Good morning, and thank you for this opportunity.
I'm going to talk about poverty. What I want to say first of all is that poverty is not an economic reality, although our market economy seems to require that 20%, plus or minus, of Canadian citizens live in poverty at any one time.
Who makes up that 20% depends, in part, on the exclusionary forces of race, gender, class, and ability. For example, we all know that the child poverty rate hovers--at this point it's a bit lower than it was--at 17.6%. In spite of the strides made with the old age pension and the guaranteed income supplement, senior women are still at about 19%.
Now we get into the rates that are totally unacceptable, not that the others are not. Single-parent women continue to be at the rate of about 49%. Among aboriginal and first nations people, the rate is 43%. Among racialized groups--and by that I mean African, indigenous African Canadians, as well as immigrants of colour--the rate is about 36%. And among persons with disabilities, the poverty rate is around 31%.
As I said, we at the School of Social Work see these rates as totally unacceptable in a country that prides itself on being one of the best in the world. And I think we are, but we have a lot of work to do. In the last fifteen years or so, however, governments have all but abandoned the welfare state that used to protect those who could not compete in the regular labour market or who were temporarily unable to do so.
When we look at the economic and social exclusion caused by poverty for some five million Canadians at the same time as the government retains a significant surplus, we believe it should be distributed to create a just and equitable society.
People in poverty, as well as many people who are well-to-do, face many social and individual problems--divorce or separation, living in rural areas, lack of education and skills, addiction, and violence. But well-to-do people rarely fall into poverty as a result of these social and individual problems, so we need to look deeper for the causes.
This is where it's our position that poverty is a political issue. In other words, it results from and can be changed by government policy. I'll just mention what we see as three or four of the main causes of poverty.
First and foremost is the CHST, which does not require adequacy of social programs or accountability by the provinces. As a result of this, we now have wholly inadequate social income assistance rates, from a low of 19% of the Stats Canada low-income cutoffs to a high of 64%. This is looking across the country.
We have an inadequate EI program. We have a severe lack of affordable and social housing in this country. We have the high cost of prescription drugs that hits people. There's a myth out there that everyone who is poor is covered by some sort of pharmacare program, and that's just not the case.
We continue to have, unfortunately, discrimination in the education system and in the job market against aboriginal peoples, African Canadians, immigrants of colour, and persons with disabilities.
We have seen, since the 1970s, a steady decrease in corporate taxes.
All of these causes result from government policy or from failure to intervene in poverty-creating situations.
To eliminate poverty, Canada needs a national strategy that will set targets and create mechanisms to meet these targets. I believe you've heard in Ottawa from the National Council of Welfare and others who have recommended the same.
We're making fourteen recommendations. I'll mention a few.
Improve CHST funding to increase social assistance rates. Increase EI. Increase the national child benefit. Institute the day care program, and implement affordable and social housing. Implement the Kelowna accord, including an aboriginal anti-poverty strategy. We need national pharmacare and home care. We need to develop a national disability and accommodation program, as Jane said, and we need to expand educational support, as both of the gentlemen from the student groups mentioned.