Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for splitting his time with me and I also want to thank the member for Parkdale—High Park for putting forward this very good motion and for stimulating the kind of debate that it is important for us to have. I want to reference one part of the motion which says:
That...the government should take immediate action to promote job creation and address the persistently high unemployment rate among Canadian workers--
The motion also says:
--the International Monetary Fund prediction of yet higher unemployment rates in the future unless swift action is taken--
In my 10 minutes, I am going to focus on just two aspects of this. I am going to focus on the persistent high rates of poverty in this country, and national child care and early learning.
We know there are a variety of statistics, but one that we really need to pay attention to is that the official unemployment numbers in Canada are around 1.4 million Canadians and that is closer to two million when we include those who are discouraged or unemployed. This unemployment rate represents lost wages of more than $20 billion and that does not include the lost economic stimulus and tax revenues.
When we talk about these numbers, we hear from the government about all the jobs that are created, yet in an article by the Catalyst in the summer of 2011, it indicated there are approximately four million Canadians living in poverty, many of them despite having a job. It poses the question, why? It says there are not enough full-time well paying jobs. Nearly one million Canadians are working part-time involuntarily. Their jobs are increasingly characterized by instability and insecurity, few or no workplace benefits and little or no access to government benefits.
We know that when people do not have stable employment, that contributes to economic uncertainty in their lives and makes it more difficult for them to contribute to the local economy.
In addition to these persistent rates of involuntary unemployment or unstable unemployment, we also have an increasing income gap in this country. According to the Conference Board of Canada in a news release, it said that:
Canada had the fourth largest increase in income equality among its peers.
It went on to say that:
--high inequality both raises a moral question about fairness and can contribute to social tensions. In Canada, the gap between the rich and poor has widened over two decades, especially compared to our peer countries.
There was an article in the National Post on September 21, entitled “A Problem for Everyone”. The challenge with this income inequality is just not a problem in terms of the poor which is what we often think about this, it is a problem for each and every Canadian.
In the article it indicated that Canada's top 100 CEOs have seen a 13% year-over-year jump in average pay, rising to an average of $6 million. In contrast, the average earnings of employed Canadians has fallen to $38,500. Things are better for full-time year-round workers, but not by much. Median earnings inched up from $44,100 to $45,600 and in inflation-adjusted terms, not over the last year, but since 1976, and this translates into a $1,500 increase after 33 years. We all know the costs of everything have risen much more than $1,500 in the last 33 years.
In the same article, it translates this into what this actually means for Canadians. Since one of our targets is youth, I want to talk about what it is like for youths. In this article the author said, “I see it in my own life. Back in 1979, it took six weeks working the minimum wage full-time to cover my full-time undergraduate tuition in Toronto”.
She went on to say, “Today's typical student in Ontario has to work 16 weeks”, that is 10 weeks more, “at the minimum wage to cover just the cost of tuition, let alone anything else. Yet most are still frozen out of the job market, with 180,000 fewer 15 to 24-year-olds employed across Canada than when the debt crisis broke in 2008”.
This income equality is not just about CEOs getting way more than the rest of us, but it is about the real impact on young people and everyone else who is working in the current economy.
In addition, one of the things we often hear when we are talking about raising people out of poverty is the government referring to it as spending. In a recent report of the National Council of Welfare, it talks about spending on poverty as an investment.
In an article in The Toronto Star on September 28, 2011, it indicated it would take:
--$12.6 billion to give the 3.5 million Canadians living in poverty enough income to live above the poverty line in 2007. And yet Canadians spent at least double that amount--
That would be $24 billion.
--treating the consequences of poverty that year.
Clearly, the spending pattern does not make good economic or social sense.
The article goes on to say that to lift people out of poverty what we need is a long-term plan and a long-term investment to:
--lift people out of poverty and prevent others from falling into its grip.
It goes on to say that this:
--would benefit all Canadians in reduced costs for health care, education, criminal justice, social service and other areas directly affected.
It would seem that a good start for the government would actually be to support Bill C-233, my bill on income inequality, which lays out a strategy for national poverty reduction in this country. The NDP does have good concrete ideas on how to tackle some of these problems.
I want to switch now, in my brief few minutes left, to talk about national childcare and early learning. In the same report from the National Council on Welfare, it wanted to give a good concrete example of why investing in national childcare makes good economic sense. It is not just about looking after children and giving parents options in terms of being able to go back to work. It wanted to talk about the economy of it all. It says that provincially, Quebec's universal $7-a-day childcare program is credited for cutting the poverty rate of single-parent families by 15 percentage points between 1997 and 2007.
We in Canada are fortunate enough to actually have a provincial childcare program in place that gives us some real meaningful data on what the impact is on the provincial GDP. We actually have a study that has been done on this and it was called “The Economic Consequences of Quebec's Educational Childcare Policy”. I want to just read some of these numbers.
There are three macroeconomic impacts. Quebec's ECEC program has had major macroeconomic consequences on women's labour force participation, on gross provincial income and on federal and provincial finances.
First let us talk about the impact on taxes and transfers. Increased family incomes generate more tax revenues and lower government transfers and credits. All types of tax revenues increase not only income and payroll taxes but all levels of government benefit, not only at the provincial level.
For the longer term, the effects will be larger still. These are some short-term effects that the article predicted. On net, for every dollar spent on ECEC, the provincial government harvests $1.05 and the federal government gets 44¢ for nothing. This is because of the increased income. People are paying provincial and federal income tax, so the government, not investing in a program in Quebec, gets 44¢ for doing nothing. This persistent effect will probably grow over time as pre-ECEC mothers, aged 50-65, are replaced by post-ECEC mothers. This implies that the long-term effects on the growth of provincial income and government net revenues will also be larger.
In summary, by 2008, Quebec's ECEC program had increased women's employment by 70,000, that is plus-3.8%; had increased provincial GDP by $5.2 billion; and was entirely self-financing within the provincial budget.
Clearly, here we have a good solid economic case for investing in a national childcare program and an early learning strategy. Other data indicate that for every dollar we spend in the ages of zero to six we actually save $7 in the long run, whether it is on the justice system, on education, on income assistance, or on health care.
I would call on the government to support the motion put forward by the member for Parkdale—High Park and invest in a poverty reduction strategy, and national childcare and early learning.