Lets see, as far as science knows, volcanoes erupted and only affected the climate for about 2-3 years.
For a nuclear winter, all major cities would be dead, all medium cities too. It will be out on the fringes of society that people will survive. Lets assume its bad and the winter last about 6-8 years. No sun, just wind, so wind turbines would be the thing to get. With electricity you can heat up a 3-4 45 gal drums of sand to keep your house warm in winter with an wind turbine. Pot growers will grow food with their heat lamps... You need about 200-300sq ft of greenhouse to grow food per person.
Look at Finland, it has more than enough public bunkers for its population to survive (being so close to Russian since the end of WW2, they made the time and effort to put into underground bunkers).
Lets put it this way, as Canadians in the west, we haven't done anything to prepare for such an event.