Affordability is the #1 issue in Canada today.

Poverty is its ugly cousin.

Stats Can reported recently that 11% of Canadians are impoverished. To put that into more human terms, that represents about 4,500,000 of our fellow citizens.

Racialized groups, Indigenous peoples, and people with disabilities were identified in the report as sectors having higher levels of poverty.

Local governments are not going to solve the macro-problems of affordability and poverty. It is not in their purvey and they do not have the resources.

Senior orders of government have greater social responsibilities and economic obligations. They can create special assistance programs financed by broader fiscal plans and revenue opportunities. And there are in fact several programs to assist low-income families.

And yet, poverty persists. It is the food banks and low-income housing units and transit buses that help low-income families to survive in our towns and cities, but it is also there that sometimes problems fester: substance abuse, family crises, crime, violence.

Attempts over the years by various governments to resolve low-income problems have had limited success. I always thought the concept of a guaranteed minimum living allowance for families was an interesting concept. While I am far from an expert, I recall that a case study in Manitoba showed good results, and a similar test in Ontario showed promising trends when it was suddenly shut down.

Experts in this field sometimes feel they are on a treadmill—running hard but going nowhere. The numbers are not improving; in fact, the poverty rates are sliding up.

In the meantime, municipalities continue to push for more affordable housing and provide free support services such as parks, libraries, and recreation programs. At the same time, no one has illusions that poverty remains a desperate problem for all orders of government in Canada.

So is affordability.