Liberal poverty pledges a tall order without new money

The Trudeau government says it can raise more than two million Canadians out of poverty by 2030, and do so without any new spending or policy commitments.

We suggest Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jean-Yves Duclos reach out to David Copperfield. The services of the world-famous illusionist may be needed to pull off this feat.

Last week the government announced its long-awaited poverty strategy. Given there’s no new spending or programs, it’s debatable whether it’s a legitimate strategy or not, but let’s leave that aside for now.

Does it have value? Absolutely. For one thing, this is the first government in history with the backbone to actually identify a national poverty line.

It will measure the cost of a basket of goods and services that people require to meet basic needs and maintain a modest standard of living across the nation. The basket is customized for 50 different regions and cities and includes things such as healthy food, shelter, clothes and transportation.

This is excellent. No more debate about what is and what is not living in poverty. One wonders why it took this long for a government to commit to this relatively modest measurement. Cynics suggest that’s because once it can be measured, there are fewer excuses for not taking meaningful action to move the needle in the right direction. Making the commitment to measure at least suggests this government is serious about quantifying the problem and solutions.

Other concrete actions would see setting up a council on poverty to advise the minister, and an annual report to Parliament on the government’s progress.

Canada Without Poverty (CWP), a national anti-poverty and human rights organization, welcomes the strategy and hopes it will serve as a platform for development of new, strong anti-poverty measures, policies and programs.

“The release of this strategy is the realization of tireless work on the part of Canada’s strong anti-poverty movement and, though it does not allocate new funding, it provides a solid starting point for our ongoing work,” said Leilani Farha, executive director of CWP.

We share the sentiment, but aren’t quite as optimistic. Nearly five million people in Canada live in poverty, with over four million people living in food insecure households, including more than one million children, and three million households living in core housing need. Census data from 2016 also show that poverty is increasing for seniors after years of decreases.

In this prosperous nation, that’s unacceptable.

This government deserves credit for what it has done so far. To date it has invested $22 billion in measures to reduce poverty, including the child benefit, workers benefit and Guaranteed Income Supplement.

The government has said those initiatives will lift 650,000 Canadians out of poverty by next year.

But that leaves another 840,000 to reach its ambitious 2020 goal.

We applaud the new strategy, but wish there was more tangible benefit.

A good, if modest, start would be for the Trudeau government to step in and fund the Basic Income pilot project cruelly and prematurely killed by Doug Ford without even considering the evidence.

That would be a concrete demonstration of the laudable ambitions reflected in the poverty initiative.

This is excellent. No more debate about what is and what is not living in poverty. One wonders why it took this long for a government to commit to this relatively modest measurement.