Beyond the Pandemic: Rising Up for a Canada Free of Poverty Report

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Campaign 2000 has been working for over 30 years to end child poverty in Canada. Their current report expresses concern that, “Never before have these inequities been so apparent and the need to close gaps so dire.”

The 2020 Report Card notes that, prior to the pandemic, “more than 1.3 million children lived in poverty in this country…. despite Canada’s enormous and growing wealth. First Nations, Inuit, Metis, racialized, immigrant children, children with disabilities and children in female led lone parent families are all overrepresented in rates of poverty, while income and wealth continues to concentrate at the top.”

The report’s recommendations to move forward from the pandemic, which has had serious consequences for women and children, include:

Federal Poverty Reduction Strategy

·       Strengthening the Poverty Reduction Strategy with a $6 billion commitment in Budget 2021 with the goal of reducing poverty by 50% by 2025, and recognizing the right to an adequate standard of living.

Income Security

·       Increasing Canada Child Benefit (CCB) and adding a top-up Dignity Dividend for families living below the poverty line.

·       Broadening access to CCB for families living at high rates of poverty

·       Ensuring the prevention of food insecurity is a built-in goal of CCB and is reported on as part of Canada’s Poverty Reduction Strategy

·       Converting the Disability Tax Credit to a refundable tax credit

·       Providing supports for low-income, marginalized non-taxfilers

·       Increasing Canada Social Transfer funding

·       Ensuring pandemic emergency benefits do not lead to loss/clawback of social assistance and income benefits

First Nations, Inuit and Metis

·       Ensuring collaboration with Indigenous stakeholders to develop plans to prevent, reduce and eradicate child and family poverty in Indigenous communities.

·       Paying full compensation to the First Nations children, parents and grandparents who were harmed by inequitable funding for child welfare services on reserve and inequalities across public services.

Child Care

·       Immediately setting up the Federal Child Care Secretariat announced in the 2020 Fall Economic Update.

·       Allocating $2 billion to assist with the safe recovery of licensed childcare post-pandemic.

·       Staged increasing of ELCC funding starting in 2021-22 to ensure Canada can establish high quality, inclusive, affordable ELCC provision for all who want it.

Housing

·       Enhancing the National Housing Co-Investment Fund for new builds and for repairs to exiting housing stock.

·       Accelerating the co-development of the three distinctions-based Indigenous housing strategies and committing to a fourth complementary Indigenous Housing Strategy to effectively address the needs of urban and rural Indigenous people.

Youth

·       Creating universal access to postsecondary education and bolstering youth employment and apprenticeship opportunities.

·       Implementing post-care financial and social services to First Nations, Inuit and Metis youth who were in child welfare and extending Jordan’s Principle past the age of 18.

Public Health

·       Ensuring co-development of Indigenous food security strategies, particularly to address the very high prevalence of food insecurity among families in Nunavut.

·       Moving toward implementation of a universal, comprehensive, public pharmacare system based on the principles and recommendations in A Prescription for Canada: Achieving Pharmacare for All 2019.

Decent Work

·       Implementing a $15/hr minimum wage, with annual indexing.

·       Extending emergency benefits beyond 26 weeks and lowering the qualifying threshold for EI benefits.

·       Amending the Canada Labour Code to ensure workers have access to seven permanent paid sick days with an additional 14 days available during public health emergencies.

·       Strengthening the federal Employment Equity Act and attaching Community Benefits Agreements to all federal investment and recovery programs.

·       Enabling access to labour protections, income supports and health benefits for migrant workers.

·       Improving supports for workers with disabilities.

·       Reforming Employment Insurance to expand access, reduce qualifying hours, boost benefits, and eliminate the 33% benefit rate for extended parental benefits.

Income Inequality

·       Addressing growing income inequality and generating revenue for poverty reduction by eliminating tax loopholes, closing tax havens, taxing extreme wealth, and implementing excess profit tax focused on corporate pandemic windfalls.