Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to present before your committee. I'm very happy the issue of poverty will be addressed in your deliberations today.
Make Poverty History Manitoba is a coalition of individuals and organizations working towards a Manitoba without poverty. In my comments today, I would like to give you a bit of a snapshot or picture of poverty in Manitoba and tell you about consultations that our coalition conducted earlier this year about poverty reduction policy priorities in Manitoba. I will highlight a few of the key policies that came out of those consultations.
Across the province, 185,000 Manitobans were counted as low-income in the last census. That's approximately one in seven residents. However, we know that poverty in Manitoba, as it is across Canada, is unevenly distributed. Certain populations have dramatically higher rates of poverty. In particular, here in Manitoba, the indigenous population faces almost double the overall rate of poverty. Here in Winnipeg, we have the largest indigenous population of any Canadian city, and we're also the city with the highest rate of urban indigenous poverty among all major cities. The situation on reserve in Manitoba is even more dire, with crushing rates of poverty.
Manitoba has chronically been the province with the highest rate of child poverty. In our partner coalition with Campaign 2000, we work on the local report for Manitoba. Every year, Manitoba ranks either one or two among all provinces. Only Nunavut has a higher rate of child poverty. Here in Manitoba, over one in four children are growing up in poverty. For children in single-parent households and, perhaps most tragically, under the age of five—that key developmental period—the rates are even higher. Almost one in two children under the age of five is growing up in poverty in this province. We have documented higher rates of childhood poverty related to higher rates of infant mortality and childhood suicide as a result of depression and poverty, leading a generation into poverty.
Other groups with elevated rates of poverty include recent immigrants, racialized groups and people with disabilities.
We believe efforts to address poverty must be comprehensive and systematic. The rates I'm talking about came out of the 2021 census, conducted at a time when there were significant investments in poverty reduction via the CERB program and pandemic-related benefits. What we have seen since then is those benefits being withdrawn. We're starting to see an uptick in poverty. In 2020, poverty rates went down significantly, but the latest data shows that poverty is back up among all the groups I was talking about. I think about the forced repayment of CERB benefits. That's a severe hardship for many of the recipients of those benefits.
This past winter, Make Poverty History Manitoba conducted a series of in-person and online consultations with people in our province about poverty and poverty reduction priorities, and about which policies should address them. We included people with lived experience, advocates, experts, service delivery organizations and indigenous leaders in our consultations. Although the discussions were conducted at the provincial level, almost all of the policy priorities have joint jurisdiction and a federal component.
I will not have time to go into all policy priorities, but I want to give you a few highlights that I would like to see actioned by this committee and in the next budget.
First, we need to see action on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action on missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and two-spirits, which calls for justice. It's critical, and it needs to be part of an overall poverty reduction legislation with bold targets for reducing and ending poverty in Manitoba and across Canada.
We need to see the transformation of our social assistance system towards a basic livable income program. In every province in Canada, social assistance rates are well below the poverty line. The federal government has a clear role. Although social assistance is delivered by the provinces, we need to see increased social transfers and a tie to increased guaranteed targets for all Canadians towards a livable income. We need to see this on reserve as well.
On the other areas, just to mention them quickly, we need to see housing, with at least 50,000 units of housing per year; employment; early learning and childhood education; investments in mental health and health care; and increases for restorative justice programs.
Thank you so much for your time today. I look forward to the discussion.