Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm here today to talk about the findings of the Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults, or MISWAA, which was formed in September 2004 by the Toronto City Summit Alliance,or TCSA, and St. Christopher House.
The TCSA is a broad-based coalition of civic leaders that has launched a number of initiatives dealing with issues facing the Toronto region. The TCSA's 2003 “Enough Talk: An Action Plan for the Toronto Region” highlighted the issue of income security as critical to the future of major cities. St. Christopher House is a multi-service neighbourhood centre in Toronto that has extensive experience involving the community in formulating policies and programs to improve the situations of people living with low income.
The task force was made up of a steering group of about 50 leaders from business, labour, community organizations, advocacy groups, academia, policy institutes, foundations, and governments. Working with St. Christopher House, we put together a community reference group of low-income people who were directly involved in developing the recommendations, as well as an extensive community consultation process with over 200 low-income adults and a similar number of front-line staff of community agencies. Finally, we had a working group that included policy analysts from the Conference Board of Canada, C.D. Howe, TD Economics and Scotia Economics, the Caledon Institute, CPRN, and the Canadian Labour Congress, and from a number of community and advocacy groups such as the Daily Bread Food Bank and the Workers' Action Centre.
We believe the task force was unprecedented in a number of respects, first in terms of getting leaders from many sectors, including business, together to discuss income security reform, then in terms of having the relevant think tanks involved and involving people directly affected by the problems with the system. Everyone agreed on the issues and the numbers, and members are united in the belief that all orders of government must come to the table to secure needed reforms. Our submission sets out the task force's recommendations, which may be accessed at http://www.torontoalliance.ca, in our report, “Time for a Fair Deal”.
Many members of the task force believe that the federal government needs to be accountable and play a more prominent role in the income security of working-age adults, much as it does today with seniors and children. Let me take this a bit further.
A resident of Ontario who turns 65 with no savings, no Canada Pension, and no other income of any sort receives a basic guarantee of $15,200 a year through old age security, the GIS, and provincial credits of various sorts. This base guarantee has been kept up to date for decades. Benefits to seniors represent 49% of all income security expenditures in Canada, and this portion will soon rise to more than 50%. It will grow much larger post-2011, when those in the baby boom generation start turning 65. Our ongoing support for seniors represents good policy, and our income security program should be kept up to date. We should ensure that benefits don't erode with inflation. What is bad is that the programs and policies for working-age adults are not similarly kept up to date, not even for those who are not capable of working.
Consider the following facts. Single welfare recipients can receive less than $6,500 a year, down 45% in real terms since 1993. The rates have now fallen to pre-centennial levels—that's 1967—again in inflation-adjusted or real terms. Welfare costs now represent just 5% of the overall expenditures in the income security system in Ontario. A single disabled recipient obtaining a disability allowance in Ontario receives just under $11,500 a year, down more than 20% in real terms from the early 1990s, and now $3,700 a year less than the neediest senior. Minimum wages, despite increases, are much lower in real terms than they were in the 1970s, and less than they were in the 1990s. EI benefits have decreased in real terms for 22% of the unemployed in Toronto who are eligible for them. At the same time, the EI fund has accumulated a surplus of over $48 billion. As a result, low-income wage earners increasingly cannot afford to live in our cities where the work is, and there is no sign of redress.
Income security programs for seniors continue to be protected through indexation, while no benefits or policy measure for working-age adults are protected in any way. This very different trajectory of benefits and policies for seniors versus working-age adults will widen as we race toward a period when more seniors will be depending on working-age adults to bankroll their benefits. As the National Council of Welfare recently noted, “if there is no long-term vision, no plan, no one identified to lead or carry out the plan, no resources assigned and no accepted measure of results, we will be mired in the consequences of poverty for generations to come”.
We call for the commencement of a dialogue and a debate on the economy and the meaning of civil society that stands as the precursor to a real change to present realities.
Our collective bottom line is that changes can and must take place immediately, not only to make work pay but to reverse the trend, and increase and make a more decent standard of living available to all low-income individuals. In doing so, we will enhance the economic security of all Canadians and preserve the social fabric of our communities. The federal government needs to play a more prominent role in the income security of working-age adults, much as it does today with seniors and children. Now is the time to reform income security before we face an economic downturn.
We cannot achieve a just society or a fully productive economy if we do not do a better job of supporting the needs of low-income adults and families as they attempt to lift themselves out of poverty. Canada has been blessed with an uninterrupted decade of economic growth, but we cannot assume that the laws of economics have been repealed. When the next recession hits, the flaws in our system will become clearly evident.
Our prosperity in Canada depends on having a labour force operating at its full potential. We need to ensure that all working-age adults are contributing to our economy. Immigration can provide a source of new workers, but we should ensure that at all times we have enabled individuals already resident in Canada to achieve their full potential and contribute to our economy and society.
We need a bold agenda of a working income supplement and a new refundable tax credit so that low-income parents can aspire to provide their children with a better future. Many significant issues that affect the economic security of working-age adults are outside the income security system. Some of these issues, such as lack of affordable housing and limited access to quality child care, have had long-standing advocacy campaigns.
We also call for a federal presence that encourages serious reflection of Canadian values for the care of children who are not living with their parents and who find themselves in the care of government. MISWAA considered this very important aspect of adult poverty and presented it earlier this week in Vancouver at World Forum 2006, in concert with the University of Victoria, and through Andrée Cazabon's film, Wards of the Crown, being shown on CBC's Newsworld on The Lens this week.
In many ways it is currently no federal department's business. Unlike both education and corrections, where there are varying levels of federal presence, in the area of child welfare the standards we might otherwise expect are missing. We need to focus not only on those who are lucky enough to survive the system and go on to post-secondary education. We need to send the message to all children in care that the investment will be there for them; that they can expect to be supported to achieve, succeed in school, graduate, and have career aspirations, and that funds will be there to support them to achieve their goals.
We need federal leadership on the issue--an office, a website, a mail box--something similar to what we routinely see in the areas of health and justice. One option here that goes beyond RESPs, the Canada learning bond, and Canada education savings grants could be a national scholarship plan for youth leaving care
I'll leave it at that.