Adult basic education transforms lives of pain and despair into lives of hope and pride. For people who are broken, defeated, and down on themselves, finishing a high school education can get them off social assistance and into work that pays a living wage. The benefits far outweigh the costs of adult basic education. It strengthens families and improves the lives of the children of adult learners, particularly those who are poor and marginalized, in ways that go beyond economics to the ve...

Poverty in Canada’s inner cities is deep, complex, racialized and often intergenerational. In this collection of essays published over the past decade, Jim Silver argues that urban poverty today includes not only low incomes, but in all too many cases also poor housing, poor health, low educational achievement, high levels of neighbourhood violence, racism, colonialism and social exclusion. As a result many poor people experience low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence and may blame ...

New Mexico...Facility #6…that’s the entire name…one of dozens of unknown facilities scattered across the White Sands desert. Just a solitary sign on an old telephone pole out on the highway, not enough to reveal anything about the place. 6,317 miles across the Atlantic; a near-identical facility, Proiect Balcescu, north and east of Bucharest, Romania, a few clicks from the shadows of the Fagaras Mountains. What’s going on inside both facilities is, simply put, life-changing, and classified...

Scoundrels and Shirkers examines the deep relationship between capitalism and poverty in England since the 12th century. It exposes the dynamics of capitalism, from its origins in the long transition from feudalism to its current crisis under neoliberal capitalism, in producing poverty.The book, unique in the historical breadth of its focus, shows conclusively that poverty is an inevitable consequence of capitalism. In the search for profits and control of society’s econom...

Across Canada, there is a severe shortage of decent quality housing that is affordable to those with low incomes, and much of the housing that is available is inadequate, even appalling. The poor condition of housing for those below the poverty line adds to the weight of the complex poverty they already endure, which includes worsening health, adversely affected education and neighbourhoods that are more prone to crime and violence. Using Winnipeg, Manitoba, as an example, Poor Housing exa...

Now in a second edition, Social Movements offers a concise yet comprehensive introduction to the field's historical background and major theories. Key issues are explored in the context of specific social movements and counter movements active within Canada and around the world, showing how these movements originate, mobilize participants, and bring about social change. Chapters on the women's, Aboriginal, gay and lesbian, environmental, and global justice movements reveal exactly how these g...

An unparalleled portrait of the Conservative Party and each of its nineteen leaders, Blue Thunder rollicks through 141 years of Canadian Conservative leadership.A sprawling, page-turning exposé, Blue Thunder draws upon a wealth of public and private material that Plamondon has enriched with fresh insights. Make no mistake. Blue Thunder is no hagiography. This is a warts-and-all portrait that examines in compelling and revealing detail the lows as well as the highs. Along the way m...

Renowned as a passionate Canadian, bestselling author Mel Hurtig has combed through world statistics to see how Canada really measures up — and the results are astonishing, and often shocking.This book is about how Canada has changed, very much for the worse, in the last twenty years. As a result of these profound (often hidden) changes, we are no longer the people we think we are. To take one example, the Canadian media usually leaves us with the impression that Canadians are real...

A preeminent sociologist of race explains a groundbreaking new framework for understanding racial inequality, challenging both conservative and liberal dogma.In this timely and provocative contribution to the American discourse on race, William Julius Wilson applies an exciting new analytic framework to three politically fraught social problems: the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, the plight of low-skilled black males, and the fragmentation of the African Ame...

This year marks the centenary of Harold Wilson's birth, the fiftieth anniversary of his most impressive general election victory and forty years since his dramatic resignation as Prime Minister. He was one of the longest-serving premiers of the twentieth century, having won a staggering four general elections, yet, despite this monumental record, his place in Labour's history remains somewhat ambiguous.By the end of his two periods in power, both the left and right of the party were...

Barely two decades ago the world's experts in housing policy were giving Canada high marks for its progressive housing policies. Until recently, our own common understanding of homelessness had been limited to occasional wanderers, eccentrics, boozers or addicts. Yet, as a new century dawns, homelessness as we recognize it has changed and grown, offering painful reminders of the soup-kitchen lineups of the depression era.Homelessness is a rapidly growing social problem. Measured in...

Ten Thousand Roses is a rich tapestry of stories told by over a hundred feminists from across Canada who organized, discussed, protested and struggled for change.Legalized abortion, resistance to male violence, pay equity and employment equity, legal equality through the Charter, pornography, anti-racism, action against poverty, rights for Aboriginal women and child care: these are the issues that rallied Canadian women to activism from the 1960s through the 1990s, the seco...