Libby Davies

[The Budget, March 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in our travels across Canada and looking at emergency shelters, talking to activists and people living in shelters or on the street, I talked to them about homelessness and housing. My colleague talked to unemployed workers who were suffering because of the EI cutbacks. We heard much the same thing. I talked to unemployed construction workers who were living in emergency shelters because their last unemployment insurance cheque had run out. They were now waiting to go on welfare because they had no housing.

Surprisingly, I also talked to employed construction workers who were living in emergency shelters in Toronto. They found the rents were too high for their low wages. Because they were involved in short term work, they knew they would not qualify for EI and would then face with a situation where they could not afford adequate housing because of the unaffordable rents.

The cutbacks to the EI program are directly contributing to the increase in poverty and homelessness in Canada. If anyone does not believe that they should visit a shelter and talk to people to find out what the reality is.

[The Budget, March 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that one can go to any community in Canada and see very critical situations where local communities have devised the solutions that are necessary but which lack, in many cases, the federal resources such as an infrastructure program. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been calling for a nationally shared infrastructure program to do exactly the kinds of things the member describes.

I also visited communities in the far north of Manitoba with my colleague from Churchill. These communities basically had people living in homes with no sewage or water hook-up. It is unbelievable to think that this still exists in Canada today.

I would agree with the hon. member that these kinds of basic necessities are things that should have been addressed not only in this budget, but because of the massive cutbacks that we have seen since 1993 we now have a crisis situation in many of these smaller communities and certainly in the larger cities as well. We still see people who are trying to get by even without the very daily essentials of shelter, water, adequate housing, adequate income, food and so on.

[The Budget, March 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, while the Tory members and the Liberal members are arguing with each other about whose to blame, I can categorically say that they are both to blame for the sorry state of affairs in Canada today. I will be sharing my time in debating the budget with the member for Winnipeg North Centre.

Since the Liberal government came to power 500,000 more Canadian children have slipped below the poverty line. Those figures are shocking.

In the budget we are debating today the finance minister announced $300 million for the national child tax benefit. I know there are some members from the government who will argue that this was a noble gesture, but we have to say it is one that does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental flaws in the benefit systems, namely that it is not indexed to inflation and it does nothing to assist the poorest of the poor, kids and parents who are on welfare.

This last policy is in keeping with a continual bashing of poor people by this government and the government before it. It is really abysmal that the last time a federal budget increased support for families on social assistance was in 1985.

Deindexing of the child tax benefit means that the value of the child benefit declines in real terms by 3% each year. It really allows the government to get away with saying that it is actually increasing dollars to kids in working poor families while knowing full well that those dollars will be recouped. It is part of a culture of deception, a culture that has been cultivated by the finance minister and by this government. This budget fails Canadian children again.

This budget also fails the homeless. The federal budget is a national disgrace on housing and homelessness. Not a single penny has been allocated for new spending and this means no new social housing units this year and no money for homelessness initiatives.

A serious federal response to this disaster requires money to be put on the table. This budget was the ideal time for the federal government to show us it is ready to take on this issue.

In January and February of this year I visited large urban centres and smaller communities across Canada to see for myself the consequences of deliberate public policies that leave Canada with the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized country in the world without a national housing strategy. What I saw, what I heard and what I experienced shocked me and should shock the finance minister, as the issue of growing poverty and homelessness becomes even more visible and more tragic as more people die.

In every community I visited I was struck by three basic issues, the lack of adequate incomes and high rents that drive people into poverty, the impact of the lack of new social housing construction, and the desperate need to improve and maintain the standard of low income market housing starts.

This budget was an opportunity for the finance minister to recall his own words in 1990. I will recall those words for him. Then in official opposition as chair of the Liberal Party's task force on housing, the now finance minister condemned the Tory government for doing nothing while the housing crisis continued to grow out of control: “The government sits there and does nothing. It refuses to apply the urgent measures that are required to rebirth this deteriorating situation. The lack of affordable housing contributes to and accelerates the cycle of poverty which is reprehensible in a society as rich as ours”.

Three years later the finance minister steamrolled his own report and in its place introduced a budget that slashed all federal funding for the creation of new social housing. That single act alone meant that 75,000 new social housing units that had been targeted for construction were never built. This was a decision that has now denied tens of thousands of families the right to decent and affordable housing.

This budget comes at a time when Canada is facing one of its largest national disasters in its history. The big city mayors, the city councils of Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa-Carleton, Nepean, over 400 organizations and 1,200 individuals have recognized the homelessness crisis in Canada as a national disaster. However, in no way does this budget even begin to address this disaster, thereby condemning hundreds of thousands of people to struggle in misery, even risking death, without federal relief.

This budget also comes at a time when the Prime Minister has been invited numerous times by the mayor of Toronto, the Toronto Star , the Toronto disaster relief committee, and the leader of the NDP to tour the disaster in the city of Toronto and to see with his own eyes the destruction it has wrought on Canadians.

Even though it is the Prime Minister's responsibility to review the disaster that is the direct result of his government's policies, he has not apparently had the time nor the commitment to do this.

Maybe if the Prime Minister or the finance minister saw the crisis firsthand like I have done, they would be moved to action. Anything less, and this budget is much less, is a devastating shame.

The budget also fails Canadians on health care. Let us put the so-called health budget in perspective. Liberal cuts to the Canadian health and social transfer since 1995 now amount to $21.5 billion. More than half of that was in health care funding.

This year the budget puts back only $2 billion, not exactly the cause for celebration that we have been led to believe. Members of the government keep repeating $11.5 billion. That is what they want us to remember about this budget.

What they want us to forget is that $11.5 billion is spread out over five years and only puts back half of what has been taken out. It gets worse. We will not get the ongoing benefit of the $11.5 billion because it is not cumulative.

By the end of the next five years, only $2.5 billion will have been permanently added to the transfer. It is like a wage bonus instead of a wage increase. It is a one time fix that really leaves us no further ahead.

In fact, the federal share of health spending is not going to change significantly either. This is a real measure of what has happened in terms of public policy around health care.

When medicare began, the federal-provincial ratio was 50% federal dollars and 50% provincial dollars. When the Liberals came to power, the federal share dropped to 18%. Now it is down to 11%.

In five years after this so-called reinvestment in health care, we will only be back up to 12.5%. We have to ask how much clout will 12.5% buy with provinces that are sliding toward two tier health care.

Overall this budget, despite being characterized as a good news budget, actually widens the gap between the rich and the poor. Information from the National Anti-Poverty Organization has made it clear that if we look at two single people, one earning $15,000 and one earning $100,000 and apply the so-called tax relief measures in this budget, in actual fact the gap between their incomes will actually increase by $658. It is very clear that this budget is actually increasing inequality.

On education as well this budget gets a failing grade. I was at a community college in Vancouver, Langara Community College, just the other day talking to students. They asked me whether there was anything in this budget that would help students with the incredible student debtload they have.

I searched high and low. I went through every page. There is not a single item in this budget that will assist students in Canada who are now reeling and suffering from high tuition fees and student debt.

Even the Canadian Council on Social Development gives this budget an F, a failing grade, when it comes to post-secondary education.

This budget has also failed unemployed workers who are still suffering from the massive cutbacks to the unemployment insurance program while the $20 billion surplus sits there.

We want to say to the government that this budget has failed Canadians who are most in need. I heard a Liberal member earlier talk about the sacrifices that have been made.

There are people in my riding of Vancouver East who are still hurting, who are still unemployed, who are still on the street, who are still suffering from high student debt. There is nothing in this budget that will help those people.

[Justice, February 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, dozens of community groups in Vancouver have come together to form the Vancouver Community Safety Coalition to work on community based crime prevention initiatives. They are seeking support from the community mobilization program. Many people are also very concerned about the rise in home invasions.

What is the justice minister's government doing to support this community initiative and what response has she given to recent letters from B.C.'s attorney general to keep people safe in their homes?

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having this opportunity to speak to second reading of Bill C-63.

Representing the riding of Vancouver East has been a real privilege. One of the real characteristics and part of what makes my community unique is the fact that it has long been in the history of Vancouver a place where new Canadians have sought to come, to make their home and put down roots, for families to raise their their children and to contribute to Vancouver, British Columbia and to Canada.

I have had interaction and discussions with people in my riding and organizations like Success, the Chinese Cultural Centre, the Chinese Benevolent Association, Mosaic, and the Filipino Association.

Whenever the government comes forward with discussion papers, and we have had the immigration and refugee legislative review, but whenever we have citizenship reviews there is always a lot of concern. People in my community understand that very often the issues of citizenship and immigration get cast about and thrown about in terms of the prevailing political winds of the day.

In my community citizenship and immigration have been absolutely integral in the development of the diversity and uniqueness of east Vancouver. I think of my riding and the groups that are represented from Asia, south Asia, the Philippines, Europe, from all over the world and every part of the globe. It makes this community very special. It contributes to the richness of what we have. Vancouver is a great city because it is built on this wealth of diversity and cultural experience which provide a very strong economic base, a very strong cultural base and a very strong multilingual base. That is something people are very proud of.

I have attended a number of citizenship ceremonies and I know how proud people are to become Canadian citizens. I know what it means to them and I know what it means to me. I remember becoming a Canadian citizen. I remember that day as a young person and how it felt to become a citizen of a new country.

Within that context I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this bill because the changes in this bill will have an impact on what we do in the future in terms of citizenship. From discussions I have had in my own community I know people are very concerned that the provisions in this bill will send out the message that Canada is not the welcoming place we read about and hear about from government material, from the Liberal red book and so on. The Liberal Party in government is not even meeting its own immigration and citizenship targets as outlined in the Liberals' red book. They fall far short of that.

Many MPs have probably had a similar experience with the system and what we have to deal with and what people have to go through in terms of the incredible bureaucracy. It is amazing when I deal with individual cases and find out the experiences people have had.

One problem is that the system is very often suspicious of people. The amount of red tape and bureaucracy involved in having a case sorted out and getting something through requires an incredible amount of dedication and resources and often a financial commitment. That contradicts other messages which are sent out by the government that Canada welcomes new immigrants and welcomes people to become citizens. These are issues we have to be very concerned about in the legislation and policy changes that come forward by the government.

There has been a lot of concern about the language requirements. It is easy to fall into the trap that we should get into major testing and that new immigrants should be fluent in one of the official languages. I know from what takes place in my local community and from the contributions made by my constituents that language is not necessarily the issue upon which we can determine whether or not someone is part of a community and is contributing.

I think of the history of Vancouver East and neighbourhoods like Strathcona, Chinatown, or Grandview Woodlands where Italians settled. Many of the people who came to those communities were not proficient in either English or French and they still made an incredible contribution. They created jobs. They created new businesses. They provided the cultural diversity which blossomed within the city.

The focus on the language requirement, and what many perceive to be a tightening of that requirement is causing very deep concern within the community. Government members, particularly those who represent ridings in which there is high cultural diversity, should be aware of this. The signals being sent out concern a lot of people.

As we go through these changes, and there are more to come, we have been told continually by the government that there have been mega consultations. The feedback I get from my riding is that there is very strong concern about where this legislation and other proposals in the works are leading to.

My colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona pointed out that there is also a lot of concern about the head tax that still exists and the fact that it is very discriminatory. There is still a lot of concern about citizenship being based on the ability to pay rather than on making sure our citizenship policy is based on welcoming all kinds of people from different economic and social classes. These are matters of serious concern. What we want to do today is say to the government that this requires a serious review to make sure that the message that goes out is that Canada is a welcoming place, a place which does not place onerous requirements on people and say “you have to fit into this box in terms of language or in terms of money or where you come from, or we'll make sure that depending on where you apply to come in, you may or may not get through because there so much discretion in the system”.

Those of the kinds of things we want to get away from. We want to get back to what I believe is a very strong historical role for Canada, that this country was built on new citizenship and built on the contribution of many different kinds of people. That is what has made this country great. It is something I am very proud of in east Vancouver.

I express those concerns to the government members, to the Liberal Party, and say we have to proceed very cautiously in this direction. People understand that the future of Canada in terms of what kind of people come here, what kind of rules we have hangs in the balance. I have no doubt that members have heard those concerns expressed but we want to make sure that those concerns are acted on and that Canada's policies for citizenship are welcoming, open and fair.

[Division No. 317, February 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, back in December I asked the government how it could in good conscience defend its record on poverty.

Under the Liberal government homelessness is now a national disaster. Poverty is a new growth industry as a result of Liberal policy.

The 1989 unanimous House of Commons resolution to eliminate child poverty is a mere echo as child poverty has now increased by approximately 50%. The attack on the unemployed under the dreadful unemployment insurance program is a national disgrace. It is not just me who is saying this. Even the United Nations has condemned Canada for lack of compliance with the UN covenant on social, economic and cultural rights.

I recently completed a cross-Canada tour on homelessness. I saw for myself the awful circumstances that growing numbers of Canadians live in as a result of the federal government's abandonment of social housing in this country.

I want to ask the government: If the Liberals are genuine about eliminating poverty, why is the government not indexing the child tax benefit? Why is the government not ensuring that the child tax benefit goes to the poorest of the poor, the families on welfare? Why has this government ensured that income assistance is being cut across the country so that more and more people are living below the poverty line? If the government is genuine about eliminating poverty, why are the Liberals not ensuring that they return the UI program to its rightful owners, the unemployed workers of Canada?

If the Liberal government is genuinely concerned about poverty, why have we not seen a commitment to build social housing in this country, something that has not happened since 1993? Why have we not seen a commitment to live up to the UN covenant on social, economic and cultural rights?

Finally, why does the government not heed its own report from the finance minister? As an opposition MP in 1990 he said “The lack of affordable housing contributes to and accelerates the cycle of poverty which is reprehensible in a society as rich as ours”. That was the now finance minister speaking.

We want to know what is the commitment of this government to alleviate poverty in Canada?

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am glad the member from the Reform Party clarified his comments. We only have to look to our own backyards, to our own communities, to his community and to my community, to see that those same situations exist. Maybe they are not as stark, maybe we do not see them as much on the media, but they are visible, they do exist and it means that we have to work here at home.

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his comments. I would agree that the issue of child poverty is really a political term that has been created. I have to say, though, that it has come mostly from his own party which has chosen to characterize poverty as a children's issue. The Liberal Party has campaigned on the child tax benefit.

I would agree that when we look at poor children we have to look at poor families and the fact that most of those families are unemployed.

Families are under attack, but if we look at what has happened over the past few decades, families are under attack because of public policies that have undermined the ability of families to cope in our society. We see rising unemployment, shrinking EI benefits, the lack of housing, the lack of social programs and even welfare rates that have been attacked by many provincial governments because of the shrinking health and social transfers. Those have all been public policy decisions which have attacked the family.

It all depends on how one wants to look at this. If lone parent families live in poverty they will have a lot of difficulties, but that does not necessarily mean that family breakdown has to do with economic and social conditions or the lack of housing and decent paying jobs for women.

Maybe the member and I have different perspectives on how we look at this issue, but I would agree that when we talk about poverty we should talk about the whole family. We should also talk about single people. Some Canadians who are feeling the worst effects of poverty are single people. However, we do not like to talk about single people because it is unpopular to do so.

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise in the House to speak on the motion brought forward by the member for Shefford.

Any time we have an opportunity to speak on issues about poverty and what is happening in the country it is important that we do that. I thank the member for the work she has done and for bringing forward this motion.

I begin by talking about this kind of motion and the kinds of debates we have in the House because it speaks to the issue of needing to look at the record of what has happened. Unfortunately the reality is that for the last two decades poor Canadians have heard again and again many promises about reducing unemployment and eliminating poverty in Canada. But the reality is that none of those promises has been fulfilled, not by the Tory government when it was in power and certainly not by the Liberal government since 1993.

The reality for poor Canadians is that they are sinking deeper and deeper into poverty and more and more people are facing unemployment, facing part time work, low wages, underemployment, shrinking welfare rates and poor bashing. That is the reality of what is going on in Canada.

I will take the issue of the record and the credibility of what it is we do as political parties and talk about what happened yesterday on Parliament Hill because certainly the media today are full of news stories of how Mr. Clark was jostled in the crowd and that he went there with good intentions to speak to people but poor Mr. Clark, look what happened to him.

I was there yesterday at that rally.

I saw what happened and I saw the reaction of people. First, it was not a little nest of two or three people who decided to take on Mr. Clark and give him a hard time. It was 200 or 300 people who were outraged that he came unannounced, uninvited to that rally basically with a media entourage to take away from the rally.

If Mr. Clark had genuinely wanted to find out how people were feeling, if he wanted to understand what people were experiencing he could have gone to the Bronson Centre the night before, Tuesday night, where people had arrived on buses and where people were sitting down in the cafeteria eating their supper.

He could have gone in quietly, talked to people and said “I am the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. I want to find out what your concerns are”. But he chose not to do that.

It was a media show that arrived with Mr. Clark. I talked to many people in that rally. The reaction they had to Mr. Clark was absolutely genuine because they were angry. They understood what the record was.

People do not forget. The rally was not a rent a crowd. It was not people who professionally demonstrated. These were people who are hurting, who are homeless, who are poor. They came to Parliament Hill to meet with the Prime Minister and were turned away.

The reaction that Mr. Clark got was no surprise to me and no surprise to anyone who was there. If he did not understand that, if he did not understand the reaction he got, then he does not understand much about this issue. That is very important for the record. Poor Mr. Clark, he got a rough time.

As far as the motion goes, it is basically supportable even though we will not be voting on it.

The issues we have to address are not just tax credits. What we have to address is a systematic problem of chronic poverty and unemployment in this country.

What we have called for in the New Democratic Party is for the government to set real targets, achievable targets for eliminating poverty and reducing unemployment.

This is something the Liberals are very proud they have done in terms of the deficit. What we have been saying is we have to do this regarding poverty and unemployment.

Again, if members look at the record it becomes very clear. I heard one Liberal member speak about how the Liberals have produced a balanced and moderate approach.

We have to understand that the so-called balanced and moderate approach has been at the expense of more and more people living below the poverty line. It has been at the expense of more and more unemployment in this country.

If the Tories are serious, if the Liberals are serious about dealing with this issue of poverty, if we truly did have a belief in 1989 through the unanimous resolution of the House that we would eliminate child poverty, then we need a systematic approach. Unfortunately that is lacking in this motion.

On the issue of tax credits I believe we should have fair taxation. The reality is the richest one-fifth of Canadians receive close to half of all the income in Canada while the poorest one-fifth of Canadians receive just 3.1%.

When we look at the child tax benefit, there is an injustice because it is not indexed. I would certainly agree with the motion on that basis.

This simply does not go far enough. We need to talk about fair taxation. We need to look at what the Vanier Institute is saying in its recent report, that tax cuts benefit mostly wealthy and upper income Canadians.

If we are talking about tax credits, we have to look at the taxation system and say why is it that wealthy Canadians are paying less in taxes proportionately and poor Canadians are paying more.

I would like to address what I heard when listening to the debate today as the member from the Reform Party was speaking to the question of what a poverty line is. I was really outraged by the comments the Reform member came out with.

He talked about what true poverty is. He said true poverty is basically kids who are starving to death. He said that actually there are not that many children who die of starvation in Canada.

One had to infer from this that we probably do not have much of a problem relative to, say, the third world.

The hon. member should take the time to go to almost any community in Canada to see the poverty that exists. There are kids who go to school hungry. They do not do very well at school because they do not have enough to eat. There are hundreds of thousands of people who live in substandard housing. There are about 100,000 Canadians who are homeless. That is poverty. It is poverty in our country. It has been recognized by the United Nations committee that has done research on our compliance with the UN covenant on social, economic and cultural rights.

I would ask the member from the Reform Party what he is really saying when he says that we do not have poverty in this country. Is the member saying that he wants to see people dying of starvation on the street before the Reform Party will acknowledge that we have huge income inequities in this country and serious problems with the inequitable distribution of wealth and resources?

The Reform Party's answer is simply to cut taxes. I would ask Reform members to look at our neighbours to the south, whom they always like to use as an example. If tax rates are lower in the United States, and I believe the Reform Party thinks they are, why does it have an even higher poverty rate than Canada?

These issues require very serious examination and a serious program if we are to address poverty in Canada.

The member who introduced this motion has done good work in bringing this issue forward. It is important that we work together as much as possible, particularly on bills such as Bill S-11 which seeks to have social condition included in the Canadian Human Rights Act as a ground against which there cannot be discrimination. We also have to have credibility and acknowledge what has been done in the past.

I say to those members, in terms of the policies of their party, if they are truly committed to eliminating poverty, then they should stand in defence of social housing. It was actually under the Tory government that social housing was gutted in this country and the job was finished off by the Liberal government.

Let us get the record straight and let us make a real commitment to reduce poverty and unemployment in Canada.

[Homelessness, February 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today hundreds of homeless people came to Parliament Hill with a very simple mission. They wanted to tell the Prime Minister of the pain and the reality of being homeless in Canada. They were turned down in a meeting.

Will the Prime Minister demonstrate commitment and care today by ensuring that in the upcoming budget there are adequate resources to ensure that homelessness does not exist in Canada? Will he provide the funds in that budget to provide emergency shelters and housing?