A welcome new report from Ontario's food banks exhorts the government to stay the course and not back off its stated goal to reduce poverty because of the growing threat of a recession.
Despite the economic challenges facing the province – and perhaps because of them – "we believe that now is the time to be bold," the report argues. "In difficult times we need leaders, not managers. We must make transformative choices that will build a better Ontario."
It looks to former prime minister Lester Pearson for inspiration. Against a backdrop of political and economic turbulence in the 1960s, the federal Liberal leader introduced universal health care, a national pension plan, a student loan program and a national labour code.
These are empowering words for Deb Matthews, Ontario's children's minister, and her cabinet committee on poverty reduction, who have until the end of the year to draft their poverty strategy.
The food banks' report devises a sweeping plan that would cut poverty in half by 2020, pulling more than half a million Ontarians out of poverty. There is no doubt that targets and timetables are important to ensure the province can be held to its promises, focusing the minds of politicians and energizing the bureaucracy.
The report draws heavily on anti-poverty initiatives around the world to show what works, helping Ontario draft an anti-poverty program of best practices. The proposals would cost the province $750 million next year, rising to $2 billion a year by 2015. But these costs need to be cast as an investment, a "commitment of a generation," the 63-page report argues.
Among its more than two dozen new recommendations, it calls for Ontario to provide-start-up money to set up community development credit unions that would help low-income people open bank accounts to get a head start. The credit unions would combat the temptations of payday loans that charge high interest and trap people in a continuous cycle of debt.
With rising rents pushing poverty up, the report calls for building 100,000 new units of affordable housing by 2020 and providing 50,000 new shelter allowances. It would also give energy subsidies of up to $200 to low-income families.
And it urges the government to follow Quebec's lead and enshrine its promised poverty reduction plan in legislation so future governments would be bound to keep it on the political agenda.
As this report shows, there is no shortage of innovative and workable ideas for Matthews and her committee as they sift through more than 600 submissions and begin the difficult task of devising a poverty reduction plan. The food banks have made an important contribution to the debate – and signalled that they will be watching closely to ensure she does not back away from the challenge.
1 comment:
so what is your solution?
Cut taxes for the rich like Harper?
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