The Table de pastorale sociale des diocèses catholiques du Québec has joined more than 900 unions, women’s centres, community organizations, and faith groups in signing the Manifeste pour un Québec sans pauvreté, a declaration urging the Québec government to tackle poverty.

The Church network has been active in advocating for social justice issues, including efforts in 2000, on the occasion of the Jubilee, to support legislation aimed at eliminating poverty. In 2002, the National Assembly of Quebec passed the Act to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion, followed by a series of five-year action plans. Nevertheless, the gap between rich and poor has widened in Quebec. Today, 645,000 people are living on incomes below what is needed to meet their basic needs. In this 2025 Jubilee, and with the election year approaching, it is time to speak again about poverty, food insecurity, and the housing crisis—and to commit our shared efforts to more effective solidarity. As Vivian Labrie, a Quebec researcher and advocate for poverty elimination, said: “Let’s do it, and it will be done!”

In its recent letter Our Daily Bread, the Justice and Peace Commission of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops calls for a conversion―a passage from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh:

“In the area of food security, this conversion will manifest itself in forms of solidarity, by working in movements, and through developing government policies that promote global solidarity and food security for all.”

Yes, the public conversation must change: let us speak about poverty. Policies that ensure food security for all are necessary. Together with the le Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté—and in Montreal, with the Association coopérative d’économie familiale (ACEF), the Society of Saint Vincent-de-Paul, ATD Fourth World Canada, the community development corporations of Laval, Villeray, and Côte-des-Neiges, and the Table de concertation sur la faim et le développement social du Montréal métropolitain—the Montreal diocesan Social Action Office urges the Government of Quebec to adopt public policies that prioritize improving the living conditions of people living in poverty.

The Table de pastorale sociale des diocèses catholiques du Québec is a partner group of the Church and the Conseil Église et Société of the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops (AECQ). It brings together the social ministry leads from each of the province’s 19 Latin-rite Catholic dioceses. Social ministry is “the activity of the Church that, aware of its mission at the heart of the world, takes an evangelical option for the poor and marginalized, and translates it into concrete practices of solidarity and liberation. It works with all people of goodwill to transform social relationships and unjust structures, from the local to the international level, in order to make social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental realities more just and humane.” (AECQ, 2012)

Louise Royer
Social Action Office
Archdiocese of Montreal