Many Voices for Change
Campaign 2000's 16-year quest has proven that it won't go away until poverty does
It was 10:30 in the morning and Satia caught herself nodding off during her second class of the day. It wasn't boredom; she was exhausted. She'd been awake since midnight. It wasn't exuberant teenage partying, either. Ever since her father had a seizure, she and her sisters supported her family of six by working in a factory for minimum wage every night from midnight to 7:00 a.m. It was embarrassing to fall asleep at school. But that was nothing compared to what happened at work if she showed signs of fatigue. There, she was yelled at and threatened. "You will get fired. There's plenty more where you come from." Going to high school full time after standing on her feet all night working and suffering verbal abuse, Satia was bone tired.
This is the condition of poverty that affects many families and children. In fact, 1.3 million people in Ontario, 345,000 of them children, are living in poverty. The most vulnerable groups are minorities, the disabled, aboriginals and immigrants. And children. The working poor, immigrant families trying to make a go of it, survivors of war who are too afraid to ask questions and those working full time who cannot support themselves adequately on a minimum wage salaries are more susceptible to the type of exploitation that Satia experienced.
Targets and timetables, goals and strategies
Campaign 2000 – a national coalition of organizations and individuals – was formed in 1991 to keep alive the 1989 unanimous all-party resolution in the Canadian House of Commons to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. In 1992, Campaign 2000 initiated the annual report card on child poverty in Canada. Since then, British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Alberta have also started to issue provincial poverty report cards. These reports show that poverty levels are the same or worse than they were in Canada almost 20 years ago. Campaign 2000 continues to develop workable strategies to reduce poverty and to appeal to politicians and public policy makers at all levels of government to commit to plans and goals.
For over 15 years, its 120 national, provincial and community partners have urged all Canadian elected officials to keep their promise to Canada's children. Calls for a liveable minimum wage, decent and affordable housing, a National Child Benefit, universal quality childcare and strong social structures have been heard by politicians at all levels but progress has been negligible. If we are going to reduce poverty in Canada says Laurel Rothman, National Coordinator of Campaign 2000 (currently on leave), "It is time for targets and timetables; for comprehensive integrated strategies."
In the fall of 2007, Campaign 2000 rolled out a new initiative in time for the Ontario Provincial elections: 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction (25 in 5), a multi-sector, non-partisan broad-based coalition formed to encourage all political candidates and parties to make an Ontario plan to reduce poverty by at least 25 per cent in five years.
25 in 5's implementation coincides with the publication of Campaign 2000's latest policy paper, Summoned to Stewardship: Make Poverty Reduction a Collective Legacy. The timing is good. Rothman points out, "In the past year, there has been an increased interest in Canada among groups working to end child poverty and there is more discussion about poverty reduction than we might have anticipated six or nine months ago." Also very influential is the 2005 UNICEF report Child Poverty in Industrialized Nations, which challenged the countries with double-digit poverty rates – Canada most shamefully included – to reduce poverty to single-digit rates in five years and to less than five per cent in 10 years.
Rothman notes an encouraging example. "There is increased interest in the success [of] the United Kingdom's commitment to end child and family poverty, which was as specific as setting dates, timelines, mechanisms for measuring progress and then dedicating resources." In 1999, the UK committed to a 25 per cent reduction in child poverty by 2004. It came close at 23 per cent and is on track to keep the pledge to achieve the lowest levels of child poverty of the industrialized nations by 2020.
Dispelling misconceptions
Campaign 2000's analyses have proven that there are several mistaken beliefs regarding the reduction of poverty.
We've been assured by governments that poverty automatically decreases with economic growth. However, Canada has enjoyed great prosperity to the tune of $325 billion of new wealth between 1995 and 2005, yet poverty levels have not changed. The low wages/low taxes model that has been Canada's recent public policy has proven over the last two decades that growth with disparity is inevitable. In other words, the gap between rich and poor is ever widening. Yet we often hear the argument that higher taxes and social program expenditures hinder economic growth. This is disproved by countries like Denmark and Norway that have both high income taxes and comprehensive social programs, and yet are among the top five countries in global competitiveness. In Norway, inflation is less than two per cent and its unemployment rate is the lowest in Europe. Its many social programs are not a safety net, but part of a vision for a just society.
Strong visionary leadership, political will and public pressure
There is certainly an actual dollar cost to reduce poverty but, especially for a prosperous country like Canada, the notion that it is not affordable is false. The biggest barriers are the lack of leadership and political will to commit to the establishment of targets and timetables to reduce poverty. Public pressure to ensure that the goals and strategies are implemented is equally important. Fortunately, there are many positive precedents.
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's strong leadership in setting goals to reduce poverty was essential to its success. In Canada, we can look to the past when the visionary leadership of Tommy Douglas was instrumental in establishing universal healthcare, something every Canadian values.
Denmark and Finland continue to show political will in keeping poverty rates well below three per cent with entrenched strong and supportive social programs. In Canada, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, motivated by a desire to reduce the number of people leaving the province to find work, not only committed in 2007 to reduce the poverty rate from the highest in Canada to the lowest by 2017 but also established a consultation process and policies designed to achieve these results.
It takes money to make money
Quebec is the only Canadian province with universal childcare and a commitment to $2.5 billion over five years for child benefits.
The provincial Parti Québécois introduced $5 a day childcare as a result of public pressure, and although the subsequent Liberal government increased the cost to $7 a day, universal childcare has had a positive impact on the number of women in the workplace and on the province's economy.
Public pressure and insistence on change can have an enormous effect. In Quebec, public pressure came in the form of women marching to the legislature demanding an end to poverty. This not-so-quiet revolution resulted in a law to end poverty and a series of provincial obligations to make it happen. It's working - Quebec is the only province where child poverty rates have consistently gone down since 2000.
Here, in Ontario, the 2007 Provincial election was recently decided with another Liberal majority. Ann Decter, interim National Coordinator of Campaign 2000, weighs in, "The Liberals have committed to a poverty reduction strategy building on the Ontario child tax benefit and they have committed to consult on how that could be implemented. [Now] It's hold-feet-to-the-fire time – it's time to set targets and make it happen."
Changemakers never give up
Campaign 2000 partners have worked tirelessly for almost 20 years behind the scenes to keep the issue of poverty in the media and in the consciousness of elected officials and policy planners. There have been incremental gains and many setbacks. When asked what keeps them motivated, Rothman answers, "The day-to-day work brings forward the issues very powerfully, painfully and poignantly so they can't be ignored." She is most proud of the fortitude and perseverance of the partners across the country.
Campaign 2000 partners know that 25 in 5 is possible and so is 50 percent in 10 years. Rothman says, "We just have to keep trying and get the word out there and work closely with the media." What better way to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday in 2017 than with a 50 per cent reduction in poverty levels? What a gift to the whole nation, which benefits when all children grow up without deprivation.
At the Vote Out Poverty rally at Toronto's Massey Hall on October 1, 2007, Stephen Lewis, Professor in Global Health at McMaster University and former United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, passionately addressed the concern of cost, "Canada has billions of dollars of surplus year after year but never enough for the reduction of poverty. It is degrading to argue over pennies when people are starving."
Echoing these sentiments, Satia, also present at the Vote Out Poverty rally in the form of one of five video vignettes sharing the experience of poverty, reflected, "Right now I'm at U of T doing political science. But I don't need this degree to know that there's something wrong with the system. The workers know, the children know, the family knows. Even the employers know. But it's weird and strange that the government doesn't know. If they do know, why aren't they doing something about it?"
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