Mr. Speaker, I happily share my time today with my colleague, the member for Victoria.
Back on October 17 in front of the Parliament Buildings there was a rally to make poverty history. A number of groups from across the country are fighting diligently every day to try to raise the spectre of this terrible blight on our society. I saw a banner which read, “Poverty is a government policy”, testimony to decades of neglect by consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments making other choices than to make poverty history here in Canada.
Then the next day in the House I said we should make fighting poverty a government policy. We in this caucus believe that we need to make fighting poverty year-round work with action, funding and a real plan.
Here in Ottawa, poverty remains government policy and the official opposition refuses to stand up to this agenda and defeat a budget that in fact abandons the poor.
We have spoken in the House before about budgets being visionary documents, setting out priorities for a country and its people. This budget represents more of a nightmare than a vision for the three million people on low incomes and the many more millions who find themselves squeezed and often but a paycheque or two away from joining either the ranks of the poor on social assistance or the 650,000 working poor in this country who work full time all year, often at two or three jobs, and are unable to make ends meet. Is this not crazy?
How can the government be satisfied that there are people who go to work day after day, week after week, all year long, and find that their pay still does not cover the necessities of life, such as food, clothing and shelter? There is nothing for them in this budget.
When we look at this budget and its poverty measures, we discover that the budget delivers to individuals earning $15,000 per year an expected mere $215 in reduced taxes in 2008-09 and those earning $150,000 will pay $3,265 less in taxes.
We hear the government members speak to the budget and their only initiative to respond to any of the challenges that we face as a country is reduced taxes. That is what it does for the less well off, the marginalized and the at-risk in this country.
There is no recognition in this budget of a national poverty reduction strategy. There are no measures to significantly reduce poverty in Canada. There is no strategy. There are no targets. There is no investment in affordable housing or child care. There is no expansion of the working income tax benefit, which does not even help those working full time at minimum wage the way it is right now. There is no expansion of the national child tax benefit. There is no concrete assistance to our first nations communities where poverty is particularly rampant.
Listen to the commentary from those working to make poverty history in our country.
KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives said, “The 2008 federal budget provides help to those who don't really need it and little help to those who do”.
Robert Arnold, president of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, NAPO, stated:
As in 2007, the word 'poverty' in the Canadian context is mentioned once in the budget. Contrast that with dozens and dozens of references to 'tax burden' and 'tax relief'. It is as if the Harper Conservatives believe that poverty is non-existent in this country. They would appear to care more about padding the fortunes of the wealthy than offering immediate and lasting support to the poor.
From Campaign 2000, the national coalition of over 120 partners working to end child and family poverty in Canada, we heard:
The federal budget passed up the chance to offer the almost 800,000 children living in poverty in Canada a shot at a better life.
Ann Decter, national coordinator of Campaign 2000, said:
It's another missed opportunity. There are provinces on the move on poverty reduction. They'll be much more successful when our federal government also steps up to the plate with a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy. The time was right for a bold move.
The Canadian Housing and Renewal Association said that the budget leaves one and a half million Canadians in a housing crisis:
When [the finance minister] stood to deliver the Conservative Government's 2008 budget today he left 1.5 million Canadians in desperate housing need on the outside looking in. These are the families living in housing they can't afford, isn't safe, isn't healthy and is bursting at the seams due to overcrowding. The budget also ignored the desperate plight of 200,000 people experiencing homelessness.
And this is one of the harshest winters in a long, long time. Doug Currie, Prince Edward Island's social services and seniors minister, said:
Finance Minister...budget offers little to Prince Edward Island in terms of funding to support affordable housing, catastrophic drug programs and poverty reduction.
It is not just members of Parliament in this party who are saying this, and as important as they are, the organizations working valiantly to reduce and eliminate poverty, but Canadians from coast to coast to coast are saying this as well.
As an MPP in the Ontario legislature, I remember the days of the so-called common sense revolution and its architects, including the current finance minister and Premier Harris. Anyone disagreeing with their narrow ideology was dismissed as a “special interest”. Well, that puts 93% of Canadians at odds with the minister and his budget with respect to poverty reduction.
A Globe and Mail/CTV poll asked: How important is it that the federal budget help the poorest Canadians? Fifty-eight per cent of the respondents said it was very important; 35% said it was somewhat important; only 4% said it was not too important; and 2% said it was not at all important. Some 93% of Canadians said it was very important or somewhat important to help our poorest citizens.
I want to recognize that there were but a few good measures in the budget, crumbs unfortunately, when it comes to the challenges facing our country vis-à-vis social inclusion. There is $110 million for mental health demonstration projects and an exemption to allow seniors who collect the guaranteed income supplement to retain more of their earnings if they are in the workforce.
The NDP has called for a comprehensive national poverty reduction strategy including raising the national child benefit to $5,000 a year; investing $1.2 billion in not for profit child care; building 200,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years; increasing the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour; boosting the working income tax benefit to $2,400 a year; fixing the employment insurance system so the unemployed get the support they need.
While we present this very comprehensive national strategy, the Liberals today are walking around the House with their fingers in the air trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing. They say that poverty reduction is a priority for their party. They even had a photo op in front of the Parliament buildings at the rally to make poverty history last October, but when they are challenged to stand up and oppose this budget, the leader indicates there is nothing in this budget worth defeating the government on.
I challenge him and the official opposition to tell the three million Canadians on low income, the 93% of Canadians who want help for the poorest Canadians, to stop the Conservative ideology. Liberal politics are failing the poor and a poverty reduction strategy.
We in the NDP caucus are going to stand up and vote against not only this budget, but the whole strategy and agenda of the government, particularly where it affects those who are most at risk and marginalized in this country.