I was working was shutting down for the winter. I quit to move closer to town as I was living in a remote area and travel into the city was not always available . Because I quit and had savings I did not qualify for Employment Insurance or Social services .Because of...Continue reading -
Red Worn Hands
The silence surrounding the experiences of poverty-class students is compounded by an unspoken understanding of the dangerous Other. As Shields (2013) explains, there exists an “insidious fear of otherness in the context of a community based on sameness [that] maintains an elite sense of entitlement and privilege” (p. 54). Shields (2013) goes on to explain that “marginalization with respect to social class … is more subtle than marginalization due to skin color because class is, in many ways, invisible” (p. 32). However, for those whose lives have been shaped by systemic childhood poverty, poverty has left distinct visible markers, visible...Continue reading -
Contribution for Town Hall on Poverty in Canada
I'd like to share this information which is the outcome of my own study as an effort to help me understand the issues as they apply to my personal situation.Long story short, I'm one of many former Public Safety Workers in Canada who's landed now in poverty as an outcome of systemic weakness in our social safety net.The following is a collection of my own thoughts on poverty, with some ideas about where to turn to get ourselves informed in such a way as to encourage needed change:In advance of the town hall, I shared this recently...Continue reading -
Volunteer Dental Outreach for Haliburton County has a Strategy of Poverty Reduction which involves providing free dental care to those unable to afford dentistry
I represent a front line volunteer with an organization called Volunteer Dental Outreach for Haliburton County. We are a registered charity who provide free dental care to low income residents of Haliburton County Ontario. Our community experiences a high poverty rate and hundreds of people cannot afford dental care and have neglected their oral health. Until we opened in 2011, their only options were to suffer, or attend hospital emergency departments where they were given prescriptions for pain meds, antibiotics and told to seek dental care. This would buy them time until the next flare-up but not prevent reoccurrences. These...Continue reading
Health Perspective
I have worked in public and private healthcare. I have seen more examples than I can count of the negative effects of poverty, even in our supposedly equitable public health system. In this post I will briefly describe the issues I have seen in regards to insurance. For example, in Nova Scotia, public medical insurance ( MSI) mostly covers medications, not devices or equipment, which may be just as important for treating a health issue. Many seniors lose their private insurance after they turn 65 (if they even had any in the first place), so as they age and generally...Continue reading-
predatory divorce-babies taken - unacknowledged grief of the mother and children
I was a teacher, and mother of two year old twins, living in an abusive marriage. My ex husband tried to kill me, shook the baby, sexually abused my daughter, hurt my children, and eventually abducted my daughter when she turned 12, turned her against me, and refused to give her back. All the while, I wrote many e-mails and letters, contacted many people and tried everything I could think of to change the turn of events in my and my children's lives, but nothing seemed to work to prevent a very manipulative and abusive narcissist/sociopath from taking my children...Continue reading -
My Home province and its housing issues
I live in Halifax's and our Province has a system where the people from here are allowed less that the new people coming to live here from other countries.The native residents are allowed some $777.00 per month for rent to live on if you are living on a pension and Assisted housing, A landed immigrant is given $2700.00 per month for the same province. we are allowed some twenty five dollars to buy supplies to keep you home clean, and about two hundred to buy food. 100.00 for heat and you must pay your own power which is around...Continue reading -
Living below the poverty line for over 30 years
I've been living below the poverty line for over 30 years, living on min wage. The struggle is to meet my basic surviving needs, rent, basic heat and hydro utilities , and food . Never mind a dentist to fill a cavity , Because I'm not on disabilities or of special needs or on Social services or Employment Insurance I don't qualify for programs offered to people not on these services . As the poverty line increases the population that live and struggle living below the poverty line increases . As the poverty line increases so does the cost of...Continue reading -
It could happen to you - It did happen to me
I am a 48-year-old single male Canadian taxpayer with no dependants, residing in Toronto, and was diagnosed with a chronic health condition in 2015.I come from a financially modest background and I have no family in Ontario. My only family, my mother and brother live in NS, from where I immigrated to Toronto in 1990 in search of employment and opportunity. I have lived in the GTA Toronto-Danforth riding cumulatively for over 15 years. I love my home, which I rent, and particularly the area and community in which I live. My doctor, pharmacist, bank and other amenities are...Continue reading -
A Submission to the Government of Canada on the Reduction of Poverty. Louis Shalako.
No one is more qualified than I am to consult with this government on the subject of poverty reduction. A good poverty-reduction plan demands good information.It’s a good thing I’m on your side, eh?I’ve been on ODSP, a provincial disability pension, for roughly twenty-two years. Last year, I received $13,332.00 in provincial disability benefits. (T-5007)According to the landlord’s annual statement, in 2016 I paid $9,441.00 in rent. That is 70.1 % of my disability income, rounded off to the tenth. I do operate a small business, and I do work part-time. This...Continue reading -
I Live In Poverty: Public-Policy Pushed Me Here
I live undignified in poverty as a Canadian Citizen due to the impacts of public policy in my life. I worked for 31 years as a care-provider to persons with intellectual challenges. I also worked for 16 years in rural BC as a paramedic.My life when I was a young Canadian was rather typical as I entered the workforce as an adult. I landed a job in my teens, working for an organization in Creston that served the needs of adult persons with developmental disabilities.I did my job to the best of my ability, and loving the career...Continue reading
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Provincial governments clawback much needed child support on welfare programs.
I am a disabled single mom. I used to be fit but in 2014 I had to suddenly leave my wonderful career as a school bus driver as out of the blue as I succumbed to a serious immune system disorder known as psoriasis arthritis. This disease is horrible and I'm in awe that it isnt as well known as other disorders like lupis becuse it's very similar to lupis. Due to my joints and ligaments suddenly being attacked by my immune system I had no choice but to take EI for a few months hoping that the chemo drug...Continue reading
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