This is an archive of news stories and research from the National Union of Public and General Employees. Please see our new site - https://nupge.ca - for the most current information.
The Toronto City Summit Alliance calls for national reconstruction of Canada's frayed income security net
Ottawa (17 May 2006) - After a generation of free trade, neo-conservatism, free markets, getting government off our backs and allowing capitalism can flourish so that prosperity can trickle down to everyone, the verdict is in: 3.5 million Canadians now live in poverty.
That's one Canadian out every nine.
The problem is not people who are unwilling to work but an income security system that is now so frayed it fails to provide basic minimum living standards to those ready and anxious to do so.
The Toronto City Summit Alliance, a coalition of civic, community, labour and business leaders, is trying to do something about it.
This week the group released an important report entitled Time for a Fair Deal calling for a radical overhaul of social programs at all levels of government. (Its recommendations are confined to Ontario and the federal government but the prescriptions should be heeded by governments across the country.)
"Should someone in Canada working full-time for a full year be living in poverty?" the report asks.
"We think most Canadians would answer 'no' to that question. In fact, we believe that it is a fundamental tenet of Canadian society that any individual working fulltime should be able to lift themselves and their family out of poverty.
"Yet today, nearly a third of Canada’s low-wage workers do not earn sufficient income to meet their costs of living. They are failing to make ends meet, not because they do not work hard, but because they can't earn enough to cover what it costs to live and work in Canada – especially in our large cities."
The report recommends sweeping reforms at all levels of government to undo the damage inflicted by short-sighted (and in some cases punitive and vindictive) policies imposed by a generation of misguided policy makers.
The federal government should:
- Reform Employment Insurance to address the significant decline in coverage of the unemployed and the related decline in access to employment supports and training.
- Create a new refundable tax benefit consisting of a basic tax credit for all low-income working-age adults and a working income supplement for low-income wage earners.
- Provide and administer a national disability income support program for persons whose disabilities are so substantial that they are unlikely to enter the paid labour force.
(The alliance also supports the recommendations made by others to increase the National Child Benefit to an adequate level.)
The Ontario government should:
- Establish an independent body, with representation from labour and employers, to recommend periodic increases to the minimum wage and monitor the employment and economic effects. It should be put in place before February 2007 when currently planned minimum wage increases will have been completed.
- Implement an integrated child benefit platform for all low-income parents with children that pays benefits outside the social assistance system.
- Provide basic health (prescription drugs and vision care) and dental coverage to low-income workers.
- Strengthen enforcement of employment standards to protect the rights of workers under the law with a focus on employers that are high risk to offend. Update and expand current employment standards to cover new forms of work.
- Raise social assistance asset limits to $5,500 for a single person and $9,000 for a family, along with other improvements in asset treatment.
- Revamp the disability determination process for the Ontario Disability Support Program to streamline decision-making and provide support services to applicants earlier.
- Reinstate earlier provincial policies to set disability benefits at the same levels received by senior citizens who have no other source of income.
- Improve and expand employment supports, training and upgrading for social assistance recipients, as well as for lowi-income workers, with an emphasis on building individual skills and capacities.
- Provide Ontario Works recipients who have multiple barriers to work with special supports to encourage participation in community activities and longer-term capacity building.
- Allow persons receiving Ontario Disability Support Program benefits who can work despite their disability to participate in the labour market without jeopardizing their health and dental coverage.
- Upload social assistance benefits costs for the municipally delivered Ontario Works program, and all social assistance costs (benefits and administration) for the provincially delivered Ontario Disability Support Program, from municipalities to the province.
The report concludes:
"Implementation of these important recommendations will go far to providing a fair deal that ensures that working-age adults have the supports they need to live in dignity and to participate fully in our economic and community life." NUPGE
More information:
Time for a Fair Deal - Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults - pdf
Toronto City Summit Alliance