Mel Hurtig is an activist and author who has taken a personal stand against poverty in Canada. His new book Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids (M&S) discusses the absurdity of poverty in such as wealthy country as ours. Meticulously researched, Hurtig explains the extent of poverty in Canada aupported by many facts and figures, and presents a program he believes, if implemented, will substantially reduce Canadian poverty.
I recently spoke with Mel Hurtig, a long-time Edmonton resident and former publisher, about his book, poverty, and how Edmontonians can take a stand.
Mel: I started off to write a different book. The first chapter was going to be about
poverty in Canada, the second chapter about child poverty, and the third chapter about
distribution of income: who gets what. As I began doing my interviews across Canada
on the poverty question, in particular the child poverty question, I became appalled by
what I was finding. I knew always that there was a great deal of poverty in this country
but I had no idea the enormous extent and the depth of poverty in this country and the true
suffering, agony, misery, and deprivation we can find in every single province in this
country. I got angrier and angrier and then sadder and sadder and than I decided to
abandon the other book and do this book on poverty.
Paula: In the book there are lots of charts and statistics. How did you go about doing the research and how long did it take?
Mel: The book took about two years and many many thousands of dollars in research
costs. I have many personal faults but I have one strength that is very good -- I am a very
good researcher. I spend a lot of time every year with Statistics Canada and the
Department of Finance, Bank of Canada documents, documents from the OECD in Paris
and from the World Bank an the International Monetary Fund. I know how to use the
Internet for research and I had a research assistant in Ottawa; whenever I ran into
problems she helped me find what I was looking for.
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