ESG United Church hosts a free speaker series called Compassionate Justice several times each year. After a hiatus during COVID restrictions, the series returns for its 11th year from October 2022 – February 2023. The principal focus of the series over the years has been all aspects of our criminal justice system and selected other topics such as the Truth and Reconciliation experience. Join us for another season of unique public speaking events with renowned and inspiring speakers.

Each speaker event will take place at 12:30 pm in the accessible church sanctuary after the service. All are welcome.

November 20, 2022 – Darkness on the Edge of Town: The crisis in the world’s suburbs

Doug Saunders is the international-affairs columnist for the Globe and Mail. He served as the paper’s London-based European bureau chief for a decade.

Until recently, the world’s social problems and inequities were most visible in inner cities. But the last few years have seen a dramatic shift, with the suburbanization of poverty and immigration settlement shifting the most vulnerable communities to the outskirts. Doug Saunders has been studying the global crisis in the suburbs, conducting research in half a dozen countries. He found that the COVID-19 pandemic was disproportionately a disease of the low-income suburbs, and that the most dangerous “mobility traps,” where children are less likely to do as well as their parents, are now located on the edge of town. He provides a travelogue of this under-explored world on the edge.