While improving Financial Literacy of all Canadians is a noble goal and one to which we contribute, our work with low income Canadians has exposed some policy challenges.
The Challenges
- Government financial support programs contradictory and complex (e.g., OSAP and OSDP)
- Financial materials from Financial Service Providers: inappropriate for low income households and difficult to interpret
- Lack of Poverty Literacy – an inability to appreciate and value the choices Canadians make when living on a low income
- Community-based financial literacy supports necessary but unsustainable so long as funding for financial literacy initiatives short term and precarious
Some Policy Questions
- Who is best to advocate for the individual confronting a tangle of complex and contradictory financial information?
- How do we best address the policy contradictions when confronted in practice?
- How can we raise an appreciation for the lived experience of poverty?
- How do we ensure the sustainability of necessary community-based financial literacy supports?
