Thank you, Chair.
Members of the committee, thank you for inviting us here to discuss our report.
Senator Eggleton has covered many of the findings regarding the Senate subcommittee’s two-year study. And I agree completely that, in a country like Canada, it is unacceptable that so many of our fellow citizens find themselves in the untenable situation that is poverty.
I should like to concentrate on two specific recommendations set out in the report. The first is recommendation number 53, which states the following: “The committee recommends that the federal government develop and implement a basic income guarantee at or above LICO for people with severe disabilities”.
For Canadians with severe disabilities, there is absolutely no valid reason for them to be forced through the maze that is income assistance. And even if that maze is navigated successfully, this would be reason enough for the federal government to ensure a quality and standard of living that guarantees no disabled Canadian will live in poverty.
While the low-income cut-off is not a direct poverty measure, as we are so often warned by those studying the issue, it is currently the only measurement we have that provides accurate Statistics Canada numbers relating to this country’s neediest citizens.
Such a move would not only provide some measure of support and dignity for the disabled, but would also be an economically sound decision that would free up the costly bureaucracy that must deal with applications, reviews and evaluations.
Secondly, I sincerely hope the government will move forward with recommendation five, which states:
The Committee recommends that the federal government publish a Green Paper by 31 December 2010, to include the costs and benefits of current practices with respect to income supports and of options to reduce and eliminate poverty, including a basic annual income based on a negative income tax, and to include a detailed assessment of completed pilot projects on a basic income in New Brunswick and Manitoba.
And they have taken place in the past.
As Senator Eggleton mentioned, Canada currently spends more than $150 billion in transfers to people every year, not including health care or education. The option of a basic income for all was first suggested at a Progressive Conservative policy conference 40 years ago under the leadership of Mr. Stanfield. After that, Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Schryer had a Mincome project to try a basic income in Dauphin, Manitoba, which had remarkable success. It was not very costly, but it had the effect of reducing some of the worst pathologies associated with poverty, which I'm glad to discuss in detail if your time permits.
The Parti Québécois government of the day made comments in favour of a guaranteed income, in the final year of its mandate before elections were called, and it was an integral part of a social solidarity concept considered fundamental by our PQ friends in the province.
Donald Macdonald, the finance minister in Mr. Trudeau's government, headed a royal commission on Canada's economic future.
Mr. Macdonald made a proposal in favour of a guaranteed annual income back in the 1980s, as part of the overall assessment of our economic future going forward.
We have evidence that there's a more efficient way of guaranteeing there is no one living beneath the poverty line than what we are now doing. We have evidence that there is a way to do it that is economically productive. We have evidence that we no longer have to subject people who live beneath the poverty line to the remarkable bureaucratic maze of rules they now face.
To cite an example, in my own province, Ontario,
the actual manual of administration for a caseworker dealing with welfare recipients, has 800 rules that have to be applied to every case.
There are 800 rules. We can really have a case worker with a huge capacity,
but that is an unbearable proposition in terms of day-to-day protection.
When you show up to file for welfare in some communities in this country, you are asked to sit down and see a movie about why you shouldn't file for welfare before you are actually allowed to file. By the way, the committee on rural poverty headed by Alberta's Senator Fairbairn of the Liberal Party found that the numbers in rural Canada were actually worse than the numbers in the city. About 15% of the population were living beneath the poverty line.
I know that experts and analysts from the Library of Parliament and others who will say that poverty is very complex, that it is the result of a series of other issues--lack of work, family division, substance abuse, crime--and that even the measure of poverty doesn't allow core policy decisions to be made. Well, if you take the measure of poverty that we've used in Canada for a long time,
Statistics Canada's poverty line
or the Fraser Institute's measure of poverty,
which is a bit thinner, as they say,
the average welfare recipient in this country is receiving $11,000 to $15,000 less per annum than either one of those measures, so the notion that we can't be certain about the measure constitutes a rationale for complacency that I think understates the problem fundamentally.
I have one final point.
From time to time in Canada and in the provinces, there is talk of a vision for society. So if we do not consider the notion of poverty, of eradicating poverty, of reducing poverty, of creating equal opportunities for all, as a vision for society,
I don't know what else would qualify, because for every single pathological criminal activity filling the prisons and filling the hospitals, poverty makes it worse.
I'm not of the same party as our colleague here, and as a Conservative I'm not sure the government can solve all these problems or should even try, but I do know this: we solved the problem for seniors when in the 1970s a series of governments decided that if you reach 65 years of age in this country and you file your taxes, you should be topped up. We took the level of poverty in the 1970s from 30% to about 2.9%. It has now crept up a little.
And all the governments have done it, the Grits, the Tories, our separatist friends, the NDP, everyone has done it.
Why? It was because we had a common respect for our senior citizens, and guess what? If you look at the OECD studies now, Canada is in the top five with respect to how well our senior citizens are doing. We are doing better than a whole bunch of other countries. Where we are doing horribly is in working-age Canadians dans toutes les provinces. In terms of working-age Canadians, we rank about 17 out of 18 in the OECD.
I think the principles are there, and both I and my colleague Senator Eggleton are honoured to be here and are delighted that your committee would take on this task, because while we understand the Senate on occasion can have a smidgen of influence, we respect where the decisions are made and we look to your leadership on this front.
Mille fois merci.