NDP has led the way fighting poverty
Deirdre Pike seems to have forgotten the party’s efforts
As the critic for poverty issues for the NDP I was astounded and saddened to read the comments of Deirdre Pike in the Feb. 3 Spectator. While claiming to be disappointed in Andrea Horwath and the NDP, she ignores the many initiatives the NDP has taken over the years to shine the spotlight on poverty issues and does not acknowledge that whatever the Liberals are doing at the moment is due to pressure by the NDP.
For example, she fails to mention Bill 6, an NDP initiative introduced by me as a private member’s bill which called for establishing a Social Assistance Research Commission based on evidence and the lived experience to identify what amount people need monthly to live. This bill passed second reading with all party support and a standing ovation from the premier and the Liberals, but the Liberals have held it up at committee for almost two years. In fact, Ms. Pike even appears in our very recent Fix the Gap video calling for support of this bill.
On more than one occasion I worked in tandem with Ms. Pike and the Poverty Reduction Roundtable. Does she forget that it was the Liberals who, when Madeleine Meilleur was Community and Social Services Minister, were going to cut off the pittance of money that the grandparents receive monthly for the care of their grandkids. Meilleur told the Grandparents Raising their Children’s Children they could go on social assistance or into foster care. It was the NDP who with the grandparents staged a protest at Queen’s Park and fought for two years until the money was reinstated.
The Liberal Basic Income program serves a relatively small number of people across Ontario and was implemented leading into this election year as a temporary test. It leaves many others with nothing. Does Ms. Pike forget introducing me at a church on James Street on poverty issues? There was no Liberal or PC MPP there, only an NDP MPP. Who worked with Ms Pike’s group on the $14 minimum wage and fairness campaign, and who took the Food Bank Challenge? Only the NDP. And it was the NDP who pushed the Liberals for more dental coverage for children of families on Ontario Disability Support Program and Ontario Works.
I was there when Deb Matthews came to Hamilton and promised to reduce poverty by 20 per cent in five years. For all her compassion, it didn’t happen. What did happen is Kathleen Wynne’s defiance of the majority of Ontarians who did not want her to sell Hydro One, and yet she did. The temporary measure band-aid solution implemented by the Liberals to reduce hydro in the short term will see rates skyrocket and debt increase in the long term. So much for poverty reduction!
On Oct. 17, 2016, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said on International Day to Eradicate Poverty: “This is a day to recommit ourselves to the fight for economic justice as a fundamental human right.
As New Democrats, we refuse to accept that poverty and inequality are inevitable — the challenge of eradicating poverty and injustice is at the core of that drives us each and every day.
This is why we fight for an economy that works for everyone.
Everyone in Ontario knows what a wonderful place it can be to live and raise a family. The NDP is committed to making sure that the future of our children and grandchildren is one that includes a province where no one is left behind.”
There can be no doubt that poverty has always been front and centre of the NDP’s initiatives.
For over 10 years I, an NDP MPP, have been fighting for poverty issues. It sounds to me like Ms. Pike is buying what the Liberals are trying to sell in an election year. For someone who has been working on poverty issues for so long, seems to me that Ms. Pike can’t see the forest for the trees.