Premier targets city poverty

from The Toronto Star

McGuinty says it's time for a plan tailored to city's specific needs

Kerry Gillespie
Robert Benzie
Queen's Park Bureau

It's time for targeted efforts to help Toronto's poor in the wake of a report showing the city is Canada's poverty capital, Premier Dalton McGuinty says.

"On the face of it, to me, that sounds sensible," McGuinty told reporters yesterday after the release of a United Way report showing 30 per cent of families in Toronto are living in poverty, compared to 20 per cent across Ontario.

The provincial government generally tries to avoid giving Toronto special treatment – for fear of angering voters in other cities and towns – but may have little choice with statistics showing the problem here is greater and growing.

"I'm not adverse to targeting solutions where the need is actually to be found," McGuinty said.

The United Way's Losing Ground: The Persistent Growth of Family Poverty in Canada's Largest City, says a two-parent family with two children living on less than $27,500 in Toronto is defined as poor.

The responsibility for getting people out of poverty now falls on the shoulders of Children and Youth Services Minister Deb Matthews, who is also chair of the new cabinet committee on poverty reduction.

"Poverty is not the same everywhere," said Matthews (London North Centre), adding that Toronto's poor have different needs than those in rural or northern Ontario.

"That's why we need to build a comprehensive poverty-reduction strategy that recognizes that."

Her anti-poverty committee will come up with a poverty-reduction plan – including hard targets so people can measure the government's progress – within the next year, she said.

And on Thursday, the government is expected to focus on poverty in the throne speech that sets out its agenda for the next four years.

Matthews said "the question the United Way report asks but doesn't really answer is why. We have to get to the why. What is it that's driving that and, more importantly, what do we need to do to help people move beyond poverty. It's complicated. It's very complicated.

"We're going to have to do a lot of thinking about this," she said, adding that Toronto issues of immigration, mental health and skills training all have to be considered.

The time for thinking is long past, counters New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale High-Park).

"What we need is a cabinet committee that will immediately put the solutions into effect more than study (the problem) yet again," DiNovo said. "The solution is at hand and it just takes a bit of will."

Today, DiNovo will release the NDP's anti-poverty platform, which includes plans to: Immediately raise the minimum wage to $10 an hour and index increases to inflation; limit payday loans to 35 per cent interest; outlaw job application fees; build 7,000 units of affordable housing per year, end the clawback of the national child supplement and regulate landlords to keep apartments in good condition.

DiNovo will also attend a rally today to draw attention to the Parkdale food bank's plea for private donations and government funding to keep it running.

Last week the food bank's 600 patrons were told their local lifeline would be shutting its doors due to a lack of funding.

"We're still in shock," Robert Thorpe, a volunteer at the food bank told the Star's Noor Javed. "People come here for food, but also for support. If the bank closes, it will devastate our community."

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory, a past United Way chair, agrees with the report's call for a Toronto-specific solution.

"Any provincial strategy that we come up with should be one that takes into account the unique circumstances of different communities and that means Toronto has to be looked at by itself and I don't think people should be afraid to say that because the Toronto problem is bigger and deeper and different that what you're going to face in other communities," Tory said.

The one part of the puzzle that hasn't had enough government attention is the economy, he said.

"I believe for many people, not all but many, the real answer lies in making sure they have access to a good paying or better paying job and we're not really addressing that for the skilled immigrants or for others and there are, in fact, a lot of people losing their jobs," he said, referring to recent job losses in the manufacturing sector.

Good jobs were also top of mind for Toronto Mayor David Miller who said the findings were "shocking and sad" but not surprising.

"You have to create employment that pays people properly," Miller said. "We don't have jurisdiction over the minimum wage, but I've always thought as mayor and as a human being that people need to be paid decently."

New Democrat MP Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park) accused the federal government of turning its back on Toronto.

"The Conservative government, like previous Liberal governments, is letting Canada's largest city fall farther and farther behind," Nash said in question period yesterday.

"Can the government tell us why it has billions of dollars for corporate tax cuts and nothing to help poor families in the city of Toronto?"

But Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg said that Statistics Canada numbers show that poverty rates "have actually decreased.