Photo courtesy of Miistakis Institute.

A woman in a coral windbreaker peeks through cattails on the periphery of a marsh, her rubber boots camouflaged by vegetation and mud as she strains, clipboard in hand, to detect signs of amphibian life. A frog hops into a beam of sunlight through the dense flora and she marks a tick on her clipboard. She takes a picture, records her observations, and continues strolling along the wetland.

The woman is one of 82 citizen scientists volunteering with Call of the Wetland, a Calgary-based project that measures amphibian activity in local wetlands to better understand urban ecosystems and, by extension, inform developers before they build on sensitive lands. The group will monitor 60 of Calgary’s 4,000 wetlands from April to August over the next three years.

The presence or absence of amphibians “can tell you a lot about the water quality and general health of the ecosystem,” says Lea Randall, a conservation research population ecologist with the Calgary Zoo.

“[They] are among the first species to disappear when ecosystems are unhealthy or fragmented and thus can be important first indicators that an ecosystem is losing biodiversity,” she says. Currently, there are six amphibian species in the Calgary area, three of which are labelled at-risk. The biggest threat to these species, and wetlands in general, is development.

Canada has a poor track-record of protecting or even documenting wetlands. Local governments long considered wetlands to be wastelands, and a number of them in southern Canada were drained or filled for agriculture or development. About 90 percent of pre-settlement wetlands have been lost in Calgary. Today, many wetlands, particularly small ones called ephemeral wetlands, are threatened by development simply because there’s no record of where they are.

“That’s a huge issue, because we have dry years where ephemeral wetlands don’t show up, and then if they’re not mapped, it’s awfully difficult when you’re making decisions about development,” says Tracy Lee, senior project manager at the Miistakis Institute, a natural resource and land management non-profit organization and a coordinator for Call of the Wetland.

The City of Calgary plans to use the citizen scientists’ database to inform where developments are permitted without destroying sensitive ecologies.

“I think Call of the Wetland will draw attention to [wetlands] as an important feature in the landscape, and will hopefully create a culture of caring about them,” says Lee. “If you have people that are knowledgeable and care about something, then it has a voice.”

Jesse Gouchey and the mural he painted to honour the memory of Gloria Black Plume

In 1999, filmmaker Xstine Cook was living in Ramsay, an inner-city working class Calgary neighbourhood, when Gloria Black Plume, an aboriginal social worker, was murdered in an alleyway five houses away from her home. Cook now lives on the property where the murder took place. She felt the need to memorialize Black Plume’s life and work.

“She was a blood mother and grandmother and her murderers walked free,” Cook said during her introduction to Spirit of the Bluebird, the short film she made with animator Jesse Gouchey in Black Plume’s honour. Cook was speaking at Toronto’s ImagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in October, where it received the best short documentary award. “Something about it grabbed hold of me and I vowed to put a mural there in her memory.”

Though originally conceived as a mural project, Cook was inspired by video artist BLU, who creates stop-motion animated films using murals, to create a film as well. “I thought it would be so much better to go beyond just the alleyway where it’s not very high traffic,” she says. “No one really knows the story, no one will discover the story there, whereas if we make a film it’s just a matter of finding the artist that can do it.”

Cook connected with Gouchey, a Cree aerosol artist, through Calgary’s Quickdraw Animation Society. Gouchey developed a storyboard of a mother bluebird and her children in a natural landscape. “I wanted something feminine,” says Gouchey. “And I wanted something that was familiar to the land too, to keep the story close to home.”

Gouchey began by painting the background scenes on a fence and garage. He then brought in a butterfly, a bluebird and a bear, photographing every image, and each time redoing the background to make it look as if the figure had never been there. He painted from July to September 2010, taking over 1,800 images. Dappled sunlight, shadows, a fence and real shrubs contribute to the short film’s unusual, ethereal effect.

Black Plume’s family contributed to Spirit of the Bluebird by attending the mural’s unveiling in October 2010. One of the speakers, Shirley Prairie Chicken, brought along her son Jonathan Tall Man, who offered his drum and voice, which became the soundtrack to the film.

When Black Plume’s daughter Kaily Bird attends screenings, such as the one in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, Cook says her presence draws attention to the epidemic of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Calgary.

“We’ll show this to non-native people and they’ll be touched,” says Cook. “But generally you show it to a native person and they cry, because they know someone that’s been murdered.”

Spirit of the Bluebird has screened at dozens of North American festivals so far, and Cook and Gouchey would like to see it go overseas. The two are working on a new short film and planning a larger community mural project.

“It’s racism and people need to see it,” says Gouchey. “This family went through hell, and this is just one case of many murders.”

A lack of good statistics on the scope of Calgary's homeless population have hampered efforts. Creative Commons photo by Flickr User C Law.

Three years ago, the City of Calgary adopted a 10-year plan to end homelessness. The much-lauded, and now much-copied, program was the first of its kind in Canada. Funded by the provincial government and led by the Calgary Homeless Foundation, the plan hinges on an ambitious “Housing First” strategy, which promises to move 1,800 of Calgary’s homeless population out of shelters and into their own apartments. No more than 10 percent of that population will return to homelessness, it pledges, and by 2018 no one will stay in an emergency shelter for more than a week before permanent housing is found. But does the golden-on-paper policy shine in practice?

Unfortunately, it’s hard to say. The City of Calgary has not taken a homeless count since May 2008, when the tally hit 4,060. This leaves no solid way to measure the plan’s progress. While the foundation has launched its own system to keep track of the population, it will be December before there’s an official number. The foundation does know that, as of January, 2,300 people had been moved into their own apartments, says Tim Richter, President and CEO. However, it’s difficult to determine whether others have replaced them, or even if they’re still living in housing.

Kristen Desjarlais-deKlerk, a former frontline worker at The Mustard Seed, an emergency shelter in downtown Calgary, is one of many who would like to see more emphasis on a “Housing First, with support” approach, including frequent visits from caseworkers, treatment for illnesses and addictions and life-skills assistance—services that are not always delivered with the necessary frequency and consistency now.

“We need to find a way to build a sense of community into these Housing First initiatives,” she says. Otherwise, risk factors that contribute to homelessness in the first place aren’t being addressed.

The program largely relies on the Calgary Housing Company to pay subsidies equivalent to 70 percent of the client’s rent. But what happens if the subsidy funding pool runs dry, and people are living in apartments they can’t afford with no skills and no support?

There are plenty of questions surrounding the plan’s long-term goals, and for now, not many answers. Even so, Calgary has started a necessary conversation. “The wonderful thing about the 10-year plan is that it put homelessness back on the agenda,” says Desjarlais-deKlerk, “And made it something that people saw as solvable and worth their time.”

Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith stumping during her summer tour of Alberta. The far-right party has weakened the right flank of the Progressive Conservatives. Image courtesy Wildrose Alliance.

At Marv’s Classic Soda Shop, Marvin Garriott, known for his oiled handlebar moustache, is often asked to speak of politics. He’s the local prophet on the subject; all small towns have one. A two-term councillor sitting for the 1,900-person Southern Alberta town of Black Diamond, Garriott poses for tourists and reporters, mugging in a bowling-alley inspired uniform matching the laminate, post-war decor of his pop shop. He knew the federal Conservatives would sweep to a majority, predicted the fall of the Liberals and even says he foresaw the Orange Crush (and the demise of the Bloc).

Ask Garriott to predict the outcome of the upcoming provincial leadership race and his vision goes dark. “It’s going to be an interesting one,” he says, passing judgment on the provincial Progressive Conservative party with a wince and a so-so motion of his left hand. “They weren’t listening to us. And the whole health-care issue has been a fiasco, and it still is.” Albertans face a leadership contest and probable election come fall, and are calling for change. Considering Black Diamond is in the dark blue heart of Tory country, Garriott’s verdict is a surprising vote of non-confidence.

For 40 years, the Conservatives, under the auspices of King Ralph Klein and lately “Steady Eddie” Stelmach have boasted vote margins envied by now-deposed Middle Eastern despots. At least, until Stelmach’s bumbling leadership style cost him the support of party insiders. Facing declining oil royalties, ongoing economic sluggishness and a rogue MLA forcing the party’s failing health-care policies into an unflattering news spiral, the Conservative caucus is “dissolving,” according to David Taras, a media studies professor at Mount Royal University. “People elected [Stelmach] thinking he was experienced, but it turned out there was nothing steady about Eddie,” Taras says. “When 45 percent of your budget goes into health-care, that’s the gold standard. That’s the standard by which you will be judged.”

Following in the out-sized footsteps of the iconic Klein, Stelmach’s path was bound to be bumpy. But his political missteps have been scrutinized more severely by the formation of two new parties: the centrist Alberta Party and far-right Wildrose Alliance. The latter, led by charismatic former journalist Danielle Smith, has quickly leeched the support of the populist-minded and arch-conservative alike (though the pendulum may be swinging back lately).

Stelmach’s fading fortifications were dealt a fatal coup de main during budget talks in January. His finance minister, Ted Morton, reportedly threatened to resign rather than deliver a financial plan easy on cuts and leaning heavily on the province’s reserve savings. Stelmach beat Morton to the podium. The premier resigned during a hasty news conference. He took no questions. Two days later, Morton announced himself a leadership contender. The Conservatives are now staging a six-way race to elect a leader in a five-party province.

The turmoil may even lead to an actual contest come election day—a rarity in a region where there’s more competition within parties than between them. The root of Alberta’s electoral intractability lies in its history, according to Taras. Early American immigration, strong religious communities and the hangover of the Trudeau-Era National Energy Program mean it may be decades before the province sees any real political movement—the election of superstar Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi being the exception. Up to a quarter of Alberta’s budget relies on oil royalties, and the rest of the country is growing increasingly hostile to oil sands development.

The result is a hankering for a strong leader who can stand up to the environmentalists and robber barons of Eastern Canada: “The lesson is that we need majority governments that have to be strong vis-à-vis Ottawa, because if they’re not strong, bad things can happen,” Taras says. “People see environmental politics through the lens of ‘what’s Ottawa going to do to us now?’”

And here, it should be noted, Albertans have a point. Last year, the province’s taxpayers gave the federal government $7 billion more than they received in revenue and services—about the same as what Quebec received in equalization payments. The province also receives less than its fair share in health-care transfers.

Since the ’70s, Alberta’s politics have revolved more around the protection of regional interests than the promulgation of truly conservative social values. That leaves a cadre of leadership candidates that run the gamut from Red Tory to Stockwell Day—just as long as they support oil and gas, all seem to be welcome under the big blue tent. For decades, that made for a broad, stable conservative dynasty; now that base appears to be fracturing.

Gary Mar, a former MLA, recently quit his job as the Alberta representative in the Canadian embassy in Washington. He’s emerged as an early front-runner in the leadership race. High on his list of self-described credentials are his lobbying efforts for the Keystone XL pipeline—a tube that would carry crude oil to the U.S., angering environmental groups on both sides of the border.

At 48 years old, Mar is young and eloquent: traits he shares with fellow candidate Doug Griffiths, who holds the title of youngest MLA to serve the province at 29. Former energy minister Rick Orman and deputy premier Doug Horner both have strong resumes, but may be seen as too old-school to tap into the restless undercurrent.

Alison Redford rounds the centrist Tory position. Socially progressive, she supports boosting Calgary as a world energy capital. She’s also pulled some of the campaign brains behind Nenshi’s purple revolution, which saw the mayor sweep last year’s municipal elections. “We can’t continue to presume that an election takes place, we elect a certain set of officials and then those politicians go away to make decisions, and then ask people to vote for them again,” Redford says. “People are demanding a different conversation with their politicians.”

Then there’s Mr. Et-Tu? Morton, who stands for a more conventional, American-style conservatism that blends fiscal utilitarianism and hard-right values such as opposition to same-sex marriage. Whether he has a shot at the top seat in Alberta as the Wildrose splits the right remains to be seen. “The Wildrose has made a lot of inroads,” Garriott says. Stelmach, with his humble rise to the top, should be popular among the types of people who frequent Marv’s soda shop. He’s not. “For a country boy, [Stelmach] lost touch with reality.”

In Alberta, the reality these days seems to be: expect the unexpected.

Participants in a recent Next Up training session. Photo courtesy Next Up.

It was the sort of sectarian self-destruction that’s sadly all too common in left-wing movements. After winning strong majorities on Vancouver City Council, the school board, and the park board in 2002, the Coalition of Progressive Electors alliance split in two just a couple of years later. This paved the way for the right to retake city politics in the 2005 election.

Kevin Millsip was one of the COPE school board trustees during that tumultuous term, and the meltdown spurred him to rethink how best to channel his energies and skills. “It was kind of a low point,” he says, “but it led me to think carefully about leadership, unity, and how we build long-run capacities in our movement.”

Fortunately, within a couple of years Vancouver’s left got its act back together, and a united progressive coalition (composed of Vision Vancouver, COPE, and the Greens) handily won the 2008 municipal election. In the meantime, Millsip had co-founded Next Up, an amazing new initiative that has the potential to make an even greater contribution to the next incarnations of social and environmental activism than any single election victory ever could.

Next Up was co-founded by Millsip and Seth Klein (who works in the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which still co-sponsors the initiative). Millsip also tapped into other networks he’d been nurturing through the “Check Your Head” high school education project in Vancouver that he had been organizing since 1998. The group has cleverly leveraged other partnerships with the Columbia Institute, the Gordon Foundation, the Parkland Institute, and other established organizations, rather than trying to go it alone.

Next Up began operations in 2007 in Vancouver, and has now expanded to offer its program in Calgary, Edmonton, and Saskatoon. The core of the program is an intensive leadership development course for young adult activists aged 18-32. Each cohort meets one night a week for six months, plus five full-day Saturday sessions. Participants must apply for the program, and are selected based on leadership qualities, demonstrated activist commitment, and a short written assignment. They learn activist, organizing, and communication skills; hone their political analysis; and undertake hands-on activist projects. The program is free.

“We need to learn from how the right has put a deliberate, sustained focus on nurturing and launching a new generation of talented, connected leaders,” Millsip argues, pointing to efforts by groups like the Fraser Institute and the Heritage Foundation to identify and recruit young leaders, train them, and support them as they go out to foment change (change of the wrong kind, that is). In contrast, on the left Millsip believes there is an absence of structures through which progressive young leaders can consciously develop their skills, connect with like-minded activists, and build networks. It’s that void that Next Up aims to fill.

One of the most impressive aspects of Next Up is its deliberate strategy to maintain close networks among the alumni who have gone through the program. Annual alumni conferences (called “gatherings”) are a chance to reconnect with graduates from all years, discuss current issues and organizing strategies, and strengthen networks. The Next Up alumni community already includes 100 talented, inspired, and inspiring young leaders, and that number will grow like a snowball as Next Up offers more courses in more locations.

Millsip himself embodies an impressive combination of hard-nosed organizing savvy and strategic analysis, with the soft-spoken touch of a new-age West Coast activist. He is refreshingly realistic and concrete about the skills and discipline that will be required for us to successfully combat and roll back the juggernaut of the right. But he performs his work with an inclusive humanity that effectively welcomes and encourages new activists, and respects unity and partnerships. (Think back to the bitter disunity that sparked his plan in the first place.) He connects perfectly with the young leaders he is helping to mentor; he has big plans for Next Up and, more importantly, for the activists who experience it.

Next Up is carefully considering further expansion to other parts of Canada, though Millsip is careful not to bite off more than the shoestring operation can chew. The program is already making a difference to the power and capacity of our broad progressive movement, and there’s much more to come.

Calgary from the air. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Oli-Oviyan.

Calgary is not a place to stay. A cultural wasteland with a boom-bust oil economy where hard workers can make their money before moving to a “real” city with “real” arts and culture—but not a place to stay. This is an all-too-common belief about Calgary. But skeptics should take a closer look at the Heart of the New West, because things are changing fast.

Many Calgarians, including newly elected mayor Naheed Nenshi, are committed to making this a livable city and creating a place where people will want to stay, set down roots, and build a life. What outsiders often miss, however, is that the foundation for that livable city has existed for many years, thanks to a vibrant grassroots arts community that hasn’t had much exposure outside the province, but has been churning out great work all the same. With the election of an exciting new mayor, local artists sense that the time has come to demolish Calgary’s “cultural wasteland” image.

“People have this story about Calgary that there’s nothing going on,” says Dr. Terry Rock, president and CEO of the Calgary Arts Development Authority. While the city has historically lagged on factors such as per capita funding and arts space, Rock says the slow and steady approach to building an arts community means that the city does things better—not faster. “There’s a convenience of being last to really get this going,” he says.

Calgary created CADA in March 2005 and says it’s the only organization of its kind in Canada, bundling together space, promotion, and funding for non-profit arts groups in one unified organization. CADA provides funding for both new and well-established arts organizations. In 2010, it funded 161 arts organizations with more than $3.8 million.

CADA has also been involved in the creation of six new arts spaces, including the highly anticipated National Music Centre, a project that received $75 million in government funding and will help revitalize Calgary’s East Village; and Seafood Market Studios, a temporary, and affordable rehearsal and studio space that artists can rent from the city. “At first glance, Calgary seems like a conservative place, where the focus is on the Stampede and the more traditional arts like the ballet and opera,” says Kerry Clarke, artistic director of the Calgary Folk Music Festival. “But scratch the surface and you find a very creative scene, where a breadth of mainstream and cutting-edge, underthe-radar events draw audiences that would make other cities envious.”

Now in its 32nd year, the Calgary Folk Music Festival has grown into one of Canada’s major music festivals. It started as a two-day event on three stages and is now a four-day event on seven stages, with other concerts and programming happening throughout the year.

In a place where public funding for the arts has traditionally been scarce or unpredictable, hardier species of arts organizations have grown and built wider, more sustainable audiences. Though public funding is still lower in Calgary on a per capita basis than many other cities in the country, attendance is comparatively high: in a population of one million, public attendance across arts organizations in 2009 was 2.5 million, meaning lots of people were making it out to events.

“The theatre is full of real people who want to see a play,” says Vanessa Porteous, artistic director of Alberta Theatre Projects, “not to be seen or to get a job.” It’s this approach, says Porteous, which drives the theatre itself. Calgarians have been particularly supportive of Alberta Theatre Projects’ Enbridge playRites Festival, a five-week celebration of Canadian playwriting. Going into its 25th season, playRites will premiere its 100th production in 2011.

With a new regime installed at city hall, arts advocates throughout Calgary repeat the same refrain: more money, more space, more arts-friendly. The most difficult period in an artist’s career is the first 10 years, and CADA’s Terry Rock would like to see money available for individual artists, not just organizations.

Zak Pashak, a Calgary entrepreneur who opened Broken City, a live-music venue, and founded Sled Island, a music festival that features local and international artists, firmly believes that the city has to be affordable and walkable to keep young artists around. If Calgary wants to foster arts and culture, he says, the city needs to be affordable for artists—which not only means a roof overhead and enough to eat, but also a supply of reasonably priced studio space and quality public transportation.

That’s not to say the cowboy ethos is totally gone from Calgary; the arts community remains independent-minded, and while public arts funding has increased, it’s still low compared to similarly sized cities in Canada. The arts in Calgary remain a labour of love by a group of people who can’t imagine doing anything else.

Vanessa Porteous, who came to Calgary 12 years ago, says, “I stayed because I had the best job in Canadian theatre and the next thing I knew, I had a community.”

The Quebec born author, who moved to Alberta as a teen, has long been fascinated with the mythologies unique to Wild Rose Country. In a quest both serious and silly, with Will the Real Alberta Please Stand Up? he makes observations, mines documents, and interviews both public figures (Preston Manning, Martha Kostuch) and private folk of all persuasions.

The author makes no pretense to scholarly methodology and defies genres in presenting his findings to readers. But don’t be fooled by the occasional interview with a dead princess or dinosaur—the book is well-researched and often thoughtful.

Although this text is no love letter to Alberta, Takach argues the province is full of people who bring “energy, individuality, and a healthy skepticism” to Canada. Takach does not assume his readers are Albertans, but winks at them without giving in to inside jokes.

So are Albertans beef-eating, right-wing rednecks or misunderstood freethinking mavericks? Takach provides some short answers to sprawling questions, but you won’t catch the nuances if you skip straight to them. To appreciate this book, you need only an interest in the province—and a taste for bad puns.

Yesterday Canadian economics blogger Mike Moffatt posted his thoughts about the costs of reducing the murder rate by 30 percent through water treatment. The post was based on a Big Think article that studied correlations between higher lithium amounts in public drinking water and drops in suicides and violent crime rates.

Lithium, a mood-booster, is used as psychotropic treatment against bipolar disorder. The theory, in a nutshell, is that giving the public a little bit of lithium makes us all a little more mentally stable.

The idea’s met some outcry. Aside from the ethical issues surrounding mental health, the Big Think author notes that lithium is known to be more powerful than fluoride, with greater chances of side effects.

But lithium isn’t the only substance that can be added to public drinking water. Thiamine has been proposed as a means of eradicating Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome among alcoholics. And the use of fluoride has repeatedly caused a stir.

After six decades of fluoride use in public water supplies, there is still little scientific consensus on the issue.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed fluoridation of drinking water among 10 great public health achievements of the last century. At a a price near one dollar per citizen each year, the U.S. surgeon general has lauded fluoridation for its cost-effectiveness. More than 65 percent of the population uses fluoridated water.

But WHO data shows little-to-no difference in oral hygiene between countries who chose whether to fluoridate public water. WHO only advocates fluoridation for countries with poor health infrastructure, and removal of fluoride from water sources with too much of the substance.

Most European countries, western and eastern, started fluoridating until the ’70s and ’90s, respectively. Some countries now fluoridate salt or even milk instead, and toothpaste with fluoride has been prevalent since the 1970’s.

This month, the U.S. government proposed lowering the amount of fluoride added to public water for the first time in almost 50 years over increasing rates of fluorosis among children.

Fluoridation gained prevalence in the Western world in the 1950s, decades after researches studied a lower rate of cavities in areas where water sources are naturally rich in fluoride. Under the red threat, paranoid Americans rallied against fluoridation, calling it a communist plot to undermine public health and brainwash the population. Some today even argue that fluoridation violates Nuremberg laws forbidding human experimentation.

Fluoridation has often been controversial in Canada. Anti-fluoridation activists often point to research claiming a correlation with everything from lower IQ scores to diminishing thyroid hormone levels. Communities across Canada debate fluoridation every few years, a trend that’s existed since fluoridaiton began in Canada.

In recent years, research on humans and rats has proposed a link between fluoride and childhood osteosarcoma in boys, a rare bone cancer that killed Terry Fox and often leads to amputations. The Canadian Cancer Society notes that these claims are heavily contested and require further study. Conflicting research suggests long-time exposure to fluoride may not increase the risk of osteosarcoma. When fluoride is ingested, half the substance is absorbed by the bones and accumulates over time.

In a November referendum in Waterloo, Ontario, 50.3 percent voted against continuing fluoridation. Last week, the Calgary Herald published an editorial calling for an end to fluoridation. The city is considering doing away with its aging fluoridation equipment, which would cost $6 million to replace.

A 2009 Health Canada report found that 43 percent of Canadians use fluoridated tap water. Water quality falls under provincial jursidiction and fluoride usage in Canada varies by region, with Ontario clocking in at almost 76 percent fluoridation, a number that drops to 6.4 percent in Quebec and 3.7 for British Columbians.

Health Canada recommends 0.7 parts per million fluoride to water, the same level now being proposed in the U.S. Toronto’s fluoride level was reduced from 1.2 p.p.m. to 0.8 p.p.m. In 1999, then to 0.6 p.p.m. in 2005.

[Creative Commons Water photograph by Flickr user visualpanic]

The fight against poverty in Canada recently added a new weapon to its arsenal: the living wage bylaw. While only one Canadian city, New Westminster, B.C., currently implements the practice, the push is on to make it the norm.

Living wage bylaws require that workers employed directly or indirectly by a municipal government be paid a wage that enables them to comfortably meet their basic needs. The current movement has existed in the United States for about 15 years, resulting in over 140 living-wage ordinances, but it only gained a foothold in Canada on April 26, when New Westminster city councillors unanimously passed a motion mandating that anyone working on city property receive at least $18.17 per hour. This market-based rate is meant to reflect the actual income required for working families to pay for necessities, support the healthy development of their children, and participate in social and civic life.

Living wage proponents are confident that the victory in New Westminster will spur or embolden similar movements across the country. In Ottawa, street demonstrations and presentations to municipal councillors and staff led to the living wage being included within the city’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, which city council endorsed last February. This December council will make their final decision when they decide whether to commit financial resources to the plan. Initiatives are also underway in places such as Victoria and Surrey, British Columbia, and Kingston, Ontario.

Many anti-poverty activists believe that living wages are the key to addressing the plight of Canada’s “working poor.” While provincial minimum-wage rates vary, the lowest paid workers in Canada now earn an average of 20 percent less in real dollars than in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the cost of living has steadily climbed. As a consequence, even full-time employment is not enough to keep some Canadians out of poverty.

The New Westminster proposal was promoted by a diverse amalgamation of groups, including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Hospital Employees’ Union, and First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. A similar coalition in Ottawa is looking to build upon this example. In September, ACORN Canada brought in speakers from New Westminster to help educate the people of Ottawa on how higher wages can benefit workers and the economy without burdening taxpayers.

Of course, the living wage does have its opponents. Free-market thinkers have criticized the policy as a bureaucratic intrusion that reduces profits and flexibility, and in 2009, they helped ward off what had been a promising campaign in Calgary.

However, with the evidence on their side, a growing number of Canadians are working hard to make living wages the law. Now that the breakthrough has been made in New Westminster, they might soon be able to concentrate on their real jobs.

Crisis Commons is holding a global CrisisCamp day on September 25, with events happening in London (UK), Washington, D.C., Toronto, and Calgary. The events are free and open to all. If you’re not in Toronto or Calgary, it’s still possible to participate online. You can sign up through EventBrite for Toronto and Calgary.