The Latest

Tamarack's New Partnership with ESDC

At the end of November, the Tamarack Institute was joined by local partners in Kitchener-Waterloo to announce our new 4-year, $2 million partnership with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). The event was hosted with the full Tamarack family with kind words from Marcus Shantz, the president of Conrad Grebel University College, and Karen Redman, the incoming chair of the Region of Waterloo. It was a great opportunity to reflect on our work and to hear from our Co-CEOs, Paul Born and Liz Weaver, about what this new partnership will mean for how Tamarack supports community leaders.

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Collaborating Across Sectors to Support Youth to Succeed

We are all familiar with the old adage that “it takes a community to raise a child”, but translating that wisdom into high-impact action is anything but simple. In particular, developing innovative and effective strategies to address the needs of the growing percentage of youth who are neither in school nor at work is an area of specific focus for many communities throughout North America.  That is why we are fortunate to have to have examples such as Canada’s Pathways to Education and a new research brief, Building Partnerships: In Support of Where, When, and How Learning Happens published by the Aspen Institute, to offer a richer understanding of the interconnected factors that enable young people to thrive and demonstrate that by working together collaboratively across sectors, communities can achieve high-impact results that ensure promising futures for all youth. 

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Food Security: Rescuing Food, Increasing Yields

Access to fresh, affordable nutritious food is an important aspect of many local poverty reduction strategies. In Sault Ste. Marie, the Poverty Reduction Roundtable is addressing this pillar through a food resource centre called Harvest Algoma. Harvest Algoma was established by United Way Sault Ste. Marie & Algoma District, and the United Way continues to operate the facility.

The food resource distribution centre is creating a more efficient local food system, and has:

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Plan 45,000

On September 6, 2018, the Roundtable on Poverty Reduction for the Montreal Borough of Côte-des-neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Graçe submitted its recommendations to the Borough Council on how it could deploy its political, social and economic capital to reduce poverty within its boundaries.

The Roundtable was launched by former Borough Mayor, Russell Copeman, in early 2017 who was convinced the best way to develop a local plan was to follow Tamarack’s tried and true engagement process. After her election in late 2017, new Borough Mayor Sue Montgomery gave her blessing to the Roundtable members to conclude their work with caveat that an accent be put on “actionable” recommendations for poverty reduction by the Borough Council.

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Cities Reducing Poverty Policy Digest: November 2018

This is the November 2018 edition of the Cities Reducing Poverty Policy Digest, which aims to provide you with timely poverty-related policy updates and resources from across Canada.

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Living Wage In a Livable Economy

In Edmonton, approximately 140,000 workers are identified as low income earners (earning below $16.31 per hour), according to the Edmonton Social Planning Council. Four in five of these workers are over the age of 20 and 60% are women.

The Canadian Payroll Association’s annual survey of Canadian workers identifies that in any given year 45% to 50% of workers across our nation are living pay check to pay check and would face significant hardships, including the loss of their residence, if they went without their pay check for one or two pay periods.

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