2007 National Vital Signs Report
Comments - John Ralston Saul
Those who don’t know their history are condemned to remain children. The same can be said for understanding what is happening in our own society today. What is really happening? Emotion and opinion can’t solve problems. They can help you once you understand. I read this report as a mechanism for action.
We walk by homeless people on our streets as if this were unavoidable. It isn’t. Vital Signs shows that we have been stuck in the same place on poverty for decades, and that this is the result of having no solid strategy to reduce poverty.
But this report and the increasingly coordinated conscious words and actions of community foundations across Canada is a key mechanism for facing poverty, dealing with the financial risks of immigration, confronting the income gap and the low-cost housing shortage. Conscious people have the tools to act and this report is just that – a vital tool for action.
John Ralston Saul, Writer and Co-Chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship
