Evidence of meeting #56 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was november.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Yes, I'm done. I just wanted to understand, because I don't have a problem with the motion otherwise.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'm not in favour of the amendment.
I understand we may not come to an agreement on this, but I think it's very important that we understand. This 50% seems like a very general thing that somebody picked out of the air, but a huge amount of work has been done on this even before this committee started to travel.
Campaign 2000 has all kinds of ideas on how we can reduce poverty. I would let members know--if they haven't seen the food banks' report that came out today--that the food banks' report has 10 specific recommendations that they think would alleviate the demand for food banks and would reduce poverty in general. Number two is to implement a federal poverty prevention and reduction strategy.
Now, that's what this committee is working on. That's what we want to travel for. That's something that Tony and I and Mr. Lessard and some others have pushed and pushed for, and that we believe in. But while we've been doing this travel, the UN Universal Periodic Review in June came back with a specific recommendation for Canada to develop a national strategy to eliminate poverty, and the government scratched it out.
We have to get some kind of serious commitment from the government quickly on reducing poverty. We're travelling. We're working at this committee to come up with a plan to reduce poverty while the Government of Canada is saying that we shouldn't have a plan to reduce poverty because it's a provincial jurisdiction. But any of the provinces that have an anti-poverty strategy are saying that we need the feds to step up. We need to have some kind of specificity in this motion that we can all agree on and carve it down and say, yes, it puts a little bit of pressure on us. It should. It puts the pressure on the Conservatives who are in now, and it will put pressure on us when we are in power later, God willing. That's what Parliament needs. We didn't react very well back in 1989, but we now have 10 years to reduce poverty by 50%.
This committee has heard from countries like Ireland and England who have made that kind of dent in child poverty and poverty in general. It can be done. I think we need to be specific about our targets and put the pressure on all of us to get something done.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I want to make a brief comment and remind Mr. Martin of some comments he made way back when the provincial member, Deb Matthews, was here talking about Ontario's poverty reduction strategy. I remember he discussed at great length and commented at great length about the provincial program called Breaking the Cycle. He may remember that their program was to reduce poverty in Ontario by 25% over five years. He was outraged at that, if I remember. Obviously, 50% is better than 25%. With the outrage at 25% but the acceptance at 50%, I wonder if he could comment on that and where he sees that in his motion.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
I certainly see these as two different things. With the report that will come forward from this committee, I will certainly be arguing at that point that we do everything in our power to lift everybody out of poverty as soon as we can.
Conservative
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
The motion before us today is calling on the government to achieve 50% reduction in poverty by 2020, and I'm okay with that too.
Liberal
Maria Minna Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Just briefly, I don't want to get into semantics here. What's most important for our committee--this is a motion, it's not a piece of legislation--is to set the stage, the pace, the example, the mark, or what have you, and be a bit bolder than normally a piece of legislation would be. This is what we're doing here. We're trying to say that as a country we should be embarrassed about what we've done. We haven't accomplished anywhere near what we said we would do. We are making a resolve that we will try to do better and shoot for something that's positive but also realistic.
I think Mr. Lobb said that Mr. Martin wasn't happy with 25% in five years. Well, in ten years, 25% and 25% makes 50%, so it's not overly ambitious. In fact, it's a little over ten years, because we're now in 2009, so we're looking at 11 years, really, by the time we get started. Who knows?
Madam Chair, all I want to say is that as a committee we should be able to support something that is a bit directional and strong for families and children in our society. It's not terribly untoward. It's quite within reason.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
I think it's important that we send a strong message to the government from this committee, given the work we're doing, that we need to be moving aggressively to reduce poverty. So to set some targets and some timelines is not a problem, particularly given that there is no plan in place right now. What you have are a number of provinces out there with strategies rolling out, who are saying to us that the reason they're setting some of these targets and timelines fairly low—and they are low, in my view—is that they don't have the resources to go higher. If the federal government were to come on board and provide the leadership that is necessary and provide the resources the federal government used to provide to provinces back when we had the Canada assistance plan, in fact we'd be able to achieve a whole lot more.
I think that for us to indicate in a motion today to the House that, after 20 years of not having achieved the goal that was set out in 1989, we want to reduce poverty by 50% by 2020 is modest, actually. I think we should be asking the government to lift everybody out of poverty as quickly as we can and to put in place a strategy, in partnership with the provinces, territories, and municipalities, to do that in fact.
But this is certainly a good start in that direction.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
First of all, we haven't had any specific evidence that I recall before our committee that used this specific number and gave a rational basis as to how it was arrived at or how it might be achieved within that time. With all due respect to Maria Minna, we can promise anything, but if you don't deliver, it hardly matters. This motion, without the “starting with achieving a 50% reduction in poverty by 2020” staying within the motion, asks the government to take into consideration the committee's work in this regard. And I would presume that the committee would make a report. It may well choose to put that specific number there if it has a basis upon which to do so, but I hope there would be some evidence and some basis for it. Even then, we'd have to consider whether it's possible to meet that target.
So I stand with the amendment that would take it out.
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
Thank you.
We agree on setting a target. That seems to us to be the logical result of what we have done up to now. With all respect, I do not share Mr. Komarnicki's view that there is no evidence for the need to set a target. There is the fact that very close to a million people in Canada are going to food banks, and that two thirds of them are children, and that Canada still has a shortfall of 445,000 homes. I could go on. That is the evidence of poverty.
I have also heard government members recognize that more should have been done to successfully reach the objectives that we set for ourselves in 1989. We had targets back then. Is it too soon to set objectives, or should we wait for the results of the committee's work? In light of the discussions we have had, I do not think that the work of this committee will determine the objectives, because the scope of the task is well known. The consultations will have to determine which measures we must take in order to achieve those objectives.
That is why I say that there is a logical progression. At the moment we finish our work on poverty, we will have to be accountable for the objectives we have set for ourselves. If we do not, the opposite will happen; we will provide means that are so inadequate that we will not achieve our objectives. As I understand it, this approach is a little different from what was done previously.
Madam Chair, I move that we take the analysts' version, which they feel is appropriately drafted, and we include the two specific measures, the 50% reduction and the 2020 deadline. Immediately afterwards, the federal government could reduce...
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
We cannot accept that because I already have a motion in front of me. We already have a motion before us and we must...
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
We have an amendment and we have a motion. We have to deal with them first. After that, you can probably suggest whatever you want.
Bloc
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
We have to defeat the amendment and then move to the other amendment. That is what we are going to do, Madam Chair.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
Two other people have asked to speak.
We have Mr. Vellacott and Mr. Savage. Then we will come to a vote on the amendment.
Go ahead, Mr. Vellacott.
Conservative
Maurice Vellacott Conservative Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK
My intervention is simply that we have heard quite enough from every side. I'm not sure what more can be said, so I'd like to call the question, if that's permissible to the chairperson.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Raymonde Folco
Mr. Savage, are you all right with that? You did ask for the floor.
Liberal