THE ONTARIO LIBERALS AND ‘POVERTY REDUCTION’

OCAP Statement:

Are they Trying or Lying?

The McGuinty Liberals have jumped onto the very overcrowded bandwagon of ‘Poverty Reduction’. They have set up a process of highly selective consultation to ‘define the problem’. Then, they tell us, they will ‘set targets’ to reduce poverty and implement a package of reforms to that effect. Implied in all this is an expectation that we should accept it as a good faith initiative. In fact, we are expected to play
along and wait patiently for the eventual benefits that will, supposedly, flow from it.

The first thing that needs to be said is that an uncritical acceptance of this undertaking would be an act of extraordinary naiveté. This is the second term for the Liberals and everything they have done to date consolidates the Harris Common Sense Revolution while smoothing over social divisions with token gestures.

Perhaps we should just take a glimpse at how the Liberals have dealt with the poor over the last few years. They campaigned the first time they were elected on a platform that included repealing the Safe Streets Act that Harris used to set the cops on the homeless. To-day, that law is still in effect, being used on a scale far greater than when the Tories held power. In Toronto, over the last three years, there has been a nearly 300% increase in the number of Safe Streets tickets being issued. The Liberal Attorney General has sent his people into Court to oppose legal challenges to the Act and his prosecutors are seeking and obtaining jail time for people convicted of panhandling.

While an oversupply of upscale housing crowds out the skyline, decent and truly affordable housing remains a dream for the poor. Toronto Community Housing says it needs $300 million to repair and preserve its buildings. Less than 10% of that has been provided by Queen’s Park and 180,000 public housing tenants in Toronto are living in units that are, literally, falling apart.

Under pressure, modest increases to the minimum wage have occurred but welfare and disability rates have lost ground against inflation under the Liberals. More people than ever are being evicted from their housing for lack of income. Attempts to use the ‘Special Diet’ policy within the welfare system to actually provide people with enough to eat have been fought tooth and nail by the Liberals. Now, the new Ontario
Child Benefit, their first step towards ‘poverty reduction’, will not even be the promised $50 a month for those on assistance and will be reduced even further through the elimination of clothing allowances.

A 40% reduction in real income for people on welfare still casts its shadow over the lives of hundreds of thousands in this Province years after McGuinty first took office on a platform of ‘change’. Meanwhile, Deb Matthews, the Minister who will be handling his belated conversion to ‘poverty reduction’, has promised to leave intact the Harris tax cuts that made the rich richer and the poor poorer. But these were
paid for in large measure by the people and families on assistance who had their income slashed. If that is not be reversed, then we are talking about a process of reform that is denied the resources it would need to be meaningful.

If this poverty reduction initiative, then, is lacking in sincerity, we may ask ourselves what it is about. In fact, it has several aspects to it and is part of a process that goes well beyond Ontario.

There is actually a wing of the corporate structure that has become nervous about overly crude methods when it comes to reducing social provision. The Toronto Star with its present ‘war on poverty’ is perhaps the best example of such timid, post Harris ‘social engineering’. It worries about the impact of outright social
abandonment and the damage done by earlier cutbacks. There’s no nostalgia for the post war social infrastructure, of course, but measures to deal with the worst excesses of poverty are something to look at, provided they don’t go too far.

The above consideration, very limited as it is, is the only element of the ‘poverty reduction’ process that has any genuine quality about it. We may also anticipate that a great deal of what Ms. Matthews wants to develop would be highly regressive in nature. Even with the brutality of the Harris cuts to social assistance, the system can still be redesigned in ways that make it more effective in forcing the poor into
low wage employment. By separating the benefits for children from those of their parents, a classical use of the division between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor is to be seen. Once a mythical adequacy has been developed for children, welfare can become an even better tool for driving adults into the most exploitative jobs. Even at this early stage, Matthews is fixating on children as if she actually believes their poverty can be considered as something apart from that of their parents or that the poverty of single adults is of secondary importance.

The roots of the new religion of ‘poverty reduction’ are actually to be found in the neo liberal assault on poor countries. Structural adjustment programs have removed limited protections for poor people and driven vast sections of the population from rural self sufficiency into huge and expanding mega cities, where they are warehoused in squalor on the fringes of economic life. Abandoned people in their abandoned communities are then told that they can be ‘empowered’ and become ‘self sufficient’ through community economic development. The World Bank and IMF, having inflicted misery on billions of people, now offer them such preposterous ‘solutions’ in place of the resources they need.

It was striking that ideas drawn from the international ‘poverty reduction’ industry were present in Matthews’ comments on how she sees her work. She stressed that reducing peoples’ poverty was only to a limited degree about resources. (This is very convenient since the rich have taken those resources and don’t intend to give them back). No, in fact, a large part of dealing with poverty is about giving people ‘opportunities’. Notions of ‘personal responsibility’ and measures of ‘tough love’ are not very far away and give us another warning that there is an actively regressive element to this process.

Of course, the main models of poverty reduction being pointed to are those that have emerged in other ‘developed countries’. Ireland and the UK are held up a great deal. The achievements in those countries were, actually, much more limited and contradictory than they would like to acknowledge but they also took place in a very different context to that facing Ontario to-day. Especially in the case of Ireland, the twenty six county republic was experiencing an unheard of expansion and industrialization. With recessionary storm clouds gathering here and, with the industrial base massively eroded ahead of time, we would be overly trusting to expect that the McGuinty Government will charge uphill for social justice. If this process and its directions remain in their hands, the prospects for any progress in the fight against poverty are bleak indeed.

As Matthews moves from community to community with her little circus, we should note that we are seeing here a specialty of the Liberal Party at work. That body is, after all, the main political mechanism for demobilizing communities and channeling grievances into blind allies of ‘dialogue’ and consultation. They plan to give the poor very little in terms of concessions and to include in their reform package measures that make things worse. The question, then, has to be will this thing unfold as a safe and controlled exercise with the results mapped out by the Government ahead of time or will the demands and the anger of poor people and their communities break through and dominate the process?

If the Liberals lose control of this, it would not be the first time that an attempt to divert community anger has, instead, provided a focus for it. In the early 1970s, the Senate Committee on Poverty became a lightning rod for community anger. The Social Assistance Review Committee in the Ontario of the late 80s did not at all divert poor people from mobilizing. Matthews is trying to prevent this by holding controlled, invitation only consultations. Already indignant voices are being raised and communities are starting to challenge her attempt to keep the anger of poor people from intruding on her sanitized deliberations.

We have been warned against ‘simplistic’ solutions and told that we can’t tackle the complexities of poverty until we ‘define the problem’. We should have very limited patience with a notion that works so well for those wanting to do as little as possible for as long as they can. If Matthews wants a definition of poverty, the amount of money people get from her Government’s welfare system is a good definition. So is the wage people bring home at the legislated minimum her Government sets. When you have to make a choice between paying the rent and eating decent food, that is poverty and it is created and maintained by the Government Matthews is part of. She and her ‘Cabinet colleagues’ need to hear that from the poor and their allies.

Our demands for living income, decent housing and other vital community needs must force their way to the forefront. The Liberal’s circus of consultation needs a large measure of truth and big dose of reality.

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The Urgent Need for Anti-Poverty Action!

By Gary Kinsman

Submitted to Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Roundtable meeting in Sudbury, Monday, May 26, 2008.

The situation for people living in poverty in Ontario is worse than it has been in a long-time. People living in poverty have still not recovered from the previous Harris/Tory government war on the poor and unfortunately the Liberal government continues to maintain key features of this war on the poor. The most urgent action needed by the provincial government today is the raising of social assistance rates by 40% but even this will only bring people living on social assistance back to the
place they were before the Harris government attacks began. This is especially important in Sudbury where Kimberly Rogers died in the context of the Tory war on the poor and where Sara Anderson was forced to go on a hunger strike to try to get some justice from the Liberal government and social assistance bureaucracy. We also need to remember that poverty in the Sudbury area is highly racialized with a major
impact on indigenous people.

Listen to the voices of people living in poverty

The people who are the experts about living in poverty in this province are people living in poverty in all their diversity. If the provincial government was really interested in addressing the roots of poverty they would be organizing meetings with people living in poverty all across this province in which people living in poverty would set the agenda. Instead with the roundtable discussions the agenda is already set by the government around particular questions and topics and only a few hand-picked representatives of groups of people living in poverty get invited to these private sessions. Unions like CUPE have correctly criticized the meetings for excluding most of those who live in poverty from their roundtable discussions. And even when more people living in poverty manage to get invited because they were picketing outside, as happened in Hamilton, Maggie Hughes from the radio show the Other Side at 93.3 CFMU FM reports that: “Those that knew poverty, were essentially being shut out of the process again, even though they were in the room and at the table, they were unable to have their voice.”


‘Poverty Reduction’ or Getting Rid of Poverty?

The roundtable discussions are focused on ‘poverty reduction.’ We are no longer talking about getting rid of poverty but our sights have been lowered to living with poverty for a long time. For many people living in poverty this is unacceptable and this does not meet their needs. Think about it this way - do we simply want to reduce racism or sexism or do we wish to get rid of them. We wish to get rid of them! ‘Poverty reduction’ strategies never get to the root of the problem since they do not address the social relations and policies that consistently produce poverty in a society marked by major class, gender, racial and other forms of social power and inequality.

Prioritizing Child Poverty Over Other People Living in Poverty

Poverty impacts on the lives of young people in especially devastating ways but the roundtable ‘poverty reduction’ strategy repeats the problems of earlier anti-poverty initiatives that suggested that somehow child poverty could be addressed without addressing the problems of people living in poverty more generally. The reasons why children are in poverty have to do with the relations of poverty that their parents and families have been pushed into. Without addressing how and why adults are poor no major progress is going to be made in addressing child poverty. It is almost as if a new moral division between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor is now being
introduced and children are identified as the only ‘deserving’ poor. But as anti-poverty activist groups point out all people living in poverty are deserving, and this includes single adults.

The Six Questions

In the context of the above problems with the roundtable ‘poverty reduction’ strategy those of us invited have been asked to focus on “six questions that will help frame our discussion” to be found at the end of “Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Plan.” This sets the agenda for and clearly restricts the discussion moving it in certain directions and away from others.

The first question focusses on children and asks what we can do with “existing resources.” While there are ways that existing resources can be allocated more effectively for fighting poverty in ways that do not stigmatize people living in poverty to really address poverty requires the allocation of new resources including the major raise to social assistance rates mentioned earlier, and the creation of
more affordable and quality housing. Another area requiring more resources is support for early child and youth education and to provide easier access to post-secondary education for young people. Too often young people have to give up on their dreams of higher education because they cannot afford it with escalating tuition fees. Another area requiring more resources is creating more access to quality not-for-profit childcare for all who need it. One place to look for these needed resources is in the Harris governments tax cuts that made the rich richer and the poor poorer and that the Liberal government has maintained. These tax cuts were paid for in part by the people and families on assistance who had their incomes slashed.

But there are also steps that can be taken without new financial resources. The minimum wage needs to be raised immediately to at least $10 an hour for people working for wages who are living in poverty and labour legislation needs to be altered to make it easier for low-wage workers to organize and secure higher wages and better working
conditions.

The second question also focusses on children and existing supports. The above points are all relevant here but we also need to get rid of the anti-poor, anti-working class and white-focussed curriculum that permeates the schools (including the formal and informal curriculums) and the racism that limits so many indigenous students. The ways that the school systems reproduce class and racial hierarchies in our society
still need to be addressed.

The third question focusses on what is working in communities to support “children, youth and their families.” While there are major projects, programs and initiatives that are crucial in our community including street outreach, the Corner Clinic and many others that suffer from a lack of funding we also need new projects and resources to assist and house the homeless and to create safe homes for young people. What
is also missing is support for community-based activist groups against poverty that can undertake support and advocacy work for persons living in poverty.

The fourth question talks about the need to integrate the work of various groups including those in the “not-for-profits, the private sector ... and all levels of government.” The question that can be asked is integration for whom? Is this integration to meet the needs of people living in poverty? Again the groups and organizations of people living with poverty are not mentioned as part of the solution. It is the policies of governments and corporations who produce the relations of poverty so it is far better to look for solutions from community-based groups and those who do direct street-level support work.

It is only with the fifth question that the concerns of other people living in poverty aside from children are raised. One immediate goal which has a major impact on the lives of many children living in poverty is to immediately raise social assistance rates by 40%. The restrictions imposed by the Liberal government on OW and ODSP recipients accessing the Special Dietary Supplement which are preventing people from getting enough funds for good nutrition and health need to be removed. Another is raising the minimum wage immediately to $10 an hour. The minimum wage and social assistance rates need to be raised consistently to keep up with the rising cost of living. Another is to make it easier under labour legislation for low-wage workers to unionize and organize for better wages and working conditions. More affordable quality housing needs to be built and made available to homeless and poor people as soon
as possible.

Another is to get rid of the Harris Tory legislation criminalizing people living in poverty which played an important part in the war on the poor by demonizing and stigmatizing people living in poverty like the so-called ‘Safe Streets Act’ that Harris used to set the cops on the homeless. To-day, that law is still in effect, and being used on a scale far greater than when the Tories were in government. The Liberal
Attorney General has sent his people into Court to oppose legal challenges to the Act and his prosecutors are seeking and obtaining jail time for people convicted of panhandling. And here in Sudbury the Greater Sudbury Police are telling people to not give money to panhandlers but instead to report them to the police so that action can
be taken against them under the ‘Safe Streets Act’ (Sudbury Star, May 22, 2008, p. 3).

The final question asks about how to measure progress on ‘poverty reduction’ and not the elimination of poverty. One major way of signalling a real beginning for a campaign to eliminate poverty would be for the Liberal government to immediately repeal all the remaining policies and regulations stemming from the Tory war on the poor. This would include repealing the ‘Safe Streets Act,’ raising social assistance rates by 40%, raising the minimum wage rate, and getting rid of all anti-union legislation inherited from the Tories. This would only be a beginning but a beginning point that would ensure the people living in poverty were at least back to where they were before the Tory war on the poor started.

The Need for an Integrated Anti-Poverty Approach

It is also crucial to recognize that the social organization of poverty is tied up with racism, sexism, class exploitation, and the oppression of people with disabilities. Justice for indigenous people, including in their crucial land claims struggle is an important aspect of fighting against poverty. Recognizing that the work that women (most often) do in the home raising children - often in very difficult situations with a lack of social support - is vital socially necessary work is another. Related to this we need to recognize that for all too many women leaving their male partners because of violence and abuse means getting forced into relations of poverty. This needs to be addressed as part of any anti-poverty strategy. Allowing working class people the ability to more freely organize unions and to secure higher wages is another part of such a strategy. Making a society that does not have systematic barriers for and exclusions of people living with disabilities is another. And this just gets us going if we are serious about ending poverty.


Gary Kinsman was involved in the Sudbury Coalition for Social Justice and the Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty and is a supporter of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. He teaches Sociology at Laurentian University.