Front Commun pour la justice sociale

Justice before Charity: the 2nd Summit on Poverty
by Janice Harvey

As I write this column, Canadians are at the ballot box deciding who will lead the country for the next however-many years. Regardless of who wins, I trust all New Brunswick political candidates have already sent in their registration to attend the 2nd Summit on Poverty being held in Moncton this weekend. 

Dozens of people regularly ask us to support them in their bid to represent us in Ottawa or Fredericton. They all profess to care about the poor when competing for our vote. Whether they do or not is more reliably judged by their commitments between elections. It’s probably fair to say that most of them do not have much first hand experience with one of the most intractable problems facing New Brunswick: that nearly 20 percent of all New Brunswickers live in poverty. (At 23 percent, Saint John has the highest rate in the province followed by counties in the north). They may not understand the underlying conditions that create poverty, and the structural changes required by government to fix the problem.

The Common Front for Social Justice is offering them, and everyone, an opportunity to get in touch with the poverty issue in New Brunswick. This Friday, on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the 2nd Poverty Summit will convene some of the best minds to shed some light on what is still an underappreciated and misunderstood crisis. The theme, Justice before Charity, speaks to the structural nature of why people are poor. Deliberate decisions by governments keep families in an cycle of poverty. While charitable measures alleviate some of the worst effects, the point the summit and the Common Front wish to make is that treating people justly, rather than charitably, is the only way to solve the problem.

Justice for the poor means righting some wrongs, like paying fair wages. Keeping the minimum wage below the poverty line has two effects. It keeps people in poverty, or it keeps parents away from their children for far too long each day as they try to work enough hours to make ends meet. Individuals, families and society pay a huge price for this structural injustice. Businesses argue that they cannot afford to pay a minimum wage that keeps people above the poverty line. In accepting this argument, governments implicitly assume that some people should be expected to prop up these businesses by working for poverty-level wages. Businesses that depend on a low minimum wage, then, are being directly subsidized by society’s poorest workers. If society wants those businesses, then we should all collectively subsidize them rather than putting the burden on those least able to pay.

Justice also means making sure children are properly taken care of when parents have to work. Universal, affordable, quality childcare is an absolute requirement for families trapped in the cycle of poverty, most of which are headed by single mothers. The workforce shortage that New Brunswick politicians and businesspeople are so afraid of cannot be solved without providing the social infrastructure that allows parents to enroll in schools and training courses and then join the workforce as productive members. It is sheer hypocrisy that we wring our hands over workforce shortages while refusing to invest in quality, affordable childcare and educational opportunities to support those who are willing and able to contribute but can’t overcome the barriers keeping them from moving forward.

Justice is also scarce in the provision of affordable housing, the victim of ruthless budget-slashing in the 1990s. As then-premier Frank McKenna famously said, ‘people first’ ended when the money ran out. That has been the whole tenor of government since the business-first agenda got its toehold in the Mulroney years. 

Many have bought into the nonsense argument that Canada, one of the world’s richest countries, cannot afford ‘people first.’ In fact, it is a matter of choice. There is a direct link between poverty and poor health, yet we refuse to invest in poverty reduction strategies even while wringing our hands over spiralling health care costs. We would rather cut taxes than invest in social housing or childcare or fair wages, all of which would move people out of poverty and vastly improve the quality of life of a fifth of our population and our communities.

There is no mystery about the causes of poverty nor how it can be dramatically reduced. The mystery is why Canadians tolerate it when its solution is largely a matter of political will. If our erstwhile politicians attend this weekend’s summit in Moncton, that political will may just be fired up. Visit the Common Front for Social Justice website, www.frontnb.ca/, for summit information and for sobering statistics on New Brunswick’s poverty situation.

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Janice Harvey is a freelance columnist. She can be reached by e-mail at waweig@nbnet.nb.ca.
October 15, 2008
©2008, Janice Harvey.