Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton is planning to take concerns of poverty in rural areas back to Queen's Park in Toronto.
He hosted a roundtable discussion in Wallaceburg Tuesday morning to hear from locals.
He says he's continuing to hear the same types of concerns.
"It's hydro bills, it's the job situation -- we've lost a lot of well-paying manufacturing jobs in our communities," says McNaughton. "[There's also] challenges with transportation and affordable housing."
Stories and statistics pertinent to Lambton-Kent-Middlesex will be compiled in a report. Once that is complete, McNaughton says the report will then go to MPP Ted McMeekin's task force, which is dealing with rural poverty in the province.
"We've heard that in Chatham-Kent there's 2,700 families and individuals on Ontario Works," he says. "Fifty percent of those people now are staying on Ontario Works or welfare longer than two years, where the provincial average used to be about four months."
McNaughton says rural communities are often forgotten about when it comes to addressing these issues, which is why he's targeting small towns within his riding to host these discussions.
"Politicians for decades have talked about poverty but when they talk about poverty they talk about inner city poverty, specifically poverty in Toronto," says McNaughton. "Queen's Park needs to wake up. There are challenges in our own backyards throughout rural Ontario."
Two of the three roundtable discussions McNaughton has set up have already taken place in Strathroy and Wallaceburg. The third roundtable is scheduled to take place in the upcoming weeks in Petrolia.
