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Community Services Minister Joanne Bernard says she knows the province's welfare system is "broken... None of the systems and none of the policies and the way we serve people has changed in many decades."

That's why her government announced last week it is forking out up to $2 million to consultants to "vision," "design," "transform" and "right" that system so more of the 44,000 Nova Scotians now trapped in the belly of the community services beast can live "independent of income assistance."

In late January, the CCPA came out with a paper about "just transition" -- an approach that aims to minimize the impact of environmental policies on workers and communities in affected industries -- for resource workers.

Drawing on extensive interviews with workers in several resource industries, our report informs a strategy to ensure climate action doesn't worsen already-high levels of economic insecurity in resource-dependent communities.

I sat down with one of the report's coauthors, Karen Cooling, a former resource-sector worker and union representative who specializes in relationship-building between resource workers and environmentalists.

This post was written in response to the piece "Generosity doesn't solve poverty," which appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on December 17.

Mary Agnes Welch is right when she says charity is "not fixing the province's most serious problem." However, her critique of provincial anti-poverty efforts falls short. Complex problems, like the kind of poverty that exists and persists here in Winnipeg, require multi-faceted responses. We need to build on what's working in Manitoba if we are to solve the problems of poverty here.