The End of Poverty gathering will bring together government, business, community and lived/living experience leaders from across Canada to celebrate our successes and co-generate solutions. The event will facilitate learning and dialogue across sectors, harness the distinctive synergies of today's poverty reduction movement, and take our collective understanding of community innovation in poverty reduction to the next level.
The event will take place over two days, convening at 11:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday May 5th, and closing at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday May 6th. Join us to hear from inspiring speakers and panelists and to participate in a range interactive workshops designed to help you advance the End of Poverty narrative in your own community.
Participants will also be invited to register for daily pre- and post-event small group conversations that will create space for learners to network and dialogue with other attendees, engage in small group discussions, and work through specific questions and issues.
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Fourteen concurrent and interactive workshops will be hosted over Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Each workshop will be led by one or more experts and will be supported by a panel of Cities Reducing Poverty members. Each workshop is designed to be inspiring while also providing real opportunities for learners to plan for and adopt Ending Poverty Pathways in their own communities.
Workshops will include:
Ending Working Poverty
The working poor make up the largest demographic of people living in poverty in Canada. This session will present an evidence-based approach, where higher minimum wages, an enhanced Canada Workers Benefit, and six layered ideas forge a robust pathway out of working poverty.
with John Stapleton
A Basic Income for Ending Poverty
Basic Income is an anti-poverty strategy that has gained support through COVID-19 from across the political spectrum. This session will propose a design option for a Basic Income guarantee that could end poverty in Canada. It will include a detailed walk through the math behind how it could realistically and reasonably be funded.
with Sheila Regehr
Built for Zero: A Model for Ending Chronic Homelessness
This session will present how three Cities Reducing Poverty members have reduced chronic homelessness by incorporating Housing First, data-driven decision making, and collective action to transform programs, policies and systems with the ultimate goal of reaching ‘functional zero.’
with Marie Morrison
Opportunity for All: Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy
Prior to COVID-19, Canada reduced poverty for 1.3 million Canadians, to its lowest level in recorded history. This session will highlight the critical role of cities and communities in advocating for and rolling out large-scale and high-impact federal policies, and in contributing to the successful implementation of Opportunity for All: Canada’s first poverty reduction strategy.
with Scott MacAfee
Provincial and Territorial Governments Ending Poverty
In recent years, provincial and territorial governments have championed poverty reduction efforts. This session will showcase how three provinces and territories have engaged with communities and across all levels of government to implement programs and policies that have demonstrated significant impacts in reducing poverty.
with Molly Harrington and Stephane Leclair
Cities Ending Poverty: Success Stories from Vibrant Communities
Cities are increasingly harnessing the assets of their communities, engaging across sectors, and nudging policy and systems change. This session will explore how 4 cities are using the latest collective impact approaches to create meaningful change for people living on low-incomes. Learn how more than 300 municipalities supported by 80 regional networks are following their lead.
with Edmonton, Calgary, Saint John and Peel
Ending Youth Poverty and Building Youth Futures
This session will introduce Opportunity Youth, an evidence-based collective impact model that has been proven to bolster postsecondary and career success through youth leadership and community mobilization. You will learn about how Communities Building Youth Futures (CBYF) is supporting youth in 13 communities who face extraordinary barriers to stay connected and to reconnect with pathways to prosperity.
with Nathalie Blanchet
A National Supplement for Ending Disability Poverty
Poverty among people with disabilities is multi-tiered as it is often connected with social isolation, anxiety and poor health. Learn how Canada’s commitment to creating a Canadian Disability Benefit could serve as a basic income for people with disabilities, ensuring that nobody would fall below the poverty line, and could essentially end disability poverty in Canada.
with Laura Cattari
Quebec’s Low-Fee Child Care Centres: Les Centres de la Petite Enfance
Universal child care programs help women to get back into the workforce and boost family incomes. Learn how Quebec’s generous investment in provincial child benefits has served as an effective poverty reduction strategy that is paying for itself, with $1.47 in direct returns obtained for each $1.00 invested.
with Geneviève Bélisle and Fanny Dagenais
Human Rights Cities for Ending Poverty
Poverty is what happens when people are denied their human right to a decent standard of living. This session will explore a human rights approach to ending poverty and how we can translate it into effective policies and practices.
with Elizabeth McIsaac and Effie Vlachoyannacos
Ending Indigenous Poverty in Cities
In this session, Cities Reducing Poverty members will share how they are including Indigenous partners as equal partners in their Cities' futures.
with Cheryl Whiskeyjack, Leslie Varley and Buddie Dixon
Ending Poverty in Rural Communities
This session will profile stories of social innovation from Cities Reducing Poverty members from rural and remote communities. A roundtable conversation will address challenges and solutions unique to rural poverty reduction.
with Don Kattler
Sustainable Development Goals for Ending Poverty
This session will introduce you to the United Nations Sustainable Development goals. A panel of communities will discuss how they have or are planning to use these goals to further poverty reduction work in their communities.
with Marcie DeWitt and Dennis Guy
Climate Change and Ending Poverty
How do we advance a climate change and end poverty agenda at the same time? This session will explore how you can support your community to link these two agendas and in turn achieve a bigger impact.
with Laura Schnurr
Stay tuned! This section will be updated as topics, leads and descriptions are confirmed.
As cities harness the assets of their communities, they are finding new ways to end poverty. Increasingly, they are recognizing poverty as a comprehensive issue, advancing their understanding of collaboration across sectors, and nudging policy and systems change. Cities are recognizing the value of linking private sector and community solutions, and are addressing the disproportionate impacts of poverty on black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). They are working directly with local businesses and are meaningfully engaging people with lived/living experience in leadership roles and decision-making opportunities to move their work forward.
Cities are increasingly recognizing the importance of embedding a Collective Impact approach to their work. They are developing common agendas and shared measurement systems between partnering groups, working toward mutually reinforcing activities, and cultivating continuous communication and strong backbone organizations in order to realize high-impact city-wide approaches that achieve powerful outcomes.
Over the last two decades, much has been learned about the collective processes cities undertake to reduce poverty. The End of Poverty will feature proven approaches that they are applying to develop community plans, promising practices they are developing to manage large-scale collaborations, and strategies they are implementing to influence impactful policy shifts and meaningful change for people living on low incomes.
Wednesday, May 5, 2021 | Thursday, May 6, 2021 | |
10:00 - 11:00 am ET | Optional small group networking conversations | |
11:00 - 11:45 am ET | Welcome | Welcome |
11:45 - 12:05 pm ET | Keynote: Mayor Naheed Nenshi | Keynote: Melody Barnes |
12:05 - 12:15 pm ET | CRP in Action | CBYF Overview |
12:15 - 1:15 pm ET | Panel: Mayors Ending Poverty | Panel: Youth Futures Without Poverty |
1:15 - 1:30 pm ET | Closing | Photo Contest and Closing |
1:30 - 2:00 pm ET | Break | |
2:00 - 3:30 pm ET | Concurrent Workshops Round 1 | |
3:30 - 4:00 pm ET | Break | |
4:00 - 5:30 pm ET | Concurrent Workshops Round 2 | |
5:30 - 6:30 pm ET | Optional small group networking conversations |