David Berry, Vue Weekly
November 26, 2009

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It's time for Alberta to come up with a comprehensive plan to address poverty, says a report issued Tuesday. The report, released by Public Interest Alberta and the Edmonton Social Planning Council and titled We Must Do Better: It's Time to Make Alberta Poverty-Free, gathered information from seven forums hosted across the province, and found that Albertans were disturbed that the province's recent boom still leaves many out in the cold, and outlines step towards a comprehensive plan to reduce poverty, similar to plans that already exist in six other Canadian provinces.

The study posited the need for such a plan particularly because in Alberta's boom you needn't necessarily be jobless to be living in poverty. The study points out, for instance, that one in 12 children in the province live in poverty, despite a majority having parents who work, and 49 percent with parents who were employed full-time. In part because of this, chief among the recommendations were increased funding for community service providers, which the report says have struggled to deal with resources that have remained steady or in some cases been cut even as demand for services has increased.

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