Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair, committee members, and fellow witnesses.
The African Canadian Legal Clinic is a legal aid Ontario clinic that represents low-income African Canadians. We engage in anti-racism and equality rights test cases, litigation, and law reform activities.
My name is Heather Kere. I'm a court worker with the African Canadian Legal Clinic, and I'm accompanied by my colleague, Marie Chen, who is a staff lawyer with the legal clinic.
We come to speak to you today regarding the situation of poverty for African Canadians. It's a perspective that is often not heard, but it's one that is critical in any effort to eradicate poverty. I'll be referring to statistics in my presentation, but they're all contained in the written brief that we've submitted to the committee.
Just as many presenters have asserted today about the interconnectedness between poverty and literacy, we assert today that poverty is intertwined with racism. The African Canadian Legal Clinic, along with many of our allies, assert that poverty is racialized. Racialized groups, especially African Canadians, experience disproportionately higher rates of poverty due to structural barriers and institutional racism.
It's important for us to note that anti-black racism in particular is central to the experience of poverty for African Canadians. Strategies, any strategy for alleviating poverty, must incorporate an anti-racist analysis in order to create equal opportunities for our political, social, and economic development. Issues around poverty are interconnected, and together they effectively jeopardize the enjoyment of many other rights, such as access to jobs, housing, and food security. Obstacles to breaking through the cycle of poverty for African Canadians include high rates of unemployment, gendered and child poverty, and the concentration of African Canadians in low-income neighbourhoods. This has been shown to increase contact with the criminal justice system.
In his research on the poverty level among racial minorities, Professor Michael Ornstein shows that 10.6% of white families live below the low-income cut-off, compared with 36% for African Canadians--10.6% to 36%; that's an almost 25% difference. African Canadians currently make up only 0.2% of the Canadian population, but a 2006 analysis of the census revealed that 40% of all African Canadians lived below the poverty line in 2001.
So what is the state of African Canadians in terms of employment? The 2001 census showed that African Canadians are just as likely to be educated as others, yet African Canadians have higher poverty rates, are less likely to be employed, have lower incomes, and have higher unemployment rates than the general population. It's 11.4% for African Canadians and 5.8% for others.
What is the state of our women and children? With more than 57% below the low-income cut-off, African Canadian women are the poorest racialized group in Canada. Over 34.5% of African Canadian women in families are poor, and over 52.7% of single African Canadian women are poor. These figures stand in sober comparison to 13.7% of all women in families and 41.9% for all single adult women in Canada.
According to the 2001 census by Statistics Canada, 44% of all African Canadian children live in poverty, compared to 19% for the general Canadian population. Furthermore, poverty amongst single-parent, mother-led families stood at 26% for European families and 65% for African Canadian families. African Canadians also contend with other issues relating to social security, threats to food security, and inadequate housing, which are expanded on in our written submission.
What are our recommendations to the federal government? We believe first that any strategy to combat poverty must incorporate an understanding of the fundamental role that racism plays in creating and perpetuating poverty and the systemic barriers faced by African Canadians.
A complete list of our recommendations is found in our written submission, but we'd like to highlight the following four.
First is to develop and implement a national anti-poverty strategy that incorporates an integrated and multi-sector response that acknowledges the racialization of poverty and recognizes the distinct needs and vulnerabilities of and barriers faced by African Canadians, to ensure an adequate standard of living for all Canadians, including African-Canadians.
Second is to mandate the collection of disaggregated data on the social and economic indicators of poverty on the basis of race in all agencies and departments as a monitoring and evaluation tool.
Third is to take steps to ensure equality of working opportunities for all, especially women, and prevail on provincial and territorial governments to enact meaningful employment equity legislation with mandates, targets, and specific indicators to adjust the employment disparities of African Canadians, and to ensure that such laws are vigorously enforced.
And last is to increase the national child benefit supplement, particularly for social assistance recipients, and prevail on all provinces and territories still engaging in the clawback of the national child benefit supplement from social assistance recipients to end this discriminatory practice that leaves our women and children destitute.
When entire communities live in poverty, everyone suffers. The communities themselves and society as a whole suffer the same. Our women our suffering and our children and youth are in crisis. The African Canadian community is asking the federal government to take responsibility and create a national plan to create and maintain an equal standard of living for all Canadians.
Thank you.