The lobby group named after a 1989 House of Commons resolution to eliminate child poverty in Canada by 2000 wants all three provincial parties to present a poverty reduction strategy with their election platforms before the Oct. 10 provincial election. They don’t want abstract promises or expressions of sympathy. They want politicians to commit to specific, measurable reductions in the 17.4-per-cent child poverty rate in Ontario, said Jacquie Maund, Campaign 2000 Ontario co-ordinator.

The lobby group points to Tony Blair’s 1999 commitment to eliminate child poverty over 20 years. The British strategy committed the government to a 25-per-cent cut in the child poverty rate by 2005, a 50-per-cent cut by 2010, and complete elimination by 2020.

Asked whether a Liberal government would make that kind of a commitment, Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur told The Catholic Register Ontarians would have to wait to see what’s in the March 22 budget.

“When we invest, we look at outcomes,” said Meilleur.

She said she didn’t think her government could make the same kind of commitment to measurable targets that it made to improve standardized test scores in the education system.

“It’s easier to evaluate the investment in education when you have an exam and the kids have to go write the exam, and then you measure the success. Is this something that we can borrow in evaluating poverty? I don’t think so.”

NDP caucus spokesperson Marion Nader said her party would present a poverty reduction strategy but stopped short of committing to measurable benchmarks or a timetable.

“There’s obviously a growing gap between people at the top and the rest of us. Now is the time to close that gap,” said Nader. “That’s something the NDP has always been committed to and has always been fighting for.”

Nader blamed broken Liberal promises for high child poverty rates.

“The government has failed to keep their election promises to tie annual welfare increases to the rate of inflation, to end the clawback (of the National Child Benefit Supplement), to invest $300 million in provincial funds for early learning and child care, to provide 26,000 affordable housing units,” said Nader.

Conservative Party MPPs were unavailable for comment at The Register’s press time.

Politicians who read polls should be ready to fight an election at least in part on the issue of poverty, said Veritas Communication chief media strategist Bob Reid, a long time Queen’s Park insider.

“It’s inevitable that we will see at least a nod to a child poverty reduction strategy from all the major parties,” Reid said. “It would be much less than politically smart not to have some kind of component within the broader mix of the various parties’ platforms.”

Reid doesn’t believe poverty is about to top health care, the economy or the environment in measures of voter concern.

“It’s not an overarching issue on the general public’s radar. That’s not to diminish the importance of the issue by any stretch, but what are people talking about?” said Reid.

The Campaign 2000 report comes out just as Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Toronto is assembling a voter’s guide for the Ontario election.

“Part of our election kit will be questions to all parties whether they have a plan to eliminate poverty, and specifically child poverty,” said Michael Fullan, Catholic Charities’ executive director.

It’s not up to the 28 member agencies of Catholic Charities to tell a government what the benchmarks and timetable should be for eliminating child poverty, but the agencies would like to see concrete commitments in party platforms, said Fullan.

“I think it’s a good thing to set goals and targets. It gives you something to shoot for, and keeps your eye on the ball,” Fullan said.

Fighting poverty isn’t an exclusively right or left issue, said Maund.

“There’s both an economic and a moral argument to make that investing in children makes sense,” she said.

Some of the most disturbing numbers in the Report Card show certain groups are being excluded from the commonwealth of Ontario’s economy, said Maund. Among off-reserve aboriginal families, 33 per cent of native children are poor. According to the 2001 census, 47 per cent of new immigrant children in Ontario are living below the poverty line.

“There’s a real risk to the social cohesion of society when poverty is disproportionately felt in certain communities,” Maund said. “It’s in everyone’s interest to see that our youngest citizens are properly cared for.”

The persistence of the issue raises the spectre of permanent, inherited poverty, said Fullan.

“Sixteen years later we’re still seeing the same levels, if not higher, of child poverty,” he said. “We’re not talking about the same kids. The kids we were talking about in 1989 have grown up to be poor adults. We’re not addressing this. We’re perpetuating the issue.”

Church has long called society to account over poverty

BY MICHAEL SWAN
The Catholic Register

Questions about wealth and poverty and the relationship between the two have been central to church thinking for 2000 years.

The oldest Catholic catechism known, the second century Didache or “teaching of the twelve” warned new Christians about the dangers of wealth.

“If your labour has brought you earnings, pay a ransom for your sins,” says the ancient manual for catechesis. “Do not hesitate to give and do not give with a bad grace, for you will discover who He is that pays you back a reward with a good grace. Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own.”

The greatest of the church’s early preachers, John Chrysostom (the name translates “John Golden Mouth”), was exiled for constantly preaching against the emperor and his wife, whose fantastic wealth he compared to the poverty of ordinary people.

When rich and poor live in two solitudes, without the rich taking responsibility for the welfare of ordinary people, the church believed society had wandered from God’s plan, said church historian Fr. Myroslav Tataryn, who is acting president of St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo.

“The clear presumption of how the church saw society functioning was that society is ordered and structured by God in order for the Gospel to be preached – to facilitate the preaching of the Gospel,” Tataryn said.

As far as early church leaders were concerned, when rich and poor live in their own worlds and serve their own interests the Gospel is frustrated.

The early church wasn’t against wealth in and of itself, however, it was adamant that wealth must be used for the public good, said Tataryn. It’s a principal that is still relevant in church social teaching.

“We’ve lost the sense of the public good. We live in a society in which the public good is meaningless. What is important is tax breaks, so that I can be wealthier. My self-interest is validated by the political discourse,” he said.

In a democratic society, it’s no longer irrelevant that the wealthy live a life light-years removed from the lives of the poor, said Tataryn.

“We’ve moved from a notion of society where hierarchy and birth right governs to a society where we do recognize equity among human beings, and we recognize at least in our ideological discourse the notion of public good. We now have to see those relationships between rich and poor in a different way,” said Tataryn.

Governments have a role in ensuring that equity among citizens isn’t just a myth, he added.