Ontarians want MPPs to tackle poverty: Poll

from The Toronto Star

45 per cent say the issue should be `a high priority' for next government

Tamara Cherry
Surya Bhattacharya
Staff Reporters

Nearly half of Ontarians think poverty reduction should be a priority for the next provincial government, a poll has found.

But with less than two weeks until election day, Oct. 10, Canada's largest food bank is wondering why the issue isn't in the spotlight.

"It's been an untouched issue," Gail Nyberg, executive director of Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank, said yesterday. Nyberg was travelling around Toronto asking people to sign cards saying they want politicians to take issue with poverty.

Daily Bread's campaign swing of sorts came after an Ipsos Reid poll, conducted on behalf of the food bank, found that 45 per cent of Ontarians say the reduction of poverty should be a "high priority" for the next government.

Since June, nearly 10,000 people have signed petitions in support of asking politicians "to have a plan, to tell us what the plan is, to tell us what their targets for reducing poverty are going to be, and the timelines," Nyberg said. "That way, the public can hold them accountable."

After signing a card in Toronto yesterday, Anna Zaffina said: "I haven't heard anything about it," from politicians.

Zaffina's Thunder Bay friend, Mary Veltri, said the issue "should be right at the top" of the agenda.

Added Taya Talukdar: "It's a very important issue and one politicians haven't spent enough time on."

"It's hard to come up with solutions to the (poverty) problems," said Gary Kezar. "But it's one of the problems we need to have at the back of our minds."

The online poll for the food bank interviewed a total of 905 adults living in Ontario between Aug. 31 and Sept. 7. The results are considered accurate to within 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

At a separate gathering yesterday, New Democratic Party leaders said the quality of life would improve for thousands of Ontarians and benefit local businesses if the minimum wage were raised immediately.

Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale-High Park), Paul Ferreira (York-South Weston) and Kathleen Mathurin (Scarborough Centre) spoke at a morning gathering on Roncesvalles Ave. and criticized Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty for giving himself a $40,000 raise.

Ferreira's riding is among the poorest in the GTA in terms of average household income.

"In my riding, a lot of them barely make more than the raise McGuinty gave himself," he said.

About 1.2 million people in Ontario make less than $10 an hour, and of the 237,000 Ontarians who make less than $8 an hour, 61 per cent are women.

"At the current minimum wage, a woman living in Toseseronto and raising two kids has to work 75 hours a week to lift her family above the poverty line," said Mathurin.

Others most affected by the low mandatory wage are the young, people of colour and newcomers, said Ferreira.

A central plank of the NDP platform is that if it becomes part of the government, minority or otherwise, it will try to immediately push the minimum wage to $10 an hour.