OH, CANADA!

The poor ye shall always have with ye!

~*~*~*~

Buried deep within our local newspaper, The Gazette
the following headline screamed out to me, Bias against poor
widespread, report finds

Charming...I dug in...page A12... "More than half of Canadians
believe lack of work ethic linked to poverty".

Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. I'm thinking: why isn't this article on
the front pages of the newspaper? reading on, stopped several
paragraphs in:

"More than half (54 percent) of Canadians believe a family of four
can survive on $30,000 a year or less - including 21 percent who
think $20,000 is enough - but Statistics Canada's poverty line
averages $34,289 for urban communities and $22,783 in rural areas."

It goes on, "Statistics Canada figures show that the average family
of four with two (2) working parents brings home $84,800 annualy and
the Salvation Army says, it is "extremely difficult" for a
family to live on less than $40,000 in an urban area."

Not to worry, it gets better: "at the same time, the report shows that
89% of Canadians agree that people in poverty deserve a helpig hand
and 81 percent say helping poor families sets up their children
for success. Almost all (96 percent) agree that everyone deserves
a sense of dignity though 65 percent believe being poor
robs people of their dignity.

Those figures have remained largely unchanged over the last decade,
about 1 in 11 people live in abject poverty.

Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted the poll in late January with
1,025 Canadians included. The results carry a margin of error of
3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

~*~*~*~

Clearly there is a profound disconnect between the "halves" and the
"have-nots" and attitudes towards poverty are so entrenched that
sometimes those of us who are so far removed from the struggles of
every day life that we find it impossible to understand that those
"every day things" we take for granted really do contribute to
a sense of self-respect, and sense of self-worth.

We live in a land of abundance without a clear moral commitment to
being our brothers' and sisters' keepers.

We aren't mean spirited , of course not, we are just more
comfortable in our ignorance and refusal to admit to ourselves that
the solutions are greater than the problems.

This attitude of "I'm alright, Jack, screw you, get a job
and that will solve everything" is all too familiar.

Lest you are comfortable feeling smug about it all by now, you
needn't bother, the Canadian reflection crosses the divide and
reflects American attitudes as much as it reflects our own.

Right. Got it.