{"id":187830,"date":"2023-10-18T15:38:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T19:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=187830"},"modified":"2023-10-18T15:38:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T19:38:37","slug":"the-eastern-townships-calls-on-government-officials-to-take-action-against-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/the-eastern-townships-calls-on-government-officials-to-take-action-against-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eastern Townships calls on government officials to take action against poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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,\u201d said Rosalie Dupont, coordinator for the la Table d\u2019Action Contre l\u2019Appauvrissement de l\u2019Estrie - a concentration table that regroups different community organizations across the Eastern Townships to sensitize people to the fight against poverty. \u201cIt\u2019s usually something that we don\u2019t hear about much, a little bit more lately with everything going on - inflation and everything - but usually poverty is not a \u2018sexy\u2019 subject. We don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Organizations such as the Centre Femmes des Cantons, Maison Horizon Pour Elle, Entr\u00e9e 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[We\u2019ve been at the number, the one out of ten, for a really long time.] It\u2019s not moving, we aren\u2019t making any progress. We don\u2019t have the numbers for this year yet, but we\u2019re 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\u2019s really worrying,\u201d added Dupont. \u201cWe\u2019ve 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\u2019t seem to take action or not enough strong actions against it. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important for us to talk about this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can fight against poverty in many, many ways. One of them is to work directly on the income that people have. Let\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s all other ways of fighting poverty,\u201d Dupont explained.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Christine Sauriol from the Centre Femmes des Cantons told CIDI at Tuesday\u2019s protest that she is saddened that an international day against poverty still exists in 2023. Sauriol emphasized that the major problem is that the \u201cre-distribution of wealth isn\u2019t really done by our governments.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 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\u2019m really sad it\u2019s is still that important and even more important nowadays. We\u2019re not going the right way, it\u2019s getting worse,\u201d Sauriol expressed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe see for all women, whether they\u2019re 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\u2019s very little we can do. The ones that are [available] are extremely expensive. We live in a crisis, especially at the moment,\u201d highlighted Sauriol. \u201cAll of the organizations that are present today, I\u2019m happy that we are there for people. At least there\u2019s that, we are a part of the social network.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Table d\u2019Action Contre l\u2019Appauvrissement de l\u2019Estrie 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<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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:<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s one day where we take the time to sit down with people that are living in poverty,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":187854,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,223,225],"tags":[23510,11314,283,286,2335,14131,31114,573,563,31615],"radio":[246],"origine":[274,259,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187867,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187830\/revisions\/187867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187830"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=187830"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=187830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}