In line with a United Nations initiative to end hunger, a visiting anti-poverty advocate has challenged Whitehorse residents to be the first ones in Canada to make their city hunger-free.

At an anti-poverty community dinner in the basement of the United Church Tuesday evening, Manitoba anti-poverty advocate David Northcott spoke to concerned citizens about the effects of poverty and what Whitehorse and other cities in Canada could do to eradicate it.

Northcott, the co-founder of the Winnipeg Harvest Food Bank, addressed citizens who were on hand to recognize the United Nations initiative, called the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It took place Tuesday, after having been first observed in 1993.

Northcott, who also spoke at some local schools on Tuesday, said he believes Whitehorse has the people, the will and the spirit to take on poverty in the city and defeat it.

'If it's just about poverty and just about financial poverty, it is doomed to fail, and you will never stop (the need for) food banks in Whitehorse,' Northcott told the packed church basement.

'It's never been about poverty, it's been about power. As soon as we understand power, and to understand how we can move forward with power, then we will make changes,' he said.

'Please make yourself the first community in this country to be hunger-free.'

Northcott said while he is disappointed there is even a need for food banks in Canada, he believes there are several 'points of power' that need to be considered by those looking to eliminate poverty before action could be taken.

Northcott's points of power included: financial power, political power, the power of knowledge, the power of the media, the power of people and the power of the human spirit.

'The first power point is financial, by far,' he said. 'Financial power in a market economy is owned by people who shop in the market place; you can make a difference just by your purchasing power.'

Other things Northcott asked Whitehorse residents to consider are the power of collective voting, the need to preserve and share knowledge with one another, the need to work together and the need for anti-poverty advocates to build relationships with members of the media.

'The power of the media is significant. We need to develop a relationship with media and tell our story well.

'It's important that we learn to speak with them. We need to learn to teach, to provide them with the resources so that they can do their work well,' he said.

Ross Findlater of the territory's anti-poverty coalition, said Tuesday's event was about getting people to recognize the need to address the problems associated with poverty and homelessness in the Yukon.

'This event is one of a number this week to make people more aware of the facts of poverty and homelessness here in the Yukon,' Findlater said.

'Poverty is certainly like an iceberg; it's hard to see the size and the scope of it. But, it is big and it is there and most of us are quite unaware of the scope of it.'

Fellow anti-poverty advocate George Green said he believes some Yukoners may have trouble recognizing poverty because it is not as easy to see as it is in other Canadian communities.

'I think the reason people have trouble, if they do have trouble, recognizing that it exists is because it isn't absolute homelessness like we see in Vancouver, Toronto or Saint John.

'Because we can't have absolute poverty with the kind of winters we have in the Yukon; you just can't be absolutely homeless.

'We have a different type of homelessness, what we call relative homelessness, where people don't have an adequate means of meeting their basic needs.'

Green said from the single mother making $14,000 a year in retail to people couch-surfing because they don't have a place of their own, poverty in the Yukon and Whitehorse is real.

'I think we need to continue to identify and meet the needs that is part of the symptom. We're seeing symptoms of poverty. We're seeing people in need of food so they go to food banks.

'We're seeing people walk into the Salvation Army soup kitchens daily and eating because they have no other way of getting food. That's not poverty; that's a symptom of poverty,' he said.

'We see poverty as not enough social assistance, increasing minimum wage, building food banks and building addictions centres. Those things could go on for a hundred years,' Green said.

'If you wake up in the morning and you have a flooded basement, you think you have a water problem. You don't have a water problem. You may have to get rid of the water, but there's a hole somewhere; there's a leak somewhere ... nobody will stop poverty without looking into the root causes of poverty. We have to stop and think about that.'