"INTERVIEW WITH MEL HURTIG" >Page 1, 2
Paula: What was the most shocking or disturbing fact about poverty in Canada that you discovered in the course of writing the book? Mel: The most shocking thing was the huge number of hungry children and the huge amount of suffering of single parent mothers. The bottom line is we now have more hunger and more homelessness in Canada than we’ve had at any time since the Great Depression. It is so unnecessary, so cruel to punish so many millions of Canadians in this way when other countries around the world that do not have the wealth hat we Canadians have, have developed policies to produce poverty rates that are a fraction of our own. Paula: How has working on this book changed you? Mel: I guess I was kind of reaching the stage in my life where I’d b en an activist for some 35 years, and I was kind of winding down and this book has made me more aggressive now in my desire to see social and political and economic change in this country. One of the gratifying things has been the huge response to the book; the mail is pouring in every day, the long distance phone calls are pouring in every day. People are sending cheques to donate to poverty; I just got a cheque the other day from an 89 year old woman in Vancouver Island saying, "Please give this to the school lunch program," and the response has been fabulous. The Globe and Mail review from Saturday was beyond my wildest expectation. Dalton Kemp, the columnist said that this is a book that every single literate Canadian must read. So, it has been very gratifying. Paula: What advice would you give to someone in Edmonton who wants to fight poverty? Mel: There are a lot of things that can be done, depending on their economic situation. If they have some money they should go and contribute to the Edmonton City Centre Church Corporation’s school lunch program or to the Bissell Institute or to the Food Bank. If they don’t have money they can go and lend a hand. I guarantee you that anybody who has a chance to work at the school lunch program and see those children will find it extraordinarily gratifying.>Page 1, 2,
