Are you familiar with the song line, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all”? It is very applicable to the Saskatchewan Child Poverty Report Card 2026 by Simon Enoch (PhD), a Senior Researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) in Saskatchewan. Before diving into the report, let’s build an analogy for child poverty using a boulder dropped in a stream.

Author Ed Smith explains that an early critical chance event in your life is like a boulder that diverts the course of your stream, changing it forever. Child poverty is a proven cumulative disadvantage: each effect builds on the last, narrowing the channels of possibility at every stage.

Image by N Carswell from yayang art and OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

Let’s follow the childhood poverty stream path over time. As an infant, limited access to nutrition, healthcare, and stimulation can restrict physical and cognitive development. In early childhood, this shows up as lower school readiness and weaker academic performance. As the child grows, openings to engage in holistic growth activities like sports or the arts are limited. In adolescence, growing up in under-resourced environments can heighten stress and feelings of insecurity, while also limiting access to supportive social connections that are vital for coping, learning, and emotional growth. By adulthood, the stream has narrowed further with lower educational attainment limiting access to stable, well-paying work.

Without intervention, the constricted stream of opportunity carved by child poverty threatens to shape not only one life but the course of the next generation as well. Enoch’s Saskatchewan Child Poverty Report Card 2026 gives the Saskatchewan government a failing grade. Here are some grim Saskatchewan poverty statistics:​

·     Children living in poverty 27.1% with children under six 30.39%

·     Children in northern regions over 60%

·     Lone-parent families 49.4%

The report explains how government transfers combat poverty and urges the Saskatchewan government to prioritize anti-poverty strategies to prevent long-term harm to children. These include:

·        Use rent caps to prevent sudden increases in housing costs.

·        Create a Saskatchewan child benefit to supplement federal support. ​

·        Ensure social assistance benefits covers basic utilities and are indexed to inflation

·        Increase the minimum wage

·        Boost provincial transfers, including tax credits and sales tax rebates. ​

·        Continue commitment for universal affordable childcare

Let’s start working upstream and make sure that no bad luck boulders of poverty divert children’s lives. Ultimately, their bad luck is bad luck for all of us.

(This is longer than a 250 word letter to the editor.)

The Canadian Wealth Chasm in 30,000 Seats

Have you lived a million seconds? Most likely if you are reading this as you pass a million (M) seconds during your 12^th day. You have lived a billion (B) seconds if you have lived 32 years—yes, years. We can do the math, but it is hard to grasp the magnitude of big numbers. The Oxfam report “The Rise of the Super-Rich: The State of Inequality in Canada” uses big numbers. To make these numbers tangible, let us look at using a 30,000-seat stadium.

Graphic by N Carswell

In this stadium, the 1% wealthiest Canadians, each with a net worth of around $7M, take up 300 seats. The 40% of Canadians with an average net worth of just under $87,000 occupy 12,000 seats. Move the 300 wealthy onto the field, which is 100 metres long and 60 metres wide, or 6,000 square metres (m²). They hold 25% of Canada’s wealth, giving each person about 5 m², roughly the size of a walk-in closet. You could picture them standing with room to stretch and walk around.

Now try fitting the 12,000 people from the bottom 40% onto the same field. They hold only 3% of the wealth, 180 m² in total. That is just the space of a hand spread out for each person. Even if six people squeezed into a square metre, m
ost would still have to stay in the stands, barely touching the field.

The top 0.01%, only 3 people in our stadium, occupy 3 seats but hold 5% of the wealth. On the field, they would each have 100 m², about the size of a large apartment.

As the report emphasizes, the inequality gap in Canada has become a “wide, expansive, echoing wealth chasm.” Out of the 30,000 people in our stadium, over 3,000 are living in poverty, and 7,500 are food insecure. This divide is not just numbers. It erodes trust in institutions, weakens democracy, and deepens political polarization, leaving many Canadians feeling excluded from decisions that affect their lives. A few rich people control the media, leaving many voices unheard and making inequality worse.

But inequality is not inevitable.

Canada and Saskatchewan could take decisive steps to close this gap. The report recommends a progressive wealth tax on fortunes over $10M, closing offshore tax loopholes, and supporting international efforts to curb tax avoidance. These steps could raise billions for healthcare, affordable housing, and child care making the economy fairer and giving more of us a chance to thrive.

Inequality is not just a statistic, it affects everyone every day. You can make a difference. Contact your MP and/or MLA and tell them that Canada needs fairer policies now. Speak up, demand action, and help turn these numbers into a future that works for everyone. 

(This is longer than a 250 word letter to the editor.)

Vote and Voice

At an elementary school event, I witnessed a great example of nurturing parenting. The parent announced it was time to go. One child protested and pleaded. The parent listened attentively and responded to the child’s words while playfully herding their two children to the door. The parent’s listening was not a surrender of authority, but a way of guiding the child through frustration. Nurturing parenting often means giving a child a voice, but not a vote.

Our first-past-the-post electoral system offers an opposite example. Even when your vote helps elect an MP, that MP often has no voice. As Andrew Coyne explains in The Crisis in Canadian Democracy, MPs historically used their voices to “consider, refine and pass” legislation. Increasingly, they are whipped by party discipline (and/or personal ambition) to keep their party in power. Omnibus bills and truncated debate times further muzzle our MPs, reducing Parliamentary voting to a rubber stamp.

Proportional representation (PR) would change this dynamic. Coyne also explains how PR governments promote stable, consensus-based policy. Those consensus-based policies are because MPs have a voice. Also, because the votes a party gets translates into seats, voters have a voice.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images and OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

Which raises a timely question: if PR converts votes into voices—both in Parliament and across the country—would Alberta be holding a referendum on leaving Canada at all?

Support electoral reform with PR. Visit FairVote.ca or CharterChallenge.ca to learn how.

35% votes = 35% seats—simple math, fair representation

From "Can AI?" to "Should AI?"

If you had asked me five years ago if my instructional design work could be done by artificial intelligence, (AI), I would have said no. Now, I would say yes. The question has changed from can AI replace human workers to, should it?

The recent federal budget cuts the federal public service by adopting AI tools. Imagine at 65, you defer your OAS benefits because you are still working. Then your checks start arriving. Your local Service Canada is closed. The automated phone menu is a maze. Your online My Service Canada Account is equally confusing. You give up trapped between AI systems with no human help.

Image by Alicia from Pixabay

Giving up has financial implications for you as OAS benefits are taxable. However, the larger harm is psychological. Being at the mercy of AI algorithms is likely to produce stress and alienation, undermining your wellbeing and civic trust.

Canada needs long-term AI policies that keep pace with technology and protect humans. But under first-past-the-post (FPTP), parties chase short-term wins, ignoring future consequences. Even if the current government implements good policies, the next government may change it to align with their politics.

To harness AI safely and for the common good, we need policies that prioritize humans and lasting solutions. Electoral reform with proportional representation (PR) fosters collaboration and consensus, encouraging long-term policymaking that benefits everyone. Support electoral reform with PR. Visit FairVote.ca or CharterChallenge.ca to learn how.

35% votes = 35% seats—simple math, fair representation

Full Dose Democracy

Do we live in a democracy or a plutocracy? In End Times, Peter Turchin defines democracy as government “shaped by the collective will of common citizens” and plutocracy as government shaped by economic elites. The Pharmacare issue offers a revealing case study.

For decades, the majority of Canadians have wanted universal pharmacare as prescription drugs have eaten up a growing slice of health spending. Last year, the federal government passed the Pharmacare Act. At first glance, that looks like democracy in action. But is it?

Our collective will was for universal pharmacare covering everyone, regardless of income or private insurance. This model, recommended by the government’s own 2019 Advisory Council and four previous reports, would give Ottawa real power to negotiate lower prices and save billions. It’s a prescription for healthier finances and healthier citizens.

Yet Big Pharma resisted universal coverage because it threatened profits. They pushed for gap pharmacare, which preserves fragmented plans, high prices, and complex bureaucracy that confuses patients. Under gap coverage, the government lacks power to negotiate or unify drug policies. Turchin notes that in a plutocracy, the elite always get their way. Our case study is evidence we live in a plutocracy.

🄯 N Carswell

If we want policies shaped by people, we must strengthen our democracy. Adopting a proportional representation (PR) election system would dilute elite influence, boost accountability, and help deliver public priorities like universal pharmacare rather than watered-down, profit-protecting alternatives. PR is real reform, not a placebo. Learn more at FairVote.ca and/or CharterChallenge.ca. 

Windigo Thinking

 First, my apologies to Darrens who know how to share. Robin Wall Kimmerer tells of a stand in her community where gardeners shared excess produce. Someone stole the stand, ending the sharing. She named the thief Darren comparing him to Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, who takes more than he needs. In 2024, Woods’ pay was $44.1 million—equal to 801 Canadians’ annual earnings.

Modified image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Kimmerer’s Potawatomi culture teaches about the monster Windigo “who suffers from the illness of taking too much and sharing too little.” “Windigo thinking jeopardizes the survival of the community by incentivizing individual accumulation far beyond the satisfaction of ‘enoughness.’” Produce Stand Darren and Profit First Darren are Windigo thinkers.

How many Darrens with Windigo thinking did we elect to our House of Commons? The cost of entering the race suggests many. Darrens must give up paychecks and have an employer willing to grant leave. Then they need Darren-like donors (who benefit from tax credits). How can we reform our system so Darrens don’t dominate?

Proportional representation (PR) produces more diversity because it allocates seats by vote share. This leads to legislatures that better reflect our identities and perspectives. While there are Darrens in the legislature, there are also Alices, Benjamins, Chen, Deepa, Ethans… In 2025, Saskatchewan elected 13 Caseys and 1 Lane. With PR, we’d have elected 9 Caseys, 3 Lanes, and 1 Nicky or benefited from more diversity without strategic voting.

Support electoral reform with PR. Visit FairVote.ca or CharterChallenge.ca to learn how.

Democracy Needs More Women in the Room

The documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell chronicles how Liberian women used nonviolent protest to end 14 years of civil war. After pressuring the male president and male rebels into peace talks, they blocked the exits when negotiations stalled, forcing the men to stay until an agreement was reached. Having endured years of restriction, often without basic necessities, the women wanted the men in the room to taste that same hardship. 

Screengrab from Pray the Devil Back to Hell

What the documentary does not show are the countless hours the women spent after each protest, reflecting and strategizing. One organizer reflected, “If we had not had different women from different walks of life banding together, we may not have been able to solve the problem.” At its core, democracy exists to address the problems of its people. It flourishes when diverse voices are heard, and inclusive decision-making fosters policies that are both equitable and responsive to all.

Countries with proportional representation (PR) elect more women to the legislature, bringing a shift in legislative priorities. Research shows that women in government are more likely to champion policies that support education, healthcare, family well-being, and social equity. They also prioritize collaboration and long-term solutions over partisan conflict. With more women in the room, diverse problem-solving approaches lead to stronger, more equitable policies—this is, in essence, real democracy.

This federal election, ask you candidates if they support electoral reform with proportional representation. Visit FairVote.ca and/or CharterChallenge.ca to learn more.