Ottawa - Six weeks ago Paul Martin was outraged with what he called "Third world poverty in this country", but today's announcement on the National Child Benefit system will do little if anything to alleviate the depth of child poverty in Canada. The 1997 federal budget continues along the line of previous Liberal budgets. The goal is obviously to appease the financial markets in spite of the fact that many Canadians have already been hard hit by the impacts of budget cuts.
As a result of cuts announced in earlier budgets, Canadians will have to endure another $3.2 billion in cuts this fiscal year alone and if previous years are any indication, the cuts will disproportionately affect the poor.
Pam Coates, President of the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO), said, "This government either misunderstands or ignores the depth of the poverty problem in Canada. Their response to the needs of low-income families with children falls way short of what is required."
Despite the fact that Canada has one of the lowest rates of child benefits in the industrialized world, this budget promises only $50 million of new money in 1997- 98 and $620 million in 1998-99 as a "first step" to improve the child benefit. Since the government refuses to index benefits, this amount will barely keep up with inflation.
When the new program is compared with the existing work income supplement, only working poor families with 3 or more children will see a marked increase in their benefits while poor families on welfare will see no increase at all.
Furthermore, the savings that the provinces will realize under the system are supposed to be reinvested in programs for poor families, but most of those dollars are expected to go into services as opposed to income support programs.
"Let's not forget the context within which this new benefit is being proposed", was the first response from Jean Swanson, another of NAPO's board members. "Ever since the Liberals came to power, they've been responsible for slashing all kinds of social and financial support programs for the poor, and now they toss a small bone to us. Campaign 2000 estimated that it would take about $11 billion to lift 60% of the 1.3 million poor children out of poverty. Using that ratio, the $600 million in this budget will help about 54,000 kids. This is shameful."
The most offensive aspect of the new plan is the failure of the federal government to defend the rights of all financially disadvantaged Canadians. By encouraging the separation of the poor into "deserving" (those who work) and "undeserving" (those who are on social assistance), the government is abstracting from the reality that hundreds of thousands of people on welfare desperately want to work--but there are no jobs.
"I would say that the government lacks the will to take action", added Deb O'Connor of NAPO. "It's clear that we need a comprehensive solution that will span a number of years and require a number of integrated programs to deal adequately with the crisis of child and family poverty. When the deficit was recognized as a priority, the finance minister set annual targets that he promised to meet, 'come hell or high water'. Since he recognized 6 weeks ago that poverty in Canada must be a priority, why didn't he set annual targets for reducing it in this budget?"
For more information: Lynne Toupin
Executive Director
Tel: (613) 789-0096
Copyright © 1997 The National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO)