Over-hyped poverty plan comes up short

By Howard Hampton
M.P.P. Kenora-Rainy River

Premier Dalton McGuinty was right to lower expectations for his government’s recently-released, so-called “poverty plan”. He was correct to imply that any new initiatives would be implemented slowly in the face of Ontario’s worsening economic recession. Because his government’s new poverty reduction plan is insulting.
It constitutes a slap in the face of the many Ontarians – particularly those living in poverty – who suspended their scepticism, sent submissions through government websites and attended meetings with MPs, and waited in good faith for the McGuinty government to deliver a real action plan to seriously tackle poverty.
After all, they had witnessed the spectacle of Child and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews crisscrossing the province promising a comprehensive plan that “will speak to all people living in poverty in this province.”
Unfortunately for the majority of Ontarians living in poverty, the government has unveiled an over-hyped plan that comes up short. It’s a plan that focuses narrowly on children, commits little new money, and makes poverty reduction targets contingent on the unlikely scenario of billions of new dollars flowing from a Conservative federal government and a growing economy – something even the most optimistic economic forecasters do not see until 2010 at the earliest.
The plan offers nothing for the 45-year-old Windsor auto parts worker whose unemployment benefits have run out, and who can no longer afford to pay rent
The plan offers nothing for the Ottawa woman with autism who works hard to augment her Ontario Disability Support Program benefits – only to have half her earnings clawed back by the government.
The plan doesn’t help the Thunder Bay single mother on Ontario Works who only eats once a day so that her two children can have two or maybe three meals, and who has to tell her son he can’t participate in soccer because it costs $150.
The plan offers nothing for the 44-year-old in Toronto who has been on the waiting list for housing for 15 years and is still depending on shelters and food banks to survive.
Individuals, anti-poverty groups and policy experts have consistently called for increased investment in three key areas to reduce poverty: good jobs with liveable incomes; adequate income supports for those unable to work; and community supports such as housing and child care.
Apart from a small increase to the Ontario Child Benefit, the government’s plan does nothing to increase the minimum wage and social assistance rates which leave recipients living below the poverty line. In fact, even when the Child Benefit is fully implemented in 2012, a single mother with two children will still be living in deep poverty – as much as $6,000 below the annual “Low Income Cut Off” amount.
The plan also lacks any new commitment to affordable housing or childcare – two items that were repeatedly called for during the consultations and which have been a key part of successful poverty plans implemented elsewhere.
Funding for the plan is pathetically small – on a per capita basis it is only about one-sixth of what Quebec invested in its five-year plan.
Based on dialogue with people from across Ontario, the NDP believes that a practical and effective poverty reduction strategy must includes five immediate commitments: a $10.25 minimum wage rising to $11 by 2011; an increased shelter benefit for social assistance recipients to cover 85 per cent of the cost of rent; a $1,100 Child Benefit rising to $1,500 per child by 2011; 7,000 new affordable housing units built each year; and $100-million for new affordable child care spaces.
This is the kind of practical and realistic plan Ontarians want – not a tentative plan made up of conditional targets, inadequate spending and delayed implementation, such as the embarrassing one the government delivered.
As a participant at one of the poverty consultations said: “I am not asking to live a pampered life but it would be nice to feed my kid and pay rent and actually have the food last until the end of the month . . . I don’t drink or smoke or for that matter even go out. I am not in a postion to work. The stress of poverty keeps me depressed. We know you know what is going on!”
Poverty is urgent. Hunger doesn’t wait. A plan to reduce poverty only if times are good and other governments carry the load is no plan at all.
Ontarians should expect action to reduce poverty now.
To quote another poverty consultation participant: “People demand these changes now. To blame an economic downturn or not enough information is no longer acceptable . . . Your time is up. Make the changes.”
A good time to start would be with significant new investments in child care, housing and income supports in province’s 2009 budget. Such investments would create new jobs, stimulate spending and, most of all, give all Ontarians – including those living in poverty – a chance to fully contribute to their communities.