Freedom 90 commits to raising its voice to demand an end
to poverty and an end
to the need for food banks and emergency meal programs in
Ontario. |
| October 1, 2013 |
| Community Foundations of Canada |
| Food is ground zero for Canada's most challenging issues |
 Fighting the symptoms isn't working.
The principal cause of hunger is poverty. For 30 years communities have been responding to hunger with food banks and other strategies, but food bank usage shows no signs of slowing down - in fact it's 31% higher than it was before the downturn in 2008. Combine this with food prices that are rising at nearly twice the rate of the Consumer Price Index and it's clear that this problem won't be solved with food donations alone.
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| Click here to read the details at the Community Foundations of Canada website |
| September 25, 2013 |
| The Guardian - Food Banks - Patrick Butler |
| Food banks are 'a slow death of the soul' |
 There's an uncomfortable passage in Canadian activist Nick Saul's food-bank memoir, The Stop, where he is taken aside by Dorothy, a long-time volunteer in her 60s. She says she's unhappy with the changes he is making. She hates his new rules that limit how much food can be given, and to whom, and how often. Exasperated, she exclaims: "Aren't we supposed to be giving to the needy?"
... "The truth is," he writes in the book, published this week in the UK, "the more time I spend in the food bank, the more certain I am of the failure of a charitable approach to hunger and poverty, which serves the interests of food corporations and some volunteers better than it does the poor themselves."
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| Click here to read the full article on The Guardian website |
| September 26, 2013 |
| Grimsby Lincoln News - Amanda Moore |
| A vicious circle - Poverty the largest barrier to good health |
 Part five in a six-part series which aims to debunk myths around poverty. The series continues with the myth, "There is no real link between poverty and health."
A report released in July by the Canadian Medical Association found that poverty is the largest barrier to good health in this country. The study found that factors such as poor housing, a lack of access to healthy food and early childhood programming all affect health.
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| Click here to read the full article at the Niagara this Week website |
| September 22, 2013 |
| The New York Times - Paul Krugman - Op-ed columnist and Nobel Laureate |
| Free to Be Hungry |
 The word "freedom" looms large in modern conservative rhetoric. Lobbying groups are given names like FreedomWorks; health reform is denounced not just for its cost but as an assault on, yes, freedom. Oh, and remember when we were supposed to refer to pommes frites as "freedom fries"?
The right's definition of freedom, however, isn't one that, say, F.D.R. would recognize. In particular, the third of his famous Four Freedoms - freedom from want - seems to have been turned on its head. Conservatives seem, in particular, to believe that freedom's just another word for not enough to eat.
Hence the war on food stamps, which House Republicans have just voted to cut sharply even while voting to increase farm subsidies.
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| Click here to read the full article on The New York Times website |
| October 3, 2013 |
| The Globe and Mail - Report on Business - Bertrand Marotte |
| Majority of rich Canadians feel better off than before the recession |
 A majority of affluent Canadians say they are better off now than they were in pre-recession days, according to the results of a new survey.
Fifty-four per cent of high-net-worth individuals in a poll conducted for BMO Harris Private Banking said they feel more financially secure than they did before the 2008 downturn.
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| Click here to read the full article at The Globe and Mail website |
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... the majority of Prince Edward Islanders who are short on money to buy food actually have jobs.