The Minister of Employment and Social Development in the Canadian federal government, Ahmed Hussen, recently tabled an annual report taking stock of the country’s poverty reduction strategy.
The advisory council responsible for the reported dedicated it “to all those courageous people who shared their stories, successes and struggles with the Council in the hope that we would in turn share them across Canada. You are at the heart of this report.”
People with “Lived experience” is how policy wonks and political staffers refer to them, stressing the importance of consulting citizens who are struggling with the challenges of living in poverty and facing the barriers of moving toward a better life.
My three-year old post explaining Canada’s official poverty line continually garners views because it ranks high on a Google search for “Canada poverty line.”
This means it gets read by a whole group of people who are not policy wonks, and often by people with “lived experience,” who often cry out and share their stories by proposing a comment for my web page, which if it has done any good helped them to realize how far below the poverty line they may well be.
I hesitate approving their comments for public viewing because of their revealing and personal nature.
But maybe I shouldn’t. They have voice, but they need to be listened to. So here is one more voice that encapsulates so much, and in many different ways, of what makes policy to the poor so important, but also reveals the limits of current actions.
Economics for public policy 