
Winning the War on Poverty: The Canadians are doing it; we’re not - arunbahl
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/opinion/canada-poverty-record.html
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perardi
1\. I would like if this had a citation. Any citation.

2\. I'd like to see a rather more sophisticated breakdown of where the poverty
has been reduced. Has poverty gone done universally across all groups?
Including First Nations? This opinion piece puts a lot of emphasis on
grassroots community-level change starting the ball rolling, but has that
actually happened on the Prairies or the Atlantic provinces?

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perardi
To expand on this: I'm a relatively recent US -> Canada immigrant, and I've
already learned to be skeptical of a source that talks about "Canada" as some
monolithic country.

There's a world of difference between Toronto and Thunder Bay, even though
they're in the same province. When Brooks uses stats that says poverty has
declined, is that truly across the board, or is that just in the Toronto-
Ottawa-Montreal corridor? Because the urban-rural divide here is just as stark
as in the States, and just saying "Canada" doesn't capture the spectrum of
lifestyles here.

~~~
chawco
On the one hand, sure, this is true. On a deeper level this is just a
criticism that the methods may not apply across the whole population -- that
they may not be able to reduce the rate to 0. Fair enough. But given that more
than 80% of Canada's population lives in urban centers, and indeed, that about
half the country lives in the corridor you mentioned (Windsor-Quebec City
corridor), it's a really good start, and may yield many more dividends yet.

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novok
Probably the biggest poverty problem with Canada is the cost of housing. All
of BC & large parts of Ontario has horribly out of wack housing affordability
ratios. The average across Canada is %50 of income going towards housing cost,
which means people are not saving as much for their future retirements.

[http://www.rbc.com/newsroom/reports/rbc-housing-
affordabilit...](http://www.rbc.com/newsroom/reports/rbc-housing-
affordability.html)

~~~
lwansbrough
A lot of that (most?) has to do with (illegal) foreign influence. Especially
in Metro Vancouver, where illegal money laundering schemes that heavily impact
the housing markets (that appears to be where the money is invested) exceed a
billion dollars annually.

It’s an issue that’s finally getting some attention beyond anecdotal “the
Chinese own everything in Vancouver”.

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educationdata
The number is simply too good to be true. Reduce poverty rate by 20% in 3
years in Canada? So when will they totally eliminate poverty?

"there were 825,000 fewer Canadians living in poverty in 2017 than there were
in 2015" from the official website. It's not the same as "Roughly 825,000
Canadians were lifted out of poverty in those years".

Also, it's ridiculous to claim this scale of change was caused by the program
described in the article. It's almost certainly caused by some large scale
economical or statistical reasons.

~~~
beat
You should read _Factfulness_ , by Hans Rosling.

In the late 1990s, 29% of the world lived in extreme poverty, defined by the
World Bank as less than $1.80/day in today's dollars. Today, that number is
less than 9%. We've slashed extreme poverty globally by two thirds in twenty
years.

Too good to be true? No, facts on the ground.

~~~
judah
The data brought to light by Factfulness also contradicts this NYT article,
which claims the US is not addressing poverty. In fact, the US and most
western nations -- and indeed the world as a whole -- are getting richer with
less poverty. Already extreme poverty is virtually nonexistent in Level 4
nations like the US.

~~~
beat
Extreme poverty and regular poverty are different things. Extreme poverty is
nearly nonexistent in the US, but the regular poverty rate has been more or
less static for decades (yes, I looked it up). Canada is making rapid progress
on the regular poverty rate, which is what's so remarkable.

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lazyjones
It's easier to curb poverty if you don't let it migrate into your country.

~~~
dba7dba
I'm surprised above comment hasn't been downvoted to oblivion. It can come
across as cold/racist/nationalistic, but it is something that needs to be
debated out in open.

~~~
lazyjones
Why would it be racist or nationalistic? Canada is very open to educated and
wealthy migrants from all cultural / ethnic backgrounds and I appreciate it.
Likewise, poor Migrants from Germany are just as undesirable als poor
Africans. It's an indisputable fact that they will have less poverty this way.

My comment will be downvoted anyway. Simply because some people don't like
facts that are in the way of their ideological facade.

~~~
jrace
What about the 25,000 Syrian refuges we brought in over the past few years?

~~~
frosted-flakes
Refugees are different. They don't fall under the regular immigration rules.

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StaticRedux
Pretending Canada or Iceland or Norway are some kind of utopia where everyone
is rich, in perfect health, eats pixie dust, and shits rainbows isn't doing
anyone any favors.

Those countries have their own problems, even if they aren't the same as in
the United States.

Different cultures, different economies, different priorities.

You can't solve a problem by saying "look how awesome this homogenous country
with a population the size of a medium sized US city is!".

That argument will always fall flat on it's face. And on deaf ears.

Certainly we can and should learn from other countries. But it's getting
really tiring to hear these empty arguments trying to hold some other country
up as some kind of wonderous Paradise when it's simply not true.

~~~
josv
As a Canadian, I hear frequently from Americans that Canada is a homogeneous
place. I imagine there are a lot of different ways to measure that, but for
what it's worth, per StatsCan Canada has the highest foreign-born population
in the G8[1]. Subjectively, Toronto feels amazingly polyglot compared to most
large US cities I've spent time in. (Although, as in the US, there's a lot of
geographic variation.)

Not to invalidate your point, but that particular assumption always strikes me
as dubious.

1\. [https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-
sa/99-010-x/99-0...](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-
sa/99-010-x/99-010-x2011001-eng.cfm)

~~~
StaticRedux
I was referring to Iceland/Norway more there.

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zacharyaustin11
As a Candian coming to the US I would like to look at the criminal justice
system's influence on these statistics.

I participated in a restorative community justice program while if in the US I
would have landed in a detention facility.

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peisistratos
The government and corporate America is winning the war on poverty - in
preserving it, as they (somewhat) openly desire to do.

Just read Businessweek or the Wall Street Journal when unemployment falls.
This is not seen as a good thing but a bad thing. I can link to dozens of
examples if one can't figure out how to Google that.

That this is the case has been known for a long time -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour)

~~~
tomjakubowski
It's fine for unemployment to exist - for people to be seeking work but not
finding it. The idiotic part is that we've structured everything so the
reality is, for most people, continued unemployment leads to poverty.

~~~
charliesharding
As opposed to leading to prosperity? Call me crazy but that makes sense

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mikepurvis
Surely there's a middle ground where you can be unemployed and not prosperous,
but also not struggling for your basic necessities?

This is the entire premise behind UBI initiatives.

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nojvek
Well if it’s any consolation, visit East Hastings st in Vancouver. Canadians
are better than us at poverty, but I wouldn’t call that winning when the
number of people in poverty are going up.

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lorcan
3 rules to escape poverty ... graduate high school, defer parenthood and avoid
drugs.

~~~
maxxxxx
Also: don't get sick and don't have any mental issues.

~~~
novok
Way less likely when you're a young person to be so serious that you can't
work. And you have universal healthcare & disability in Canada.

~~~
klyrs
> And you have universal healthcare & disability in Canada.

Yes and no. "Universal" health care doesn't cover vision, dental, or mental
health. In BC, "universal" health care is paid by one's employer. Which is
great for people with steady employment, and awful for everybody else.

