NDP platform endorses Make Poverty History goals

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Submitted by Dennis on April 26, 2011 - 1:02pm
Dennis Howlett is the National Co-ordinator for Make Poverty History Canada.

 

The NDP Platform endorses increasing aid to 0.7% to fight global poverty, and calls for national poverty reduction plan. It also pledges strong action on climate change. These are the three key points in the Make Poverty History Call to Action.

The NDP Platform states very clearly that they will, “get Canada on track to fulfilling our longstanding commitment to increase our Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) budget to 0.7 per cent of GDP with an immediate increase of $500 million and further increases each year.” 

On domestic poverty, the NDP Platform commits to several anti-poverty planks including implementation of the Act to Eliminate Poverty in Canada, which was introduced before the election by NDP Member of Parliament Tony Martin.The specific anti-poverty measures the NDP Platform calls for include:

  • increasing the annual Guaranteed Income Supplement to a sufficient level in the first budget to lift every senior in Canada out of poverty immediately.
  • fund a Canada-wide child care and early learning program, enshrined in law, that would see the creation of 25,000 new child care spaces per year for the next four years;
  •  enacting  legislation  and provide significant new funding to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians;
  • combining existing supports like the Child Tax Benefit to create a non-taxable Child Benefit and increase the support steadily by up to $700 per child over the next four years in order to help reduce child poverty.
  •  tabling legislation that will set goals and targets for poverty reduction in consultation with the provincial, territorial, municipal and Aboriginal governments and with non-governmental organizations.
  • re-introduce the federal minimum wage law to protect low paid workers.

The NDP platform also commits to take action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and states that they will “live up to our international obligations to assist developing countries in mitigating and adapting to climate change.”