Dennis's blog

Watch the video: What is poverty costing us in BC?

BC has one of the highest rates of poverty in Canada. With a provincial election expected within a year, it's important to discuss what can be done to change this.

A new report released last week is poised to change the conversation about poverty in BC. The Cost of Poverty in BC reveals that the dollar-value cost of poverty in the province is twice the anticipated cost of fixing the problem.

The Social Planning Council of Winnipeg has provided the following policy briefing on the new Manitoba Poverty Reduction Act:

On Friday, June 17th, the Manitoba legislature passed important legislation that will give some authority to the government’s poverty reduction strategy. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Act will create the means to define, monitor and enforce what the government does to deal with poverty and social exclusion. This act was embedded in Bill 51, THE BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION AND TAX STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2011.

The leaders of the richest countries will gather in France this week for their annual G8 Summit. But the French government has set low expectations for any major new agreements or initiatives. It is likely to be mainly an opportunity for informal disucssion of issues of concern to the G8 leaders and there may not even be an official final communique.

Most of the key issues related to global poverty and climate change have been put off until the fall when the G20 meets in November, also hosted by the French Government. The French government has announced that their priorities for the G20 agenda include: combating commodity price volitility, reforming the international monetary system, fighting corruption and financing development through a financial transaction tax.

The Green Party Platform commits to “Make Poverty History” and specifically calls for Canada to meet its commitments and push other nations to meet theirs in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Their “Vision Green” document provides more details including a commitment to:

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.” 

Human Resources and Skills Development Minister, Diane Finley, was urged to respond positively to the recommendations in the recent report on a Federal Poverty Reduction Plan from the House of Commons Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and Status of Persons with Disabilities Committee (HUMA). The etter from Make Poverty History strongly supported the Committee's first recommendation (3.1.1), “that the federal government immediately commit to a federal action plan to reduce poverty in Canada...” 

At a historic Civil G20 Dialogue meeting in Seoul last week, one of the G20 Sherpas (as the top negotiators for the G8 and G20 Summits are called) told me, "Please keep pushing on the financial transaction tax. We need you to do so. It's like with the landmines treaty. Governments said it couldn't be done. You in the NGOs kept pushing. And it happened. This can happen too. It will happen – if you keep pushing us."

Governments in developed countries have spent trillions of dollars in response to the Global Financial and Economic Crisis that began in 2008. This has led to large fiscal deficits, including in Canada.

If deficit reduction is pursued primarily by spending cuts, especially for social programs and international aid, this could further harm the poor in Canada and the poorest and most vulnerable people in the developing world, who have already suffered most from a financial and economic crisis that they did nothing to cause.

The UN MDG Summit ended today by adopting an Outcome Document and Action Plan that re-commits governments around the world to renewed efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

While an impressive number of countries were represented at the meeting in New York at the highest level, and while there were some encouraging new commitments made, civil society groups were not convinced that this summit generated sufficient momentum to achieve the 8 goals in the 5 years that are left.

The Outcome Document and Plan of Action got watered down in many places during the negotiation process from the original draft.