Alan Pickersgill - The View From Here

(December 16) - Child poverty is a relative thing. If the kids’ relatives weren’t so broke, they wouldn’t be poor. This is such a simple concept, you’d think any politician could grasp it. They don’t seem to, because poverty endures.

Last week the Ontario government released another poverty reduction strategy. It hopes to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent in five years. It is an ambitious plan with about as much hope for success as every other they’ve trotted out in the last 20 years.

It’s been 19 years since the federal government passed a unanimous resolution to eliminate child poverty by the end of the last century. The kids living in poverty today were not even born then. They will grow up and have their own children, most of whom will also live in poverty. It’s a tough cycle to break out of. Some people will, many won’t. Some willpower and determination is involved, but there’s a lot more to it than that.

Poverty isn’t a behaviour problem or a character flaw. It is a financial black hole that can trap families for several generations. Family poverty is the real issue that politicians must come to grips with. You can’t do a thing about child poverty unless you empower parents to go beyond the basic ability to provide the bare necessities of life.

It’s about to get worse. Most automobile makers, whether North American, European or Asian, are in a mess. General Motors is shutting down for the month of January. Probably into February as well. When assembly lines stop, parts plants grind to a halt. A lot more people will be put out of work before this is over. Losing your job is one of the first steps on the slippery slope to poverty.

Another awful thing happened last week. The Supreme Court ruled that it was unlawful, but allowable, for the Canadian government to use the massive EI surplus for general revenue purposes. The insurance premiums were paid by workers and employers into what you might call a rainy day fund. It is storming out there now, but the $54-billion umbrella is missing. In case anyone wants to help search for it, it was last seen while Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin were supposed to be guarding it.

At the same time as this is going on, we see the demands that accompany any public assistance to the auto industry. On both sides of the border, government loans are conditional on the companies closing plants, laying off workers, and cutting the wages and benefits of those who remain. So on the one hand we have the federal and provincial governments saying they want to end poverty. On the other hand, they advocate public policy that will increase poverty.

So what should they do? For a start, a provincial poverty reduction strategy should stop clawing back a portion of the national child tax benefit from families receiving Ontario Works payments. They should also reinstate the winter clothing allowance. They should raise the minimum wage and the Ontario Child Benefit now, instead of waiting until 2010- 11. The only way to end poverty is to put more spending power into poor people’s pockets.

The feds should immediately put the pilfered EI surplus back where unemployed workers can get at it. If they give the Big Three auto companies the $7 billion they are asking for, it should not be a loan. It should be a purchase. The condition of sale should be that they start designing and building cars that are not reliant on fossil fuel. Put the internal combustion engine into a museum. Get the workers busy assembling buses, trains and rapid transit that will not destroy the planet. Then, a few years from now the government can sell the companies back to the private sector at a tidy profit.

There don’t seem to be many politicians working in Ottawa who have much more than a passing acquaintance with long-range visions. Most can barely plan their way out of the next political mess. We’ll have to wait another election or two before the people in Ottawa and Toronto wake up to reality.

Meanwhile, when you get your layoff notice, don’t think of it as a pink slip. Think of it as a Christmas greeting from Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty.

# posted by Alan Pickersgill @ 5:30 PM