I'm really pleased to be here today contributing to what's becoming quite a rich discussion across this country about poverty reduction. I'm sure certainly everyone who is here would agree it's about time, and I imagine most of you would as well.
As the chair said, I work with the Income Security Advocacy Centre, which is a legal clinic in Ontario focused on test case litigation, law reform, and community organizing that's focused on improving the income security and social inclusion of low-income Ontarians.
As I said, the goal of poverty reduction is being taken up by provinces across the country, including Ontario. There are provincial poverty reduction strategies, there's poverty reduction legislation, and now there is innovative programming. Provinces have come to realize that creating public policy to reduce poverty is not only the just and decent thing to do—which I would argue should certainly be reason enough to act—but it's also the smart thing to do if we want strong economies and healthy communities. And as Mark just indicated, it's not just the provincial jurisdictions that are taking up the call to reduce poverty; it's municipalities and communities across this country, it's social activists, it's teachers, it's health practitioners, it's faith communities, it's heads of banks, and it's chambers of commerce, which are all insisting that poverty reduction should be taken seriously for reasons of justice, fairness, social inclusion, health, and economics.
As has already been mentioned, Ontario has developed a provincial poverty reduction strategy, and I know Minister Matthews has appeared before this committee and told you in detail about it. It's an imperfect strategy, in my view, but it is a significant step in the right direction.
What's exciting to those of us who do the work here in Ontario is that people across this province, and at the local levels, are getting involved in the work of poverty reduction. But it seems to me that Canada is not simply the sum of its parts; we are a nation. Certainly we are a nation with tremendous difference and diversity, but we're also a nation with shared values and aspirations, and Ontario is not alone in calling for the federal government to take its rightful and necessary place in our shared work to reduce poverty.
Working in a cooperative and transparent fashion, the federal government and provinces should establish a national poverty reduction strategy that complements and reinforces provincial and territorial efforts and that's guided by a vision of a poverty-free country in which charter and human rights are fully realized. It should be a strategy that has targets and timelines. I suggest it must also be a strategy that's transparent, one that's transparent in its decision-making, its deliberations, its monitoring, and its evaluation.
I offer the national child benefit supplement as an example of a mostly good program that resulted from provincial, territorial, and federal negotiations, but also as an example of some of the pitfalls of cooperative federalism, because with no formal signed agreement and mostly closed-door negotiations, there was a lack of transparency and accountability, which mattered a lot to those advocates and anti-poverty activists who had concerns they wanted taken seriously. We didn't have access to the deliberations to have the rich analysis we wanted to be able to engage in with government around our concerns.
Preliminary steps to establish a national poverty reduction strategy, I think, are obvious and have been articulated here and by provinces and municipalities across the country as well as researchers, advocates, independent citizens, and low-income people themselves. So I'm just going to touch quickly on three important ones.
Mine is only yet another voice calling for the reform of employment insurance in this country. Unemployed workers are entitled to those benefits that will enable them to cope financially and gain the necessary support and/or training they need to re-enter the labour market. I'm sure many people who have appeared before you today have reminded you that in this province only 32% of unemployed Ontarians qualify for EI. So like many others, the Income Security Advocacy Centre is calling for uniform entry requirements based on 360 hours of work, benefit levels raised to 60% of earnings based on a worker's best 12 weeks, and an increase in the period in which benefits may be collected to a maximum of 50 weeks.
Secondly, increase the national child benefit supplement. This is money that is always well used. It feeds, it clothes, it takes care of our kids, and it's money, of course, that's used immediately in local communities, so it's also good for local economies. We're calling for the NCBS to be increased to $5,200.
Finally, I'll just mention the urgent need to invest in early childhood education and care. Our recommendation is that money should be earmarked in the next two federal budgets for ECEC, specifically for operating costs and capital expenses, including expansion and quality improvements, but that a national child care strategy is critical to poverty reduction in this country.
I'll stop there and just say that I am very excited by what I hope will be very fruitful discussions.