Critics: Province stalling on anti-poverty strategy

from The Chronicle Herald

By JOHN GILLIS

The provincial government is avoiding doing anything to end poverty in Nova Scotia by deliberating over a strategy due some time next year, anti-poverty activists said Monday.

Last week the ministers of community services and labour and workforce development received the draft report of a poverty reduction working group and promised to take its recommendations under consideration as they develop a plan.

Those recommendations included the creation of more affordable housing, a better minimum wage and social assistance rates and improved child care options, just like many reports that came before it, said Mark Wolf, a student with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service.

"At this stage, we don’t need more confirmation that those are the solutions," he said at Province House Monday. "We need the government to commit money and political will to reducing poverty in this province

The document itself cites 10 earlier studies on aspects of poverty, including seven produced in Nova Scotia since 2001. One was released by a coalition of community groups last October, just before the government struck its working groups.

Longtime housing activist Wayne MacNaughton said no one expects to see an end to poverty overnight but he’s run out of patience with people in power.

He said officials must have spent time figuring out the price tags for poverty reduction programs.

"If they haven’t been, what does that say about the competence of people in government?" Mr. MacNaughton said. "These solutions are not new. They’ve been out there and been proposed and proposed again for years. The government should be taking action on this stuff right away, not making us wait another whole year or more before they even come out with what their plan is."

The province hasn’t defined a clear poverty line for Nova Scotia or a target stating by how much it intends to reduce poverty over time.

"Poverty cannot be reduced in the abstract," Mr. Wolf said. "Indicators that provide an accurate measure of poverty have to be identified so that the government can know what is success and what is failure."

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