Government changes are only to the edges

Officially, we are a nation without poor people. There are low-income Canadians, and Nova Scotia has more than its share, but governments in this land avoid reference to poor folks, like Baptists avoid reference to the Qur’an.

Canada doesn’t have a poverty line, possibly a reflection of our national obsession with sensitivity, so no one is stigmatized by labels like “poor.” It is just as likely that such a line is not drawn, to avoid the national embarrassment of looking below it and finding one in five of our children.

Governments do recognize poverty, but only to promise its redress, reduction or an attempt to break its cycle. None is so reckless as to suggest it will end, knowing that requires an equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth, and that’s not on.

Nova Scotia’s most approachable cabinet minister, Kelly Regan, has the “poor” portfolio, called Community Services, where she’s determined to do the impossible — make an appreciable difference in the lives of poor Nova Scotians, particularly kids, without messing with the levels of monetary distribution available to government but not her.

Wealth inequality isn’t just a fact; it’s more pronounced today than one, two, three or four dec- ades ago. As in the U.S., an increasing share of our wealth is concentrated in fewer hands.

Regan knows economic inequality is a reality she can’t change even on a modest scale, but she’s determined to tilt the field so it’s a little less steep for poor kids trying to claw their way up and out of poverty.

Two babies are born in Halifax. One is the daughter of a single mother who didn’t get a chance to finish high school. That little family will live in public housing. The other is born to parents with two professional incomes and a manageable mortgage on a twostorey, fully-detached home in the city’s west end.

Presented with that scenario, Regan’s answer is the obvious and honest one: The second kid has every advantage over the first. One’s road is rocky and marked by barriers. The other has a smooth, straight path ahead. This seems like the antithesis of social equality but it persists, with societal and governmental complicity.

The Community Services minister ignores the invitation to confront the big question of equality, social or economic. She’s ready to talk about helping kids born into low-income households. She wants all three levels of government, community organizations, academia and individuals working together to lift those children out of poverty.

Statistics Canada says Nova Scotia — with a quarter of its kids aged six and under in “lowincome” households — has the highest ratio of poor children in the nation. If there is a dubious distinction, that would be it.

In his mandate letter to Regan, Premier Stephen Mcneil instructed her to “work to better the lives of lower-income Nova Scotians” and initiate something called a Blueprint to Reduce Poverty.

That’s a $ 20- million, poorly defined election promise the minister seems disinclined to acknowledge, steering the conversation back to what she is doing and hopes to get done.

There are positive things happening for Nova Scotia’s poorest citizens. The overdue demise of the paternalistic approach to welfare — income assistance (IA) — is near. A monthly accounting with a caseworker has been elim- inated for many and will soon disappear, to be replaced by annual reporting for all 26,000 Nova Scotia families trying to live on IA.

Coincidental with that are slightly higher and standardized rates that won’t be reduced to reflect recipients’ fixed costs. That provides a measure of choice in how folks spend their slim allowance. And, IA recipients will soon be permitted to keep more earned income without the province clawing it back.

The minister hints at plans to include local communities more actively in upcoming anti-poverty initiatives, notes that government is trying to target pre-primary to disadvantaged communities first, and has a deal in the works with Halifax to provide low- or no-cost transit to low-income bus riders.

As the third decade of the 21st century draws near, poverty is still very real, even in the wealthiest nations on earth. Governments here and elsewhere will keep chipping away at the edges in hopes more kids will find a way out in the next generation than in the last. Apparently, it’s the best we can do.