Thank you for the opportunity to present to the standing committee on the important issue of Canada’s place in a competitive world.
The recommendations I have are, first, that the Government of Canada initiate a poverty reduction strategy with specific targets, deliverable accountabilities, and evaluation processes.
The second is that the Government of Canada participate in and provide leadership for cross-sectoral, multi-faceted collaborative practices and coordinated approaches that acknowledge and act on the interdependent nature of successful models of poverty reduction.
The third recommendation is that the Government of Canada renew the national homelessness initiative as a permanent program giving priority to the need for supported and supportive housing for citizens requiring housing and harm reduction programs.
The North End Community Health Association is a non-profit community organization established in 1971. Our mission statement is, through service, education, and advocacy, to play a leading and active role in concert with others, in promoting healthy communities, particularly in the north end of Halifax.
Our health centre is guided by our mission to support healthy communities, and we believe a competitive Canada must be one of social inclusion and strategic planning to confront the barriers and challenges associated with poverty reduction.
Our health centre’s work reflects the social determinants of health. This work was informed first by National Health and Welfare's Lalonde report, by the Canadian Public Health Association, and by the health promotion branch of Health Canada, through formally recognizing the value of addressing the social determinants of health.
Our health centre has contributed to addressing poverty-related determinants, including income, housing, and social exclusion. We also incorporate intersectoral collaboration in confronting poverty.
The need for a poverty reduction strategy is based on evidence from the business plan of the Department of Community Services, which states that approximately 11% of Nova Scotians live below the low-income cut-off, 44% of all income assistance recipients are disabled, 13.5% of Nova Scotia youth between the ages of 20 and 24 have not completed high school, and that 26,000 Nova Scotia children live in welfare-dependent families. The business plan further articulates that income assistance recipients have multiple barriers to employment. The department suggests that factors beyond the mandate and control of the Department of Community Services contribute to this reality.
Despite these facts, the Province of Nova Scotia does not have a poverty reduction strategy. On the contrary, Nova Scotia families living in poverty have less access to financial security than they had ten years ago. We are failing vulnerable children. We are leaving our youth to fend for themselves. We are telling disabled adults to do more with less. And we are further victimizing lone-parent mothers to live in communities, which, through lack of social planning, have become undesirable or high-risk neighbourhoods.
Clearly, no one in this room today would subject their families to these realities if they could do something differently. We must articulate a clearly targeted policy that addresses high-density social housing projects, not by tearing them down, but by focusing on the development of the social infrastructure in and around these projects.
We must create more social housing so that poor families are not lumped together in large housing developments. Families admitted to a housing project must be supported through engagement and targeted programs geared to address education, skill development, and the ability of tenants to participate in learning. It is important to maintain a cap on rent in existing housing projects, so people who begin to earn decent incomes are not induced to leave.
We must involve the private sector in creating employment opportunities for project families.
We must create child care spaces within the projects and develop strategies aimed at improving safety.
We must target education and employment opportunities for youth and provide them with alternatives to the drug economy.
We must think about what we do now and how we can do things differently in light of the high percentage of Nova Scotia citizens who are left out of and are unable to participate in the economy.
The recent National Council of Welfare report and reports from the Toronto-Dominion Bank and the Chamber of Commerce have articulated the importance of poverty reduction in keeping Canada competitive. We must find ways to transfer the knowledge we acquire through research into policy that engages our citizens in the Canadian economy.
Research suggests existing poverty/work strategies are maintaining the welfare trap. The federal government must initiate policy that will create a partnership among all levels of government, the community, and the private sector to actively participate in poverty reduction, and the need for a multi-faceted approach.
Federal government leadership in the areas of social determinants of health has been advanced, in part, through the promotion of interprofessional collaboration and health care delivery. Evidence suggests that community health centres are both cost-efficient and effective in improving health outcomes. We believe the interprofessional collaboration of health centres is the major contributor to their efficiency. This model must be enhanced further, developed, and incorporated within all sectors to realize multi-faceted, cross-sectoral engagement to advance a poverty reduction strategy for Canada.
The national homelessness initiative must be renewed as a permanent program. This program has meant the realization of several community initiatives that have been several years, if not decades, in waiting. Community government partnerships have accomplished Nova Scotia's first halfway house for recovering women, Nova Scotia's first shelter for homeless youth, Nova Scotia's first community methadone program, a new shelter for homeless women, transitional housing for single adults, and housing alternatives for teen moms.