MEDIA - Opinion Pieces

Make poverty reduction a priority

October 01, 2007 – The Toronto Star

Jennefer Laidley, David Langille, Jacquie Maund and Dennis Howlett

Vote out poverty.

That’s the message of countless groups, coalitions and individuals across the province during this election campaign. And it’s a message we all have to hear.

The grim statistics have been widely reported: 1.6 million Ontarians live in poverty; 132,000 children rely on food banks each year. More and more working parents cannot make ends meet. Social assistance benefits are insufficient to let people live with dignity and health. Aboriginal people, members of racialized groups, people with disabilities and women face a much higher risk of being poor.

Poverty is linked to poorer health, worse educational outcomes, higher rates of anxiety, and sharply reduced quality of life.

We continue to be told that the only solution to poverty is economic growth. But in the past 10 years, when per capita GDP in Ontario grew by 27 per cent, poverty remained stuck at the same level, around 15 per cent.

In fact, as top income earners took home proportionally more of our total income, people living in the worst poverty saw their real incomes decline. Minimum wage workers now make about the same, in real dollars, as they did in 1995. Homelessness has tripled in Toronto since 1992. And, after 1995’s disastrous 22 per cent cuts to social assistance, people receiving those supports are living on benefits — measured in 2005 dollars — as low as those in the 1970s. A strong economy is not the only or best solution. It’s time for government to take comprehensive, targeted action. It’s time for a poverty reduction strategy in Ontario.

More and more groups, including Campaign 2000, the Ontario Association of Food Banks and the Social Planning Network of Ontario, point to a variety of jurisdictions around the world that have implemented targeted plans to reduce poverty, and the important and sometimes unprecedented benefits that have resulted.

In Ireland, where the government launched a targeted, comprehensive antipoverty plan in 1997, the rate of persistent poverty declined from 15.1 per cent to 5.2 per cent between 1994 and 2001. This past Tuesday, the government reconfirmed its commitment to halve child poverty by 2010 and eliminate it by 2020.

In the United Kingdom, a comprehensive strategy was put in place in 1999 to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent by 2004, 50 per cent in 2010, and entirely by 2020. By 2004, the U.K. had reduced child poverty by 23 per cent and has recommitted to its initial goals.

Here in Canada, Quebec set specific poverty reduction targets in 2002, backed them up with the necessary budgets, and built in targets to measure progress. And in 2005, Newfoundland and Labrador took the initiative with a coordinated strategy that views government income support and social programs holistically — with the goal of taking that province from the highest rate of poverty in Canada to the lowest rate within 10 years.

All of these jurisdictions made wide-ranging consultation the first step in the design of their various programs. And each example stands in stark contradiction to claims that there are no alternatives, that the needs of “the market” preclude those of the disadvantaged, that we can’t do anything.

A star-studded evening at Massey Hall tonight — an event called Vote Out Poverty, organized by the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice and Make Poverty History — will be only the latest, but perhaps the most enjoyable, call for a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy in Ontario. Thousands of people of varying ages, political stripes, incomes and backgrounds will sit together bound by their collective desire to end poverty.

They will repeat the call to all of Ontario’s political parties to commit to a poverty reduction strategy with the goal of reducing poverty rates by 25 per cent over five years, a strategy developed in consultation with low-income people and policy experts, based on measurable targets and timelines, and accompanied by an accountability structure and appropriate financing.

So far, the commitments are encouraging, but fall short of what is needed. The Liberals have committed to working with community partners to develop a poverty reduction strategy. The New Democrats have made commitments in a number of areas that could form the basis for a strategy. And the Tories have recognized that poverty is a problem that requires specific government action to tackle. But none has committed to specific reduction targets or timetables.

Poverty in Ontario can be addressed, but it will take a long-term vision and targeted government action that goes well beyond piecemeal announcements.

As we consider the issues this election, we must ask our candidates what priority they give to poverty reduction. And tell them we’ll be voting to make poverty history.

Jennefer Laidley is policy analyst and communications specialist at the Income Security Advocacy Centre; David Langille is co-chair of the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice; Jacquie Maund is Ontario coordinator of Campaign 2000; Dennis Howlett is coordinator of Make Poverty History.