You can’t get rid of disease but people still try. You can’t get rid of prostitution but people still try. You can’t get rid of aging but people still try. You can’t get rid of drugs but people still try. You can’t get rid of crime but people still try. You can’t get rid of religion but people still try. You can’t get rid of ignorance but people still try. You can’t get rid of violence but people still try. You can’t get rid of war but people still try. You can’t get rid of abortion but people still try.
better or worse, the impossibility of a task has never deterred people from trying. If we put the same force of political will, thought, discussion, money and manpower into the task of getting rid of poverty as we do in a host of other so-called lost causes, imagine what we could accomplish together. Poverty lies at the heart of a myriad of social ills that hurt us all whether we’ve ever experienced poverty in our own lives or not.
If we really believe in equality and social justice, don’t we have an obligation to keep trying? Why does it have to be a class war, an us against them narrative? Why can’t it be all of us together looking for ways to make things better for everyone? What benefits the poorest Canadians, benefits everyone. If we took the position as a society that Canadians living in poverty are our greatest untapped resource to build our economy and our communities and our future, why would we not reach our hands out and say, “Come along with us. We can do great things together.”
