Article from NAPO NEWS No. 86, June 2004

Message from the new Executive Director

I am excited to have the opportunity to work with the National Anti-Poverty Organization and contribute to its struggle to eliminate poverty in Canada.

As the leading and longest-standing national organization of poor people in Canada, NAPO is uniquely positioned to play a key role in this struggle.

I believe that poor people themselves, through organizations they control, need to lead efforts to eliminate poverty. I want to give top priority to supporting and organizing local and provincial anti-poverty groups and building more effective networks for common action. I want to develop education/organizing tools and training workshops to support grassroots organizing efforts. And I hope that NAPO can facilitate provincial meetings in each province to consult with local anti-poverty groups and build more effective collaboration.

In a country like Canada, the poor are a minority - a sizable minority, but one that is easily ignored because they have limited money, power and organization. If we are to make any progress on eliminating poverty, it is essential that we broaden public support and build coalitions with groups that share our goals.

Some unscrupulous politicians have stirred up hatred against poor people in Canada in recent years for their own political gain, and poor bashing has, unfortunately, found a ready audience in some quarters. But there are also many Canadians who themselves are not poor who are concerned about poverty and want to do something about it. Many people give generously to food banks and social service agencies. If we are to eliminate poverty and the need for food banks, we need to find a way to engage this broad section of the population who are concerned about poverty. We need to engage them so they take political action as well as responding to immediate needs.

Another major challenge to overcome is the defeatist attitude that we will never be able to win the struggle against poverty. But poverty is NOT a hopeless cause. I believe we can eliminate poverty in Canada.

We have already made progress towards this goal in some areas.

· If we relied only on the market and individual savings, the poverty rate for Canadian seniors would be 58%. But because we have progressive taxation and government programs such as Old Age Security, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans, only 6% of seniors live on low incomes - one of the lowest rates in the world!

· Similarly, without government taxes and transfers 25% of Canadian children would be poor. Although still inadequate government programs such as the National Child Benefit have helped to reduce the child poverty rate to 15%.

Government programs make a big difference in fighting poverty. That is why NAPO has given high priority to engaging in policy dialogue with government leaders, ensuring the voice of the poor is heard by decision makers.

NAPO is calling for a national public debate on how to eliminate poverty. The debate would be similar to what the Romanow Commission did to facilitate the emergence of a broad public consensus on the future of health care. The implementation of Romanow's recommendation for the Canada Health Transfer has opened up a political opportunity for this debate as the Federal government now needs to figure out what to do with the remaining funds for post-secondary education and social programs that it gives to the provinces and territories.

Here are some of the steps that could be taken to eliminate poverty:

1) Raise the minimum wage to the poverty line (about $10 an hour). This measure alone would reduce poverty by half and would not cost governments a cent! [In fact it would save them money on health care spending because poverty contributes to poor health.]

2) Increase the Child Tax Benefit to $4900 per child to families living in poverty. At the current level of $3,243 per child we are already seeing positive results in that the child poverty rate has started to go down. But many provinces are clawing back the benefit from families on welfare. Raising the benefit to $4900 would eliminate this problem by providing families with more than they get from welfare.

3) Boost funding for building more affordable housing by $1 billion. There has been a dramatic decline in availability of affordable housing because of cuts government funding in 1995. Though the federal government has begun funding housing again, their level of support is not yet what it was before the cuts and does not do anything about reducing the backlog of need…

4) Ease eligibility requirements for Employment Insurance so more unemployed people can get help to bridge periods between jobs and avoid falling into poverty. Only 39% of unemployed received Employment Insurance in 2001, down from 74% in 1990.

Canada is a country rich in resources - both human and material. Governments have the means necessary to eliminate poverty. After years of cutbacks and growing poverty we are finally beginning to see some possibility of progress towards eliminating poverty.

Dennis Howlett