As Ontario Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod gets set to reveal her welfare reform package on Nov. 8, the people who run Ontario’s food banks, shelters and volunteer supports for poor families are urging the provincial government to restore the basic income pilot project.

Helping 5.8 million Canadians out of poverty isn’t a charity project. It’s about building a better economy and living up to the human rights we proclaim as a nation, said the author of a new report on poverty.

The summer had been warm and humid, and unlike many churches that can afford air conditioning, the church on the street had to find its own way of surviving the muggy evenings. 

EDMONTON – Frank “Bushy” Stegemeier is struggling.

VATICAN – Capuchins are called to be men of peace, reconciliation and prayer and to be close to all people, Pope Francis told members of the order.

For the first time in ShareLife’s history, Catholic parishioners have crossed the $13-million threshold when it comes to helping those most in need.

Journeys to Justice: Reflections on Canadian Christian Activism by Joe Gunn (Novalis, 176 pages, softcover, $14.95 on amazon.ca) 

Abby Pyrz was 18 years old when she was bitten by the travel bug. 

Over the next 12 years the federal government promises to raise 2.1 million Canadians out of poverty and take Canada’s poverty rate from one in every eight Canadians to one in every 17 Canadians by 2030.

It was a made-in-Ontario experiment based on a concept put forth by such thinkers as Conservative Canadian Hugh Segal and American free-market advocate Milton Friedman: a basic income guarantee, something like Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement. 

OTTAWA – A poverty-fighting group, fresh from a victory over a law that threatened its status as a charity, is facing another round of legal fighting after the federal government appealed the court ruling.

Over the next 12 years the federal government promises to raise 2.1 million Canadians out of poverty and take Canada’s poverty rate from one in every eight Canadians to one in every 17 by 2030.

OTTAWA – Anti-poverty advocates are disappointed that Ontario’s new Conservative government intends to cancel the province’s basic income pilot project, arguing that the study is important to help reduce poverty far beyond the province.

The umbrella organization for hundreds of St. Vincent de Paul councils in parishes across Canada is getting ready to step into the national spotlight.