More than 1 million Ontarians live in poverty but a key step in changing that was promised yesterday by Premier Dalton McGuinty, anti-poverty groups say.
If the Liberals are re-elected, McGuinty said he'll make poverty reduction a priority and he'll introduce firm reduction targets within a year so the government can be measured on its progress.
McGuinty made the announcement, which expands on the Liberal platform promise to address child poverty, during a campaign stop at the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto.
"The folks here bring relief and hope to so many but even so it is our hope that one day we'll put you out of business," McGuinty said.
"It's really important that as a society we begin to recognize that there is poverty, let's agree on some telling indicators, let's make those transparent, let's measure those on a regular basis and let's put in a focused strategy so that we can show we're making progress – and if we're not making progress, we'll be held to account."
Numerous groups have called on provincial parties to commit to reduce poverty by 25 per cent within the next five years and 50 per cent within the next 10 years but McGuinty didn't utter those numbers yesterday. He said he'll consult experts before setting targets.
Both the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats have said they'll implement measures to reduce poverty but neither has committed to setting specific targets, which anti-poverty groups say are vital.
"In 1989, all the federal politicians made a promise to end child poverty by 2000 – that didn't happen. We know government promises are often not kept," said Jacquie Maund, Ontario head of Campaign 2000, which advocates for the end of child poverty across Canada.
"(But) you can't achieve a target without a plan so it implies a greater level of commitment and follow through."
Maund would have preferred if McGuinty had agreed to the group's target of 25 per cent reduction within five years but said she was still very pleased with the commitment he made to work with experts and have a target in place within a year.
Campaign 2000 measures poverty using Statistics Canada's low-income cut-offs for 2005. For example, a family of four living in a large city like Toronto with an income of less than $32,556 a year after taxes is considered low-income.
By that measure there are 1.3 million Ontarians living in poverty and 345,000 of them are children.
Opposition parties have loudly criticized McGuinty for not following through with his promise from the last election to end the clawback of the national child benefit from families on welfare. (Instead, he introduced a new Ontario child benefit that goes to all low-income families, whether they are working or on welfare, but doesn't fully ramp up until 2011.)
"I say, Mr. McGuinty, you ought to find something you have some credibility on because judged by your record of the last three years you have absolutely no credibility in this issue," NDP Leader Howard Hampton told reporters yesterday.
But Gail Nyberg, executive director of Daily Bread, wants to hear something else from Hampton and Conservative Leader John Tory.
With a promise to introduce poverty-reduction targets and a comprehensive strategy to do it, the Liberals have "thrown down the gauntlet," Nyberg said. "You have nine days ... to put something in your platform that talks about reducing poverty around timelines and measures," she said.
Poverty-reduction targets have been used effectively in other countries to get numbers down quickly, Nyberg added.
In England, then-prime minister "Tony Blair decided he was going to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent in five years and you know what, they almost did it, they got to 23-point-something and the lesson we learned ... is if you're going to have real reduction in poverty you need to have a plan, you need a poverty reduction plan, you need to have some measures and you need to have a timeline," Nyberg said.
Quebec also used reduction targets to cut child poverty from 22.4 per cent in 1997 to 9.6 per cent in 2005.
Whoever comes to power Oct. 10 needs to recognize this, she said.
"(If) they give us real numbers, we'll announce how many food banks we'll close because this really is about putting ourselves out of business," she said.
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