Inequality In Canada

INTRODUCTION

This research report will be focusing on the social inequality that exists in Canadian cities and provinces. To do so, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia will be examined. The main focus of this report will be on inequality through income disparity and homelessness. Factors that lead to homelessness and poverty will be examined. This report will also go on to further examine the infrastructure and systems that the government has and continues to do in preventing poverty and homelessness, as well as what they are doing to help those who are currently homeless or in poverty. This report will be using sources from many different viewpoints and databases to ensure a small amount of bias is present. This report will have a larger

A person may be directly in poverty or homeless themselves, or they may know someone who is in either of these situations. Regardless of if it is directly or indirectly affecting them, one would want to get out of that position. To better understand the issues that are going to be explored, it is beneficial to have an apprehension of the different types of poverty and homelessness. To begin, we should define what poverty actually is. While there is no general, all encompassing definition of poverty, it is often accepted that living in poverty is clear when one does not have access all of their daily necessities. It is determined if someone is in poverty if they are below the poverty line. The poverty line is right at fifty percent of Canada’s income. The poverty rate is the percent of people who live below the poverty line in comparison to the area that is being assessed. There are also two different types of homelessness that ought to be defined. One type of homelessness is known as literal homeless. This is when a homeless person is never, or rarely sheltered. The other type of homelessness is known as being precariously housed. This occurs when a homeless person is intermittently sheltered, whether it is from homeless shelters, friends homes, or strangers who are willing to help an individual get back on their

Toronto, Ontario, Canada’s largest city, also has rates for high poverty. Sean Meagher, the executive director of Social Planning Toronto states that Toronto has “a bigger poverty problem than any other place in Canada”. This demonstrates that Vancouver’s poverty issue is not an outlier in data, but is instead, seen in other parts of the nation. It seems to be the case that high poverty rates are more frequent in large cities as opposed to cities and towns with smaller populations. It is important to note, however, that while Vancouver and Toronto and other big cities have these issues, Vancouver has put British Columbia into a high rate of poverty for the nation. According to the Conference Board of Canada, British Columbia ranks the third highest in poverty rates out of the ten provinces in Canada. The disparity between the poverty rates of provinces become quite clear when you compare British Columbia’s 2013 poverty rate of 13.8 and Alberta’s poverty rate of 7.2. While these statistics are again at the provincial level, it is not difficult to see that, due to Vancouver’s extremely high population of the province, these poverty rates can be representative of the city of Vancouver, making the comparisons still