Denise Savoie

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising some of the root causes of the problem that are seen in Toronto. I would certainly agree with his assumption that many of these people are invisible, although I have to say that in my community they are becoming increasingly visible on our streets. Many people are standing in front of businesses or walking the streets because there are simply no homes or places for them to live.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion and to the importance of a comprehensive strategy to tackle poverty in Canada.

I would like to address the issue in the context of what is happening in my own riding of Victoria. Everyone who has visited Victoria knows that it is a very beautiful city, but they will not find the stories that I will describe today in tourism magazines.

A producer for VisionTV recently observed a city of poverty. After an absence of many years from Victoria, she was surprised at the change. She saw people “rummaging through dumpsters behind luxury hotels”.

Just this morning, I read an article about a person living in a Victoria apartment where daylight shows through the wall behind the stove, which is crammed in beside the broken heat register.

Victoria city councillor Dean Fortin tells of a man he recently met who was living in a metal shed because it was all he could find for $325, which is the shelter allowance for single people on welfare. Dean's community association is seeing 50 new homeless families per month. This is shameful.

I recently attended a supper organized by dedicated volunteers at the Metropolitan United Church, who served meals to 250 people. Judging from the comments I heard from the volunteers and from my own observation, I would say that at least 80% of those people suffered from some disability or other.

How do we explain this discrepancy, the discrepancy between these images and the story that I have heard Conservatives tell this morning, which is that strong economic growth is good for everyone? Apparently it is not.

For the past two decades, governments have been preoccupied by issues related to the global economy. They have given priority to meeting the demands of globalized markets. The interests of ordinary citizens have been trumped by the interest of ensuring higher corporate profits.

The pretext has been that the creation of corporate wealth would filter down to the rest of us, so governments have eliminated regulations to give corporations freer rein. They have entered free trade agreements that are not job based and that have not protected our environmental standards. In many cases, these agreements have neutered the power of governments to intervene on behalf of their own citizens.

Ursula Franklin wisely counsels us to follow the money to see who benefits from the policy decisions these governments have made. A report came out just in the new year and showed that since 1999 the richest 20% have received over 70% of the wealth growth in Canada. In 2005 the minimum wage increased by 4.2%, while the average CEO's salary increased by 39%.

It is not just about CEOs. The income gap between rich and poor is widening in Canada. Since the mid-1990s, and let us call them the Liberal years, Statistics Canada's most recent “Income in Canada” report shows that between 1995 to 2004 the average after-tax income of the poorest one-fifth of Canadians increased by $400. That is not great for a whole decade when we consider inflation and cost of living. But the average after-tax income of the wealthiest one-fifth of Canadians increased not by $400 but by $20,000, 50 times the amount of the poorest fifth.

In my own city of Victoria, the average income was approximately $55,000 and 60% of the households made less than the average income. One-fourth are living below the poverty cutoff and 12% of households made over $100,000. How can these extraordinarily unjust inequalities exist in a market that supposedly works?

As a social democrat, I believe that the economy ultimately must be judged by how well it serves the needs of all the people. Instead, glowing reports of the economy's performance and massive federal surpluses were funnelled to corporate tax cuts over the years, not personal tax cuts but corporate tax cuts, and those are still going down.

At a time of the biggest construction boom in Canadian history, the federal government through the Liberal years up to now have not had a national housing strategy despite the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' report of the need for such. Instead of such a strategy, because the private sector has no incentive to build affordable housing, what we have are luxury condominiums and many people and families without a decent place to live. How can we say that the market is working for ordinary Canadians?

Recently, we have seen the Canadian government replace funding of social programs with growing expenses in the defence sector. We should be asking what we are sacrificing in our society by spending our funds building up a military arsenal. Where is the political will to reduce stress on families struggling to make ends meet, to provide decent housing, to provide non-repayable grants to students, and to provide a more adequate post-education transfer?

In Victoria, we have seen the impacts of this lack of political will. In Canada, one in six people lives in poverty. In Victoria, that number is one in four. Our latest statistics for 2000 show almost 18,000 people living below the low income cutoff in Victoria. Of those, 57.6% are women and almost 2,000 are children, which is two out of seven.

One might be thinking single parents, but close to 4,000 are two parent families in the Victoria regional area who had incomes below the low income cutoff. In fact, a staggering 24% of Victoria's households are in need of core housing. That means people cannot find somewhere to live that is in reasonably good condition and is big enough for their households without spending more than 30% of their income. That is a shame.

As of 2004, there was a 23% increase in food bank use since 1997 in Victoria. As a community, Victoria has poured energy and resources into fixing these problems. We have set up an affordable housing trust, but we need the federal government and senior levels of government at the table, in partnership. That is not happening now.

The most recent report from the National Council of Welfare suggests that there is a working solution to poverty in Canada, that it is within our reach, and Canada can have the kind of success that other countries are achieving. This is not a partisan issue but it does require political will.

The National Council of Welfare report offers four cornerstones of a workable national strategy in Canada, including a national anti-poverty strategy with targets and timelines. Today's motion is about that strategy. NCW Chairperson John Murphy believes that:

--most Canadians understand how practical this is. We do it in our daily lives—if you are serious about a goal, you develop a plan to reach it, you put it in place and you assess how well it is working...There have been staggering losses in welfare rates across the country and all welfare incomes fall far below the poverty line...Our many programs have become a tattered patchwork.

I will end by saying that today what we are doing is proposing a start because we have a prosperity gap. Precisely, the GDP goes up but wages do not and 13% of all jobs in Canada still pay less than $8 an hour. It is time for less talk and more action, and this motion gets the battle against poverty started in earnest.

Let us go and I hope that my colleagues will support it in the spirit that it has been presented to show some leadership from this level of government.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have two very quick questions.

First, the member mentioned a number of steps that have been taken by his government. However, without an overall sense of where we are going and what our targets and timelines are, it is difficult to see if we will get there. I am wondering if he could tell us what the Conservative government's target is because it seems to agree that poverty must be eradicated. I am wondering what its target and timelines are to eradicate it.

Second, during the employability study I am sure the member remembers the person from the employers' association who mentioned that one of the greatest difficulties for women was the lack of child care in Alberta, for example, in comparison to Quebec which has a child care program. I am wondering if he could talk about how useful the government's program is in alleviating poverty for women who need to work.

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments.

We realize that the number of homeless people is growing in Canada. More people than ever before are turning to food banks. The most disadvantaged and the most vulnerable have been neglected.

Yet, I am puzzled by the Bloc Québécois position on this motion because even Quebec workers are in favour of it. It is a way to help workers now. Given the reality that Quebec is still part of this country, would it not be a way to help workers right now?

With regard to the potential independence or sovereignty of Quebec, we note that, in Europe, the situation of workers has improved. When a country improves its working conditions, workers in neighbouring countries also benefit. Therefore, even in the event of sovereignty, would conditions not be better if this minimum wage were implemented throughout Canada and if workers at least benefited from the $10 minimum wage?

[Questions on the Order Paper, February 14th, 2007]

What funds, grants, loans and loan guarantees has the government issued in the constituency of Victoria since January 23, 2006, including the 2006-2007 Budget and up to today, and, in each case where applicable: (a) the department or agency responsible; (b) the program under which the payment was made; (c) the names of the recipients, if they were groups or organizations; (d) the monetary value of the payment made; and (e) the percentage of program funding covered by the payment received?

[Committees of the House, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to explain it once again to the member. I guess she did not understand the first answer she received from my colleague.

Certainly there is strong support on this side of the House for helping Afghanistan rebuild its civil society. Where there have been differences of opinion is in the combat mission and in ferreting out the Taliban up north without having any kind of exit plan or strategy.

I would also suggest that if the Conservatives really are supportive of our forces, they should consider supporting our veterans first motion, which is proposing to extend the veterans independence program, helping widows or widowers after their--

[Committees of the House, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly agree with the member. Having spent some time up north, I am familiar with some of the issues. I agree that the conditions he describes exacerbate the situation that women find themselves in.

I became particularly aware of that problem when the women's centres were closed in northern British Columbia, so I would certainly agree with the situation that he describes and support his suggestion.

[Committees of the House, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from London—Fanshawe for bringing these recommendations back to the House. This resonates especially strongly for me as I hear of the child care resources and referrals centre being cut and child care costs being passed on by the provincial governments because of the cancellation of the federal-provincial agreements.

Last year when these cuts were announced, we should have been celebrating Canada's ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women. Instead, we mourned the impact of the Conservative government's decisions regarding pay equity, regarding the cuts to the court challenges program, the cuts to child care, the cuts to Status of Women Canada, the cuts to literacy and so many other social issues, this, despite the UN's concern with Canada's compliance in these very areas.

In 2003 the UN made a number of recommendations that we should reassess the gender impact of anti-poverty measures and increase the effort to combat poverty among women; increase the funding for women's crisis centres and shelters; take additional measures to increase the representation of women in political and public life; expand affordable child care facilities--and we know what has happened to that; in fact they are diminishing--and accelerate the effort to eliminate discrimination against aboriginal women.

So much for modernizing and refocusing programs for women. All this talk on the Conservative side of the House about modernizing Status of Women Canada or modernizing women's programs brings to mind the image of the elephant in the chicken coop stomping around and shouting, “Each man for himself”, as he tramples on the chickens. All this talk of gender neutrality, gender neutral programs is a little far-fetched. The reality is the Conservatives have cut the programs.

I would like to speak specifically on the Conservatives' elimination of the mandate for advocacy. What does that mean exactly? The word “equality” was also removed from the funding mandate.

We know from the UN report there are many areas where women are still in a position of inequality. Child care has been mentioned often. We could talk about housing for single parent women who have unequal access. We could talk about political representation. Our party happens to have 41% women in our caucus. The Conservative government has 10.8%, and there is no indication of any program to improve that. There is a lot of work to be done around advocacy.

Last weekend I happened to be with young people at a conference to celebrate International Development Week. The focus was on promoting gender equity. One young woman spoke about a program that she was involved in, spearheading and promoting in Canada to have young women in Malawi become educated and escape the fate of poverty. It made me see the need to stress and highlight the importance that advocacy has had on their lives.

Even though Canada is certainly not Malawi, there are still huge inequities in Canada. Some of them have been pointed out, especially with respect to aboriginal women. In this House as we look at the sea of suits and ties, we can see that we have not by any means reached any level of equity.

We know that the largest number of single families are headed by women. We know that they are disproportionately poorer.

Status of Women Canada played a very key role in breaking down those obstacles and barriers, in working toward a more inclusive society by promoting gender equity and promoting the full participation of women in the economic, social, cultural and political life. This has been made more difficult by the Conservatives' decision to make cuts to Status of Women Canada.

Fortunately the young women who are following in our footsteps will not accept the kind of inequality the Conservatives would like to reserve for women.

I would like to read some statements made by a couple of young women at the VIDEA workshop and conference last week. One woman said, “We wish to achieve gender equity, including equal distribution of power and influence so women's contributions can be manifested worldwide. This can be achieved through education and understanding and politics”. Another woman said, “I dare to dream of a world building happy, healthy and hopeful communities through equal opportunities for all, listening to all voices, empowerment of all, encouragement and recognition of the individual and collective initiatives”.

Those are the words of the next generation. Those women will continue to oppose and speak against the kind of inequalities the Conservatives seem to want to perpetuate through their meanspirited cuts.

I would also like to come back to the word “equality” that was removed from the funding mandate, aboriginal women living in poverty, women generally working in non-standard jobs, the lack of child care spaces that would have allowed many single women struggling to make ends meet to access jobs.

I heard last week that in one case the fee of $900 for one child care space for a toddler was going to increase by at least $50 per month per child. Imagine paying that on a very modest salary. Imagine trying to make ends meet and really meet the needs of one's child. This is simply not realistic.

The Conservative facade of choice has simply been unmasked in British Columbia. Parents and child care providers have been meeting at town halls. They will meet again tomorrow in a rally to protest the lack of opportunity that the Conservative decision has led them to, the situation that women are now facing because of it.

Women will not accept that decision. They will continue to speak out against it, as we should continue to speak out against the cuts to Status of Women Canada. Without the support and the strong actions of organizations that are willing to speak out for the marginalized, for those who are struggling, it would have been very difficult to make the progress that we have made so far. It is because of women who have spoken out publicly that we have made progress. We are now in a situation where the government has taken a step backward. This must stop.

I ask all members to support these recommendations.

[Child Care, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it has been one year since the Conservative government abandoned the child care agreements, and parents in British Columbia are suffering the consequences.

The British Columbia Liberals are downloading the $533 million gap in federal support onto the backs of parents, who face average fee increases of at least $600 per year, per child for shrinking numbers of spaces.

Victoria's valuable child care resource and referral centre, having just celebrated the opening of its facility, now faces closure in the fall.

Tomorrow, citizens across British Columbia will unite in a province-wide rally to protest the cuts and to demand federal-provincial cooperation in a national child care system.

I urge the government to finally open its mind and give parents a real choice for quality public child care. The NDP's early learning and child care act is the perfect blueprint and the government is welcome to borrow it.

[Anti-terrorism Act, February 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am not a policeman and I do not claim to be. However, it seems clear, from reading section 495 of the Criminal Code, that a peace officer may act without warrant, there may be reasonable grounds. I do not think rule of law covers every possible detail. There is some latitude for police to act.

As was stated earlier, our intelligence agencies, with more work on the ground and more additional resources to them, can work effectively with the kind of problem he has suggested.