Poverty activists are encouraged by the latest StatsCan numbers showing poverty is on the decline in Canada, but warn that more ambitious programs are needed to end poverty once and for all.

OTTAWA – After 10 years at the helm of Citizens for Public Justice, Joe Gunn, 64, is leaving Feb. 11 to head up the new Oblate Centre at Saint Paul University in Ottawa.

The world commemorated the United Nations’ International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on Oct. 17, but you could be forgiven for not noticing. 

Over the next 12 years the federal government promises to raise 2.1 million Canadians out of poverty and take Canada’s poverty rate from one in every eight Canadians to one in every 17 Canadians by 2030.