Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Victoria.
I am glad there has been some acknowledgement of the plight of women in this country. I just wish there were some acknowledgement of the impact of unfair trade agreements, whether it be the Mulroney agreement or the Chrétien agreement in terms of poverty and those who are seeking to escape it.
The federal minimum wage was eliminated in 1996 under the Liberal government. This has proved to be less than a good thing for too many Canadians. The Canadian Labour Congress has found that a single person working full time in Canada needs an hourly rate of at least $10 to reach a poverty line income.
Initially, minimum wage was introduced to ensure that anyone working would not be poor. Sadly, in most provinces the minimum wage is so low that even someone working full time for an entire year falls far short of the poverty line. The low level of minimum wage is a major reason behind the high rates of poverty in Canada and persistently high levels of economic inequality.
According to the latest data from the National Council of Welfare almost five million Canadians, including 1.2 million children, were living in poverty in 2003. Not much has changed since then.
There are two issues related to poverty and income that I would like to highlight today. First, I would like to speak about how raising the minimum wage will specifically help many women across this great country. Second, I want to discuss how important housing is and how raising the minimum wage will help make it more affordable.
Raising the minimum wage will have a significant impact on many women in this country. In 2004, 394,800 women were working for minimum wage. Sixty-four per cent of minimum wage earners in Canada are women. The poverty rate for single women is a staggering 42% and it is worse for single mothers at 48%. The average wage for a full time worker living in poverty is $9,522. Imagine $9,522; that is less than MPs make in a month. One person cannot live on that level of income. That is less than $800 a month and it will barely cover the cost of rent in most cities, never mind food, and we have heard about people struggling to put food on the table. How can anyone raise a family on that? Yet many single mothers are forced to make ends meet with a shoestring budget such as this.
The sad thing is women who are visible minorities have it even worse. The Statistics Canada report “Women in Canada” published in 2005 shows that poverty rates are staggering. For visible minority women under the age of 15, 33.8% live in poverty compared to women in the general population at 15.9%. That is double. Women of colour have double the rate of poverty as women in the general population.
If we look at the age group 25 to 44 years, visible minority women living in poverty is at 29% compared to the general population at 14%. Again, it is double. In total, 28.8% of visible minority women are living in poverty in this country. This is not acceptable. This is a level of abuse that simply needs to end.
As the status of women critic for the NDP and vice-chair of the status of women committee, it is my goal to work with my colleagues to ensure that women's rights are indeed addressed.
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has made 26 recommendations to improve women's rights around the world. In order to comply with the international obligations, governments need to fund research, legislation and programs that promote women's rights. It is crucial that we work toward equality rights for women for the sake of our mothers, our daughters and ourselves. Sadly, despite all the rhetoric, we do not have equality here in Canada.
The YWCA released a report in June last year that outlines the dire need for a solution to abuse. There are too many women in abusive relationships and too many women dying at the hands of their spouses and intimate partners.
Because resources are not available, many women are faced with an appalling choice: living in poverty or staying in an abusive relationship. That is a choice no one in this country should have to make. It is a choice that is causing the deaths of over 100 women every year.
By raising the minimum wage, we can take one step in the right direction. Women in an abusive relationship will not have to face the choice between poverty and abuse. They can leave, work and support themselves and their children and not have to rely on a violent partner for basic needs.
Women across this great nation deserve better. They deserve basic human rights, safety and protection.
No one should be denied this, particularly our grandmothers. Many senior women face the realities of poverty in their retirement. The poverty rate for senior women is almost double the poverty rate for senior men.
One-third of Canadians between the ages of 45 and 59 feel they are not prepared financially for retirement. These concerns are most prevalent among women, those who are widowed, separated or divorced, those who are recent immigrants and tenants, those without private pension coverage and, not so surprisingly, those with low wages.
How do our mothers and grandmothers end up living in poverty? There are a lot of reasons. Women's unpaid work makes their risk of poverty higher and results in less access to private pensions. Older women tend to have lower incomes because they live longer, which leaves them at greater risk of using up their savings as time goes by.
Immigrant women are particularly vulnerable. Many over the age of 65 who have lived in Canada for fewer than 10 years are without any income at all.
Senior women receive smaller pension incomes because of the wage difference between men and women.
Most divorced women do not claim a portion of their former spouse's pension even though they are entitled to it.
Because many retirement plans do not compensate for absences to raise children or look after sick relatives and absences are generally taken by women, these women are disadvantaged.
It is very important to emphasize here that senior women living in poverty did not end up there the day they retired. It was the poverty or near poverty in their youth that prevented them from setting aside money for retirement. That is the real source and the genesis of the problem.
By raising the minimum wage, we can take a huge step forward in preventing poverty in the future.
With the last dozen years of the Liberals cutting away at our social safety net, our working poor are at risk of being left in the poverty that we now see in retirement.
By ensuring women's rights and giving them the tools they need to fully participate in society, such as a living wage, we can take that first step in eradicating poverty in this country.
My second point is about housing. If one does not have a home, it is almost impossible to find a job and receive social assistance, to address the essential survival that housing would provide. I cannot fully pursue this topic, but we do know that there are health risks and real social consequences because of substandard housing.
My point is that there is a cycle here. One needs a home to get a job. One cannot afford a home on a low income. It gets to be a vicious cycle. It is critical that we raise the minimum wage to ensure fewer people fall into the homelessness cycle, from which it is very difficult to climb out.
More than 1.7 million households live on less than $20,000 a year. These people do not own a home and spend more than 30% on rent.
The federal homelessness funding at this point is in limbo. I know there has been a great deal of talk about transitional funding, but there is nothing in writing. Organizations that address the needs of homeless people are in limbo. The advocates who rely on the funding cannot get people off the street if they do not have support.
We need to support this resolution. I hope that all members in the House will look at the importance of minimum wage and decent affordable housing, with a national housing strategy to address homelessness and the fear of homelessness. We need to do it. All members need to support it. It is a crisis. We need to act.
