Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this NDP opposition motion, which basically calls on the government to take action on the growing prosperity gap in Canada that we know is making it harder for working and middle class families to make ends meet. We are seeing more and more Canadians, women, children, seniors, aboriginal people and people with disabilities slipping into poverty. Therefore, with this motion, we are calling on the government to implement a national anti-poverty strategy, beginning with the reinstatement of the federal minimum wage initially set at $10 an hour.
This is following 15 years of failed economic policies in this country. We have seen the decline in the overall economic well-being of most Canadians. In this corner of the House we actually see things as they are, perhaps because New Democrats are more in touch with their communities. We see the growing number of homeless in the country. We see the growing lines at the food banks.
Under the Liberal watch, the lines at the food banks grew. Poverty grew. Homelessness grew. Under the Conservative watch now we see no action being taken to deal with the poverty crisis that impacts Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Talk about failed economic policies. We are talking about failed economic policies and rich corporate lawyers and CEOs. Unbelievably there have been record profits with billions and billions of dollars in profits in the bank sector and in the petroleum sector. There are unbelievable levels of profit while most Canadians are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. The figures are compelling.
Since 1989, 80% of Canadian families have seen a decline in real income. We in the New Democratic Party come to the House day after day and see the Conservatives and Liberals slapping each other on the back saying there is unbelievable prosperity in this country. They cheer the fact that 80% of Canadian families are worse off than they were 15 years ago.
The Conservatives and Liberals rejoice because they are doing all right. Their parties are composed of corporate lawyers and CEOs so of course they have absolutely no idea what is happening on main streets across the country. They have no idea of the erosion of the middle class. They have no idea of the erosion of quality jobs in this country since 1989.
Let us look at the figures. The Liberals and Conservatives look at the surface and say, “Wow, the average growth has been about 4% for average families in the country”. They think that must be a good thing, but not a single Liberal or Conservative member of Parliament in the last 15 years has looked beyond that so-called average. We have to understand that if a billionaire makes another billion and a thousand people get poorer, that still averages out as more people being rich, but that is not the reality. One has to go beyond the average figures. These are the results, as devastating as they are.
The poorest of Canadians, those families that are earning less than $20,000 and are below the poverty line, have actually seen since 1989 an erosion in their real income of 9%. They are earning nearly 10% less now than they were 15 years ago. It is unbelievable but true. How members of Parliament could stand up and say that we have prosperity in this country when the poorest of Canadians are earning 10% less than they were in 1989 simply goes beyond my capacity to understand where those members are coming from.
Let us look at the second lowest level, families earning between $20,000 and $36,000 a year. That is 20% of the Canadian population and they have lost about two weeks of income a year. Their income is 5% lower in real terms than it was in 1989. They are earning two weeks less of salary a year than they were in 1989. And the other parties rejoice with the so-called prosperity. I guess they are going to the wrong cocktail parties because on the main streets of the country people are poor.
Let us look at the third level, another 20% of Canadians, those earning between $36,000 and $56,000 a year. They as well have lost an average of two weeks of income. Their salaries are 5% lower than they were in 1989.
The bottom 60% of Canadian income earners, the bottom 60% of Canadian families, have seen what many consider to be a catastrophic fall in income.
What has happened to the very wealthy?
The very wealthy, the families earning more than $86,000 a year, and that includes members of Parliament as we well know, certainly Liberal and Conservative MPs, have seen their incomes skyrocket. Their family incomes in real terms have gone up over 12%.
What has happened is worse than a prosperity gap. It is a prosperity gulf, where what we see in communities across this country is working families having to work harder and harder for less and less. During that same period, overtime has gone up over a third.
Most jobs that are created today do not come with pensions. In fact, the number of jobs with pensions has declined and is now a little over a third of the overall percentage of jobs that are created. Most of the jobs that are created do not come with the benefits that we used to have as part of our societal compact. Most jobs do not come with benefits. Most jobs are part time and temporary in nature.
So when the Conservatives and Liberals rejoice over the employment figures, they are rejoicing over Canadians getting temporary or part time jobs to survive, jobs with no pensions, jobs with no benefits, and jobs that pay less than they did 15 years ago. It is a catastrophic erosion of the actual ability to survive for middle class and poor working families, and the Conservatives and Liberals have done absolutely nothing to deal with it.
In this corner of the House, we have been putting forward strong policies. NDP members believe in an industrial strategy that actually leads to the creation of good jobs. We believe that we should not simply be giving up our manufacturing base. That is why yesterday we spoke in the House about saving textile jobs. We fought tooth and nail against the egregious softwood sellout that has led to 4,000 jobs being lost in a matter of weeks since it was forced through on October 12.
The NDP is the only party in the House fighting to help middle class families keep their heads above water.
It is about more than that. It is also about establishing a minimum wage that makes sense. It is about bringing up the federal minimum wage so that we can actually start to have working poor who have an adequate salary and who can actually raise their families and live in their communities.
It is no secret why we will have nearly 300,000 Canadians sleeping in the parks and streets of our nation this very night. It is because of laissez-faire economics, failed economic policies, and completely reckless and irresponsible social policies. They started under the Liberals and continued under the Conservatives and they say that we have absolutely no responsibility toward our fellow Canadians. We do.
I am going to say a little about people with disabilities. Half of the homeless in this country are Canadians with disabilities. Forty per cent of those who rely on food banks to make ends meet are people with disabilities. Over a third of families with disabled children are families living below the poverty line.
The very poor in our society are people with disabilities. That is why the NDP convention last September called for a comprehensive disability strategy that would include disability supports to integrate people with disabilities into the workplace and supports for people with disabilities so they can live at an adequate level of income. The NDP has been pressing in force as well for Canada to be the first country to ratify the UN convention on the rights of people with disabilities.
Canadians with disabilities deserve rights in this society. The NDP in this corner of the House will continue to fight until we have an anti-poverty strategy in this country and until we have a Canada that leaves no one behind and where everyone can live in and contribute to society.