Questions for Candidates
Download a copy (PDF)
Whether it’s at the door, at all-candidates’ meetings, in campaign offices, or in your community, the election is a great opportunity to make poverty an issue.
1. What would you do to Make Poverty History?
Background: The Make Poverty History campaign is calling for the Canadian government to be a leader in reducing global poverty, implement a plan to reduce and ultimately eliminate poverty in Canada and reduce the impact of climate change on poor countries. Over a quarter million individual Canadians and over 1000 organizations have endorsed the campaign.
Question: Do you support the Make Poverty History campaign and, if elected, will you work towards achieving its goals?
2. More Aid
Background: In 1969, former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson recommended to the United Nations that rich countries adopt a foreign aid target of 0.7% of Gross National Income.
Canada ranks 14th out of 23 donor countries, coming in at only 0.3% of Gross National Income. That’s not even half way to the 0.7% United Nations target.
Eleven donor countries, including Sweden, Norway, France and Great Britain, have reached their 0.7% commitment or have timelines to do so. Canada, despite its robust economy, is not among them.
The Conservative government announced in its 2010 budget that the aid budget would be frozen at 2010 levels. This is being done at a time when the impacts of climate change and the global economic crisis are reversing many of the gains made over the past 10 years in reducing poverty. A redoubling of efforts is required if the world is to keep its promise to the poor of halving poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals by the 2015 target date.
Question: Do you support un-freezing Canada’s aid budget and increasing our foreign aid to reach the United Nations target of 0.7% of Gross National Income within 10 years?
3. Ending Child and Family Poverty in Canada
Background: In 1989, the House of Commons unanimously resolved to eliminate poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000. Yet today 610,000 Canadian children, or nearly one in ten, are poor. Aboriginal people are disproportionately affected; in First Nations communities one in four children lives in poverty.
Question: How do you propose ending child poverty in Canada? Specifically, will you work towards boosting the Child Tax Benefit to $5,100 per child and ensuring that all low-income children receive the full benefit of this program?
4. National Poverty Reduction Plan
Background: A majority of provinces and territorieshave taken the lead in developing comprehensive poverty reduction strategies. But they can’t eliminate poverty by themselves. We need leadership from the Federal Government to engage all levels of government in the development of a comprehensive poverty reduction plan for Canada.
A National poverty reduction plan needs to include, among other things, a national housing strategy; increases in the Child Tax Benefit, a national early childhood education and care program; reinstatement of a federal minimum wage; improvements to the Employment Insurance program; a national pharmacare program and an aboriginal poverty reduction plan. Such measures will help us realize our goal of making poverty history in Canada.
Question: Do you support adopting a national plan to end poverty in Canada that commits the government to achieving a specific, measurable target over the next 5 years and to investments in an improved Child Tax Benefit, affordable housing, early childhood education and care and good jobs at living wages?
5. Aboriginal Poverty
Background:In November of 2005 a comprehensive agreement was reached on a plan to close the living standards gap between Aboriginal people and the rest of Canada at a historic First Ministers Meeting with First Nations leaders in Kelowna. $5.1 billion was committed over 10 years in new spending for aboriginal housing, education, health services, clean drinking water, and economic development. But the Conservative government, when it was elected, refused to honor this agreement.
Question: Do you support the implementation of the Kelowna Accord or a comparable plan to close the living standards gap between Aboriginal people and the rest of Canada?
6. Climate Change
Background: Canada is among the top emitters of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. Canada is the only country to have reneged on its international obligations to fight climate change and has undermined efforts to reach a new accord. Poor countries, who are least responsible for causing climate change, are already experiencing negative impacts on their ability to grow food, to ensure access to water and have been susceptible to more severe weather events.
Question: Do you support a fair, ambitious and binding international agreement to stop climate change? And do you support providing financing for poor countries to help them cope with the impacts of climate change and to reduce their own emissions?
