I want to thank the committee very much.
Looking at your biographies online, I can see that you folks represent a tremendous amount in terms of what you've done in the communities. Obviously, that's why you've been elected by people like me: to serve our nation.
As a United Church minister, I should probably begin by asking for a moment of silence for the Vancouver Canucks, but we'll move on from there.
There are a number of people, including people like Auréa and Johanne, who have far more insight, as do many people who staff the Hill, into the issues of poverty, but my concern is more to speak to the issues of broader concern in terms of what faces you folks.
Martin Luther King once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” What matters more in this country than those living in poverty? To me, one of the basic issues that this group needs to deal with is that the elimination or reduction of poverty in Canada will only be achieved if--and only if--there's the political will to make it happen.
One of the things we seem to have lost sight of is that budgets are moral documents. In the budget, we can truly understand what the priorities are for the government. Policies can be effective only if there are sufficient budget allocations in the short and the medium term; if sufficient funds are not allocated, it's evidence that the program is not truly a priority.
One of the things I believe needs to happen in order to reduce or eliminate poverty in Canada is that there needs to be a strong social vision, backed up by a variety of programs tackling a number of poverty issues.
If we look at this historically, we can see how FDR made such a tremendous impact during the Great Depression with his New Deal. We know the power of imagery and vision because of Churchill's leading of the world through the Second World War. Dwight Eisenhower had probably the greatest insight of any politician I've ever read, because of his experience both as supreme commander of allied forces in Europe and as president.
Competition for resources is an issue you folks have to deal with on a continuous basis. Eisenhower once said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Lyndon Baines Johnson, of course, introduced the idea of the “Great Society”. Through that program--and there are many segments of it still in place--Americans were able to deal with issues of extreme poverty, as well as racial injustice.
But words in and of themselves are meaningless unless they're backed up by strong government programs. All we need to do to see what happens if programs are not in place is examine our failure to achieve the millennium development goals and the goals for child poverty reduction within this nation.
Part of the reason for that, I believe, is supply-side economics. In the 1980s, there was a dramatic sea change with the election of Ronald Reagan. His belief was that if the rich became richer, the benefits would trickle down to the poor, and everyone would be better off.
If we look at the situation in Canada, over the last 30 years we have reached the position where now the wealthiest 20% of Canadian families own more than 70% of the nation's wealth. Meanwhile, the poorest 20% own 2%. The gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically over the last 30 years. Supply-side economics has also led to the reality that 17% of Canadian children are living in poverty, with the Canadian rate worse than those of 18 other OECD nations.
To me, the problem with supply-side economics is what it's based on. It's founded in greed. The deregulation of the financial industry, tax cuts, and flat taxes are really based on what is known as one of the seven deadly sins--greed.
In spite of what is advocated by business leaders and a decreasing number of economists, greed is not a positive force in society. Ultimately, greed is something that is immoral and should never be the driving force in our economy. “I like paying taxes,” Oliver Wendell Holmes once said. “With them I buy civilization.”
Inherent within this issue comes the most pressing question for Canadians and for Canadian politicians: do Canadian politicians have the moral fortitude to look the wealthiest Canadians in the eyes and say that they believe in a fairer and more equitable distribution of the wealth of our nation? Do Canadian politicians have the courage to look at business leaders and say to them that they have a moral responsibility to carry their fair share of the tax burden for the nation? If the answer is no, then food banks and homeless shelters, the most visible signs of supply-side economics, will continue to be among our leading growth industries.
In conclusion, nations should not be judged on the size of their GDP or the number of millionaires who live there, nor should they be judged on military power. Rather, let our nation and every other nation be judged on how we treat the least and the last, the powerless and the voiceless, the homeless and the poor.