A number of community organizations and citizens in the Eastern Townships came together for a peaceful protest in Cowansville to take a stand against poverty for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on Oct. 17.
“It’s one day where we take the time to sit down with people that are living in poverty, to actually act on it, and to make sure that poverty is actually talked about,” said Rosalie Dupont, coordinator for the la Table d’Action Contre l’Appauvrissement de l’Estrie - a concentration table that regroups different community organizations across the Eastern Townships to sensitize people to the fight against poverty. “It’s usually something that we don’t hear about much, a little bit more lately with everything going on - inflation and everything - but usually poverty is not a ‘sexy’ subject. We don’t hear about it as much as we should even though there is still one out of ten Quebecers living under the poverty line now as we speak.”
Organizations such as the Centre Femmes des Cantons, Maison Horizon Pour Elle, Entrée chez soi Brome-Missisquoi, and Action Plus Brome-Missisquoi - who is responsible for coordinating the event - walked along the corners of Rue Church and Rue du Sud Tuesday afternoon to mobilize people around the poverty crisis and to demand that government officials take action.
“[We’ve been at the number, the one out of ten, for a really long time.] It’s not moving, we aren’t making any progress. We don’t have the numbers for this year yet, but we’re expecting the numbers to actually go up because of the housing crisis, because of inflation, because low-paid workers are not [receiving] raises as much as everyone else is. The inequalities are actually climbing right now and it’s really worrying,” added Dupont. “We’ve been working on eradicating poverty for decades and it is something that could be done, and yet we are not moving on it. We are stilling having the same rates of poverty and our government doesn’t seem to take action or not enough strong actions against it. That’s why it’s so important for us to talk about this.”
Dupont noted that there are a number of factors that contribute to the cycle of poverty and there are different ways that it can be addressed.
“You can fight against poverty in many, many ways. One of them is to work directly on the income that people have. Let’s say some of our struggles for minimum wage that would actually allow people to get out of poverty or our social programs that provide income for various people - that’s one way to look at it. Every other area can also be worked on. We work on transportation - we fight for people to actually have access to transportation across the entire area - lodging is a main thing, education, healthcare. It’s all other ways of fighting poverty,” Dupont explained.
Christine Sauriol from the Centre Femmes des Cantons told CIDI at Tuesday’s protest that she is saddened that an international day against poverty still exists in 2023. Sauriol emphasized that the major problem is that the “re-distribution of wealth isn’t really done by our governments.”
“I’m sad that this day is still that important since the National Assembly, since all parties, had voted for measures to end poverty and to end social discrimination. I’m really sad it’s is still that important and even more important nowadays. We’re not going the right way, it’s getting worse,” Sauriol expressed.
Sauriol added that the situation is affecting a lot of people, including the women that go to the centre. She said that many women working minimum wage jobs are having to resort to the food banks because they can no longer afford to feed themselves.
“We see for all women, whether they’re on welfare or working, we see that their purchasing power has dropped. When I say consume, I mean basic necessities. The housing in particular, it breaks our hearts. When women call us to tell us that they are looking for an a place, for an apartment, there’s very little we can do. The ones that are [available] are extremely expensive. We live in a crisis, especially at the moment,” highlighted Sauriol. “All of the organizations that are present today, I’m happy that we are there for people. At least there’s that, we are a part of the social network.”
The Table d’Action Contre l’Appauvrissement de l’Estrie has launched a Kahoot, an online interactive questionnaire, to inform people about poverty in the Eastern Townships and to better understand the realities of those living in the region. The Kahoot will be online for an entire month and it can be found here.
To hear more from active Brome-Missisquoi citizen Peter Belland on poverty and the concerns it presents for mental and physical health, listen to the full interview below: