AJAX – As Stephen Harper prepares to visit Ajax-Pickering today, Canadians are questioning outrageous new comments by his handpicked candidate there, Chris Alexander.
In a March 17, 2011 video of the Community Poverty Forum hosted by Community Development Council Durham at the Ajax Council Chambers, Ajax residents reacted with outrage after Conservative candidate Chris Alexander claimed that there is no poverty in Canada.
Liberals want Mr. Harper to explain Mr. Alexander’s comments to over 3.5 million Canadians who live in poverty – including the more than 1 in 10 children in Canada. Is this why Mr. Harper has done nothing for the 1 in 4 First Nations children currently living in poverty? Will he justify his failure in leadership that has left Canada ranked near the bottom of all major developed countries when it comes to working-age poverty rates? Or will Mr. Harper categorically repudiate Mr. Alexander’s callous remarks?
TRANSCRIPT:
ALEXANDER: Anyone who thinks though, that poverty reduction, or poverty elimination, and I believe in poverty elimination in this country, we’ve eliminated it for the levels the World Bank recognizes. We don’t have that kind of poverty in Canada. But we still have low income.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: You’re lying, you’re lying.
CROWD: Groans.
ALEXANDER: Two dollars a day? Two dollars a day? I would ask anyone in this room to stand up and tell me who’s living on $2 a day?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I’m living on less, I’m the mother of eight and you guys took my unemployment away from me because I got fired. Do you call that fair? And I have 8 children to feed and three grandchildren. Do you care? No. So how’s that fair, to not feed a family of 8?
