Friday, 15 July 2011

(20) NDP Government let Poverty happen why?

http://www.peoplestandup.ca/

N.S. budget makes HST highest in Canada
Nova Scotia's NDP government has kicked off a four-year deficit-busting plan by increasing the harmonized sales tax — making it the highest combined provincial and federal tax rate in the country.

Finance Minister Graham Steele unveiled his $9-billion deficit budget on Tuesday, calling it a "smart, strategic and steady" plan necessary to tackle a painful financial outlook.

The NDP expects to end 2009-10 with a deficit of $488 million. This coming year, it expects to finish $222 million in the red.

"We wish the legacy of unsustainable spending we have inherited didn't exist, but it does," said Steele. "It is our responsibility to deal with it — to clean up the mess — so that Nova Scotia's future is not compromised. Doing nothing is not an option."

The plan pivots around a hike in the HST, to 15 per cent from 13 per cent.

Despite warnings from businesses, the NDP is raising the provincial portion by two percentage points as of July 1. The government expects this will mean $214.8 million in much-needed revenue this year.

This tax hike will apply to everything except children's clothing and footwear, diapers and feminine hygiene products.

That means a tax increase of around $412 for about 128,000 households in the province with incomes between $30,000 and $60,000, provided they don't make big purchases like houses or cars.

The rebate on home energy remains.
Tax breaks for seniors

Personal income tax is going up for anyone who earns more than $150,000 a year, to 21 per cent from 17.5 per cent, but seniors and low-income Nova Scotians are getting a break.

There's a new rebate for people making less than $30,000 — about one-quarter of Nova Scotians. Under the Nova Scotia affordable living tax credit, they'll get $240 a year in quarterly instalments, plus $57 for each child younger than 19 living at home.

In addition, about 15,000 will get a poverty-reduction tax credit of $200, and an estimated 18,000 seniors who receive the guaranteed income supplement will no longer have to pay provincial income tax.
Budget 2010-11 highlights: * Projected deficit of $222 million. * HST rises to 15%, as of July 1. * Rebates for people making less than $30,000. * New tax bracket for earners of $150,000 or more. * 1,000 civil servant jobs gone over four years. * Debt climbs to $14 billion. * No balanced budget until 2013.

The NDP also promises to keep costs under control. Program expenses are down $94 million — or about 1.2 per cent — from the last fiscal year, and the government plans to cut spending by $772 million by 2013.

One of the biggest changes this year will be the elimination of full indexing for pensions, which will affect 31,000 members of Nova Scotia's public sector pension plan.

Steele said this move will save the province about $100 million this year.

"I think this is a major accomplishment," he said.

(19) Canadian political leaders go 'On the Record' about poverty

Make Poverty History asked the leaders of the political parties a series of questions about what they would do about poverty if elected. Four of the five national leaders answered the questions - Conservative leader Stephen Harper refused to answer them.

You can see the videotaped answers and ask Harper to answer the questions at
http://www.makepovertyhistory.ca/

(18) Child poverty in Canada - The whole system is collapsing

Child Poverty in Canada: Why are 10 percent of kids poor?

The Canadian government passed a resolution in 1989 to end child poverty by the year 2000. It's 2010, and 1 in 10 kids in this country still lives in poverty. Why are so many kids still poor in such a rich nation? What effect does poverty have on children and their families? What will it take to bring these families up over the poverty line? Panelists include Peter Clutterbuck, Theresa Schrader, Brigitte Kitchen, and Nance Ackerman.

(17) Child Poverty is a Serious Problem

A short animation about child poverty in Canada and British Columbia from First Call, a child and youth advocacy coalition based in Vancouver, Canada.

Created by Peter Romich of Diametric with music by James Andean.

(16) Manfred Max-Neef on Barefoot Economics and Poverty

We speak with the acclaimed Chilean economist, Manfred Max-Neef. He won the Right Livelihood Award in 1983, two years after the publication of his book Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics. "Economists study and analyze poverty in their nice offices, have all the statistics, make all the models, and are convinced that they know everything that you can know about poverty. But they don’t understand poverty," Max-Neef says.

AMY GOODMAN: Today we begin with acclaimed Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef. He won the Right Livelihood Award in 1983, two years after the publication of his book Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics. I sat down with Manfred Max-Neef in Bonn, Germany, at the 30th anniversary of the Right Livelihood Awards. I began by asking him to explain just what "barefoot economics" is.

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Well, it’s a metaphor, but a metaphor that originated in a concrete experience. I worked for about ten years of my life in areas of extreme poverty in the Sierras, in the jungle, in urban areas in different parts of Latin America. And at the beginning of that period, I was one day in an Indian village in the Sierra in Peru. It was an ugly day. It had been raining all the time. And I was standing in the slum. And across me, another guy also standing in the mud — not in the slum, in the mud. And, well, we looked at each other, and this was a short guy, thin, hungry, jobless, five kids, a wife and a grandmother. And I was the fine economist from Berkeley, teaching in Berkeley, having taught in Berkeley and so on. And we were looking at each other, and then suddenly I realized that I had nothing coherent to say to that man in those circumstances, that my whole language as an economist, you know, was absolutely useless. Should I tell him that he should be happy because theGDP had grown five percent or something? Everything was absurd.

So I discovered that I had no language in that environment and that we had to invent a new language. And that’s the origin of the metaphor of barefoot economics, which concretely means that is the economics that an economist who dares to step into the mud must practice. The point is, you know, that economists study and analyze poverty in their nice offices, have all the statistics, make all the models, and are convinced that they know everything that you can know about poverty. But they don’t understand poverty. And that’s the big problem. And that’s why poverty is still there. And that changed my life as an economist completely. I invented a language that is coherent with those situations and conditions.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is that language? How do you apply economics or have those situations explain economics changing?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: No, the thing is much deeper. I mean, it’s not like a recipe typical of someone in your country, 15 lessons or satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. That’s not the point. The point is much deeper. You know, I would — let me put it this way. We have reached a point in our evolution in which we know a lot. We know a hell of a lot. But we understand very little. Never in human history has there been such an accumulation of knowledge like in the last 100 years. Look how we are. What was that knowledge for? What did we do with it? And the point is that knowledge alone is not enough, that we lack understanding.

And the difference between knowledge and understanding, I can give it as an example. Let us assume that you have studied everything that you can study, from a theological, sociological, anthropological, biological and even biochemical point of view, of a human phenomenon called love. So the result is that you will know everything that you can know about love. But sooner or later, you will realize that you will never understand love unless you fall in love. What does that mean? That you can only attempt to understand that of which you become a part. If we fall in love, as the Latin song says, we are much more than two. When you belong, you understand. When you’re separated, you can accumulate knowledge. And that is — that’s been the function of science. Now, science is divided into parts, but understanding is holistic.

And that happens with poverty. I understood poverty because I was there. I lived with them. I ate with them. I slept with them, you know, etc. And then you begin to learn that in that environment there are different values, different principles from — compared to those from where you are coming, and that you can learn an enormous amount of fantastic things among poverty. What I have learned from the poor is much more than I learned in the universities. But very few people have that experience, you see? They look at it from the outside, instead of living it from the inside.

And you learn extraordinary things. The first thing you learn, that people who want to work in order to overcome poverty and don’t know, is that in poverty there is an enormous creativity. You cannot be an idiot if you want to survive. Every minute, you have to be thinking, what next? What do I know? What trick can I do here? What’s this and that, that, that, that? And so, your creativity is constant. In addition, I mean, that it’s combined, you know, with networks of cooperation, mutual aid, you know, and all sort of extraordinary things which you’ll no longer find in our dominant society, which is individualistic, greedy, egoistical, etc. It’s just the opposite of what you find there. And it’s sometimes so shocking that you may find people much happier in poverty than what you would find, you know, in your own environment, which also means, you know, that poverty is not just a question of money. It’s a much more complex thing.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you travel between the worlds? And when you’re living in the communities where you learned so much, what do those communities, people in those communities ask you, want to know from you?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: It may surprise. I mean, they’re not so interested in us there. We overestimate ourselves. And we believe, you know, that they want to be like us. And even more, when we go there, you know, we believe that they must — they will overcome their problems when they look as much as possible as we look; they must be like us. And that’s nonsense, see? I can give you —- could give you lots of examples. For instance, what was the name of the program in the time of Kennedy when young people went, you know, to all over the -—

AMY GOODMAN: Peace Corps?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: The Peace Corps, yeah, OK. I was many times in that. I even taught Peace Corps groups, you know, in California and so on and on. Then I found them, you know, in the field when I was there. Lovely young people, you know? I mean, very well-intentioned, you know. And the situations like this.

Well, there you have a woman making a poncho. No, but with another machine, instead of making two ponchos in one week, I mean, she could make 20 ponchos.

So, now, "We will bring you a much better thing."

"Oh, OK, well..."

They bring it in, you know, and come back a few months later, you know, to see a huge production of this woman. And how our young find?

"Oh, how do you like the machine?"

"Oh, very nice."

"And how many ponchos are you making?"

"Well, two ponchos a week."

"What do you mean? You could make much more."

"Well, but I don’t need to make more."

"But why do you make just two? Well, what is the machine then for?"

"Well, I make two, but now I have much more time to be with my friends and with my kids."

In our environment, you know, you have to do more and more and more and more. No, there, instead of making more, they have more time to enjoy themselves, to have a nice relationship with friends, with family, etc. You see? Lovely values which we have lost.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think we need to change?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Oh, almost everything. We are simply, dramatically stupid. We act systematically against the evidences we have. We know everything that should not be done. There’s nobody that doesn’t know that. Particularly the big politicians know exactly what should not be done. Yet they do it.

Now, how do you change that? I don’t know. I don’t have the recipe. But that’s the way it is. And that is the definition of stupidity. The stupid act is the act you commit against the evidences you have.

"Don’t go through this alley because it’s very dark and there’s a hole in it, and you may fall in."

"Ah, no, don’t worry."

And you go in, and boom! And you fall in it. That’s stupidity. And that is our situation today in the world.

After what happened since October 2008, I mean, elementally, you would think what? That now they’re going to change. I mean, they see that the model is not working. The model is even poisonous, you know? Dramatically poisonous. And what is the result, and what happened in the last meeting of the European Union? They are more fundamentalist now than before. So, the only thing you know that you can be sure of, that the next crisis is coming, and it will be twice as much as this one. And for that one, there won’t be enough money anymore. So that will be it. And that is the consequence of systematical human stupidity.

Now, why the hell are they so afraid to change, when they know that this is an absolute collision? And instead of braking, I mean, they’re accelerating. I don’t have a recipe against that, but I’m very — I’m very afraid to know what is still coming.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think needs to change? You’re saying it’s obvious, but what do you think needs to happen that they’re avoiding?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Well, to begin with, a completely new concept of economics. This economy is crazy and poisonous. I am an economist, and I have been fighting against the economy that is taught the way it is being taught and being practiced. I have been fighting it for almost 40 years of my life, because it’s an absurd economy that has nothing to do with real life. It’s all fabrications, no? If the model doesn’t work, it’s not because the model is wrong, but because reality plays foul tricks. And reality is there to be domesticated, you know, and become the model. That is the attitude. And that’s systematic, in addition.

What is the economy that is being taught in the universities today everywhere? Neoclassical economics. Neoliberalism is an offspring of neoclassical economics. And neoclassical economics is 19th century. So we are supposed to solve problems of the 21st century that have no precedent with theories of the 19th century. We no longer have a physics of the 19th century, nor a biology, nor an engineering — nor nothing. The only thing in which we stopped in the 19th century is in the concept of economics. I mean, and that is elementarily absurd. And the main journals and everything, you know — I mean, no, no, that’s the way it must be.

AMY GOODMAN: So, to avoid another catastrophe, collision, if you were in charge, what would you say has to happen?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Well, first of all, well, I would dramatically change, you know. For me, the problem begins in the university. The university is, for me, the main responsible for this. The university today has become an accomplice of maintaining a world which we don’t want, because if you don’t teach something different to the economists, well, how the hell are you going to change it when they are professionals, you know, working? It’s impossible. When I started economics in the early '50s, it was totally different. We had some fundamental courses like economic history, history of economic thought. Those courses don't exist in the curricula anymore. You don’t have to know the history. It’s not necessary. It’s not necessary that you know what previous economists ever thought. That’s not necessary. You don’t need it. I mean, that’s even stupid arrogance, you know. No, now we know for sure this is it forever, you know? Then it ceases to be a discipline, it ceases to be a science, and it becomes a religion. And that is what economics, neoliberal economics, is today.

So, first of all, we need cultured economists again, who know the history, where they come from, how the ideas originated, who did what, and so on and so on; second, an economics now that understands itself very clearly as a subsystem of a larger system that is finite, the biosphere, hence economic growth as an impossibility; and third, a system that understands that it cannot function without the seriousness of ecosystems. And economists know nothing about ecosystems. They don’t know nothing about thermodynamics, you know, nothing about biodiversity or anything. I mean, they are totally ignorant in that respect. And I don’t see what harm it would do, you know, to an economist to know that if the beasts would disappear, he would disappear as well, because there wouldn’t be food anymore. But he doesn’t know that, you know, that we depend absolutely from nature. But for these economists we have, nature is a subsystem of the economy. I mean, it’s absolutely crazy.

And then, in addition, you know, bring consumption closer to production. I live in the south of Chile, in the deep south. And that area is a fantastic area, you know, in milk products and what have you. Top. Technologically, like the maximum, you know? I was, a few months ago, in a hotel, and there in the south, for breakfast, and there are these little butter things, you know? I get one, and it’s butter from New Zealand. I mean, if that isn’t crazy, you know? And why? Because economists don’t know how to calculate really costs, you know? To bring butter from 20,000 kilometers to a place where you make the best butter, under the argument that it was cheaper, is a colossal stupidity, because they don’t take into consideration what is the impact of 20,000 kilometers of transport? What is the impact on the environment of that transportation, you know, and all those things? And in addition, I mean, it’s cheaper because it’s subsidized. So it’s clearly a case in which the prices never tell the truth. It’s all tricks, you know? And those tricks do colossal harms. And if you bring consumption closer to production, you will eat better, you will have better food, you know, and everything. You will know where it comes from. You may even know the person who produces it. You humanize this thing, you know? But the way the economists practice today is totally dehumanized.

AMY GOODMAN: You don’t think the earth will force this different way of thinking, that we’re reaching the end?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Oh, well, yes. Yes. I believe, you know, that — well, there are some important scientists that already are saying, I believe. I have not reached that point yet. But some believe, you know, and state that it’s definite: we are finished. We are finished. In a few more decades, I mean, there will be no humanity anymore. I don’t think we have reached that point of it, but I believe that we are pretty close to it. I’ll say that we already crossed one of the three rivers. And if you look at it and what is happening everywhere, I mean, it’s quite frightening how the amount of catastrophes are increasing all over the place, you know, in all manifestations — storms, earthquakes, you know, volcanoes erupting. I mean, the amount of events is growing dramatically. I mean, it’s really frightening. And we continue with the same.

AMY GOODMAN: So what gives you hope? In all of this that indicates, you know, our direct road map to catastrophe, what is the countervailing force?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s only hope, you know, that — but even those hopes are sort of dramatic. I believe that if something is really going to change, there is still something much more dramatic to happen, unfortunately, and then there may come a reaction. But now, you know, now we have to change. Who knows? There’s so much talk about 2012, you know, from the Maya calendar and all that, that 2012, the 21st of December of 2012, you know, colossal things are going to happen. I don’t know what they all may be, but probably something really colossal happens, you know, and we begin a new era, a bit more enlightened, you know, than this one.

AMY GOODMAN: What have you learned that gives you hope in the poor communities that you’ve worked in and lived in?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Solidarity of people. You know, respect for the others. Mutual aid. No greed. I mean, that is a value that is absent in poverty. And you would be inclined to think that there should be more there than elsewhere, you know, that greed should be of people who have nothing. No, quite the contrary. The more you have, the more greedy you become, you know. And all this crisis is the product of greed. Greed is the dominant value today in the world. And as long as that persists, well, we are done.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you’re teaching young economists, the principles you would teach them, what they’d be?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: The principles, you know, of an economics which should be are based in five postulates and one fundamental value principle.

One, the economy is to serve the people and not the people to serve the economy.

Two, development is about people and not about objects.

Three, growth is not the same as development, and development does not necessarily require growth.

Four, no economy is possible in the absence of ecosystem services.

Five, the economy is a subsystem of a larger finite system, the biosphere, hence permanent growth is impossible.

And the fundamental value to sustain a new economy should be that no economic interest, under no circumstance, can be above the reverence of life.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain that further.

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Nothing can be more important than life. And I say life, not human beings, because, for me, the center is the miracle of life in all its manifestations. But if there is an economic interest, I mean, you forget about life, not only of other living beings, but even of human beings. If you go through that list, one after the other, what we have today is exactly the opposite.

AMY GOODMAN: Go back to three: growth and development. Explain that further.

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Growth is a quantitative accumulation. Development is the liberation of creative possibilities. Every living system in nature grows up to a certain point and stops growing. You are not growing anymore, nor he nor me. But we continue developing ourselves. Otherwise we wouldn’t be dialoguing here now. So development has no limits. Growth has limits. And that is a very big thing, you know, that economists and politicians don’t understand. They are obsessed with the fetish of economic growth.

And I am working, several decades. Many studies have been done. I’m the author of a famous hypothesis, the threshold hypothesis, which says that in every society there is a period in which economic growth, conventionally understood or no, brings about an improvement of the quality of life. But only up to a point, the threshold point, beyond which, if there is more growth, quality of life begins to decline. And that is the situation in which we are now.

I mean, your country is the most dramatic example that you can find. I have gone as far as saying — and this is a chapter of a book of mine that is published next month in England, the title of which is Economics Unmasked. There is a chapter called "The United States, an Underdeveloping Nation," which is a new category. We have developed, underdeveloped and developing. Now you have underdeveloping. And your country is an example, in which the one percent of the Americans, you know, are doing better and better and better, and the 99 percent is going down, in all sorts of manifestations. People living in their cars now and sleeping in their cars, you know, parked in front of the house that used to be their house — thousands of people. Millions of people, you know, have lost everything. But the speculators that brought about the whole mess, oh, they are fantastically well off. No problem. No problem.

AMY GOODMAN: So how would you turn that around?

MANFRED MAX-NEEF: Well, I don’t know how to turn it around. I mean, it will turn around itself, you know, in catastrophic manners. I mean, I don’t understand how there isn’t — millions of people can all of a sudden go out in the streets in the United States and begin destroying things, I don’t know. That may perfectly happen. You know, the situation is absolutely dramatic. Absolutely dramatic. And it is supposed to be the most powerful country in the world, you know, and so on. And even in those conditions, they continue with those stupid wars, you know, and spend more, more, more millions and trillions. Thirteen trillion dollars for the speculators; not one cent for the people who lost their homes! I mean, what kind of logic is that?

AMY GOODMAN: Acclaimed Chilean economist and Right Livelihood laureate Manfred Max-Neef. I spoke to him in Bonn, Germany at the 30th anniversary of the Right Livelihood Awards.

(15) Stop Poverty Now

A short video addressing the imminent issues with poverty in Canada and around the world. Part of our Social Justice Course in Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School in Vancouver BC, Canada. Featuring song "For the Children" by Gary Little, sponsor teacher by Peter Katsionis.

(14) How much does poverty cost B.C.?

We've known for a long time that we all pay for poverty. We just didn't know how much.

This is the question I investigate in my latest CCPA report The Cost of Poverty in B.C. If you're not in the mood for reading the report, you can watch a short video that summarizes the findings here.

Study after study has linked poverty to poorer health, lower literacy, more crime, poor school performance for children, and greater stress. In this report, I use the statistical association between poverty and these negative outcomes documented in the research literature, and combine this information with estimates of the costs these outcomes impose on government finances and on society at large.

My findings confirm what we've already suspected: poverty comes with a very high price tag. The cost of poverty to government alone is estimated to be between $2.2 to $2.3 billion per year. The costs to society as whole is $8.1 to $9.2 billion annually. That's a lot of money -- close to 5 per cent of the total value of our economy.

The study focuses on two types of costs in particular. First, I quantify the societal resources devoted to tackling poverty's negative consequences. These include the health and crime-related costs of poverty. Second, I capture the economic value of foregone economic activity and lower productivity that are associated with poverty. B.C. isn't using all the talents and productive potential of its citizens who live in poverty and this acts as a drag on our economy. These costs are what economists call "opportunity costs": they do not represent resources we're actually spending now but rather resources that would become available to society if poverty was significantly reduced or eliminated.

The methodology is based on a landmark Ontario study, The Cost of Poverty in Ontario: An Analysis of the Economic Cost of Poverty in Ontario. The Ontario project was a collaboration of a number of prominent business economists and researchers, who developed a systematic way to account for the monetary cost of poverty both in Ontario and in Canada as a whole. The advisory team included then TD Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Don Drummond, Canadian Policy Research Networks Senior Fellow Judith Maxwell, among others.

The break-down of the cost of poverty in B.C. is shown in the table above.

Note that these estimates do not capture all of the costs of poverty. Notably excluded are the costs that child poverty imposes on future generations by perpetuating the cycle of poverty. I also do not measure many of the less tangible costs, such as the impact of high poverty levels on social cohesion and our feelings of safety in our communities. The direct cost of providing frontline social services to those in poverty are also not counted.

Poverty takes an enormous toll on the people who experience it. On this basis alone, we must do better than having one in nine British Columbians in poverty (the highest poverty rate in Canada).

This article was first posted on The Progressive Economics Forum.

Think we can't afford to end poverty? Actually, we can't afford not to. Help change the conversation about poverty:

The Cost of Poverty in BC

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/costofpovertybc

THE BC POVERTY REDUCTION COALITION

What is Poverty Costing Us?
http://bcpovertyreduction.ca/

If the BC government were a basketball player…

And check out this excellent one-minute video and please and pass it on via email, Facebook, Twitter or your favourite sharing tool. It’ll make you laugh, but there’s a serious message here for anyone who cares about poverty in BC. Video by Sean Devlin.

(13) Still below the poverty line, 20 years later

If Canada is still running a deficit in 2029, it will be a big deal. Right-leaning think tanks will lobby incessantly for balanced budgets and any political party that refuses to wield its red pen will face rejection at the ballot box.

Likewise, if Canada is still in Afghanistan in 2031 -- 20 years after its planned withdrawal -- Canadians will not take it lightly.

But there's one issue we've put up with for years, almost willingly. The end of November marked two decades that have come and gone since Canadian politicians voted unanimously to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000.

Despite their pledge, one in ten Canadian children still lives under the poverty line -- a number roughly equal to the population of Winnipeg. Amidst the unprecedented economic growth of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the poverty rate among children dropped a mere two percent, according to Campaign 2000, a cross-Canada movement dedicated to stamping out child and family poverty.

Using Statistics Canada's low-income cut off to measure poverty, Campaign 2000released a report card highlighting 20 years of broken promises on child poverty. In it, they note that while Canadian politicians were more than happy to cast their vote to end child poverty, they were loathe to implement any kind of concrete plan to make it actually happen.

So instead, they stood by idly as a national disgrace unfolded over the next two decades.

Today, children make up a disproportionate number of food bank users. Just 22 per cent of our population, they were 37 per cent of food bank users in 2008. As nine and ten-year-old children describe it in the Campaign 2000 report: "Poverty is pretending you forgot your lunch or being afraid to tell your mom that you need gym shoes."

Today, more than half of Canada's poorest children live in two-parent families and 40 per cent of poor children have at least one parent who works full-time.

And today, the face of poverty is increasingly racialized. Since the 1990s, recent immigrants have struggled with higher unemployment rates, lower earnings and greater challenges in securing employment.

Aboriginal children in Canada face "extreme poverty," says Shawn Atleo, Assembly of First Nations National Chief. Any plan to address this would "breathe life into the spirit of the apology" for Indian residential schools, he says, and could start by rectifying the $2,000 disparity in the per person expenditure on education for native and non-native school children.

The stubborn persistence of child poverty in Canada -- and the unwillingness of our politicians to take action against it -- makes us an international laggard. In the last decade, inequality between Canadian rich and poor has grown more than in any other OECD country, with the exception of Germany. Among our peers, we experienced the second-highest jump in child poverty between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. And we rank dead last among 25 OECD nations when it comes to early childhood education, subsidized child care and parental leave.

What makes these statistics chilling is that the bulk of them are based on 2007 Statistics Canada data. The effects of the current economic downturn -- one that has left hundreds of thousands of Canadians without jobs -- have yet to be fully understood.

But now, Canadian politicians are trying again. On Nov. 24, 2009, the House of Commons passed a resolution to eliminate child poverty. This time they called on the federal government to develop "an immediate plan to eliminate poverty in Canada for all."

This plan must be informed by the measures laid out by Campaign 2000; increasing the child benefit from $3,400 to $5,400, investing in affordable housing, raising the minimum wage to $11 and instituting a national child care and early learning program. The plan must also find innovative ways of tackling the growing correlation between race and poverty.

"Ten years ago (former British prime minister) Tony Blair made a pledge to cut child poverty by 50 per cent in 10 years and he almost made it," Laurel Rothman of Campaign 2000 recently told the Toronto Star. "It happened because he had a plan and people in government responsible for it."

Canada can do the same. Armed with the experiences of other OECD countries, and suggestions from Campaign 2000, this time we must push our politicians to uphold their promises to Canada's most vulnerable.

After 20 years of inaction, it's the least we can do.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2009/12/still-below-the-poverty-line

(12) Child Poverty in Canada

One in 10 Canadian children is living in poverty, according to a report on the status of child and family poverty.
With Parliament's self-imposed deadline long past, it still has far to go on the promise it made 21 years ago to eradicate child poverty by 2000.
The most recent numbers show there is a 9.1 per cent rate of child poverty in Canada, down slightly from 11.9 per cent in 1989, the year Parliament unanimously resolved to end child poverty

One in seven children or about 121,000 kids in British Columbia were found to be living in poverty in 2008.
The poverty rate among B.C. children below the age of six during that year was 19.6 percent. This means that one in five in this age category didn’t have enough to lead decent lives.
The vast majority of BC’s poor children live in families with some income from paid work, with over one third having at least one adult working full-time, full-year.

Inequity is also growing. The gap between the incomes of the richest 10% and poorest 10% of families with children grew from a ratio of 11 to 1 in 2007 to 14 to 1 in 2008.

Families in the three lowest income groups (deciles) saw an actual decline in their incomes between 1989 and 2008.

http://rabble.ca/babble/news-rest-us/child-poverty-canada

(11) B.C. poverty rates highest in Canada, again

Statistics Canada released a report today on incomes across Canada in 2009. As First Call B.C. points out in their news release, key points for B.C. include:

-- B.C.'s child poverty rate rose to 12 percent in 2009, the highest child poverty rate of any province for the eighth year in a row.

-- The B.C. rate also remained higher than the national child poverty rate of 9.5 per cent in 2009, and has been higher than the national rate for a decade.

-- The poverty rate for people of all ages in B.C. also rose to 12 per cent. It was the highest overall poverty rate of any province for the 11th consecutive year.

Download the full news release (with quotes from Policy Note blogger Adrienne Montani) at

http://www.firstcallbc.org/

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/policynote/2011/06/bc-poverty-rates-highest-canada-again

(10) Why poverty should be an election issue

According to the Harper government, poverty isn't an election issue because poverty doesn't really exist in Canada.

On March 17, 2010, during a forum on poverty, Conservative candidate Chris Alexander (MP Ajax-Pickering), said that Canada had wiped out "third world" levels of poverty.

That's funny since, according to theCanadian Centre for Policy Alternatives , 1.5 million Canadians remain unemployed, nearly one in ten people live in poverty, and according to one recent survey one-third of Canadians can't afford basic expenses.

Alexander -- when pressured -- did later clarify his comments stating he makes a definition between, "World Bank definition of poverty and the Canadian definition of poverty."

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo has called out Alexander toretract the claim that no "third world" poverty exists in Canada, stating his comments reflect an "underlying, deep misunderstanding about the real issues" and that these types of comments blind Canadians to the real economic and social pressures that affect First Nations communities.

For example, as of February 28, 2011, 116 First Nations communities across Canada were under a drinking water advisory. Let me remind you that access to clean drinking water is a human right.

Speaking on the definition of poverty, Atleo said he has travelled to poverty-stricken places around the world and he did not see much difference between a child hauling water with a bucket in Africa and "a child doing the same in a northern First Nations community."

The CCPA and the Assembly of First Nations are not alone in trying to put poverty on the public agenda this election.

Canadians Without Poverty (CWP), thinks, "it is shameful that in a wealthy country such as Canada, poverty is rampant, and has been on the rise. What makes this worse is that there are been repeated calls to adopt a federal poverty strategy by individuals, civil society, and government groups (2009 Senate Report, and 2010HUMA report both call for a plan to eliminate poverty), and yet the Conservative government barely acknowledged the growing need."

Regarding real solutions to poverty and not political semantic debates, the CCPA'sAlternative Federal Budget (AFB), in contrast, "makes poverty reduction one of its central objectives.

"The need for a federal plan is clear: In 2008 (the latest year for which we have statistics), the national poverty rate was 9.4% (up from 9.2% in 2007). That's over three million Canadians, about 600,000 of whom are children (and in First Nations families, one in four children lives in poverty). The 2008 numbers also show the number of elderly people living below the poverty line spiked by 25%, the first major increase in decades."

The AFB proposed the following key targets:

-- Reduce Canada's poverty rate by 25% within five years, and by 75% within a decade.

-- In two years, ensure every person in Canada has an income that reaches at least 75% of the poverty line.

-- In two years, ensure no one has to sleep outside, and end all homelessness within ten years by ensuring all people who are homeless have good quality, appropriate housing.

Now, if only the politicians would listen.

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/krystalline-kraus/2011/05/activist-communiqu%C3%A9-why-poverty-should-be-election-issue

Wednesday, 13 July 2011

(9) THE MONEY MASTERS

THE MONEY MASTERS is a 3 1/2 hour non-fiction, historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned central bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.

The success of the central banking scheme developed into a far-reaching plan described by President Clintons mentor, Georgetown Professor Carroll Quigley, to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank.sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the levels of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.

Several short-lived attempts to impose the central banking scheme on the United States were defeated by the patriotic efforts of Presidents Madison, Jefferson, Jackson, Van Buren and Lincoln. But with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, America was firmly lashed to the same yoke, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the masses a yoke little better than slavery itself. That yoke inevitably grows heavier with ever-compounding interest, and totals over $20 trillion of debt owed by the American people today ($80,000 per American) ultimately to these bankers.

This vast accumulation of wealth concentrates immense power and despotic economic domination in the hands of the few central bankers who are able to govern credit and its allotment, for this reason supplying, so to speak, the life-blood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of the economy so that no one dare breathe against their will.

Segments: The Problem; The Money Changers; Roman Empire; The Goldsmiths of Medieval England; Tally Sticks; The Bank of England; The Rise of the Rothschilds; The American Revolution; The Bank of North America; The Constitutional Convention; First Bank of the U.S.; Napoleons Rise to Power; Death of the First Bank of the U.S. / War of 1812; Waterloo; Second Bank of the U.S.; Andrew Jackson; Abe Lincoln and the Civil War; The Return of the Gold Standard; Free Silver; J.P. Morgan / 1907 Crash; Jekyll Island; Fed Act of 1913; J.P. Morgan / WWI; Roaring 20s / Great Depression; FDR / WWII / Fort Knox; World Central Bank; Conclusions.

(8) Broke. Documentary Trailer

-Best social-political documentary of 2010. Won the prestigious Donald Brittain Award. Set in a pawnshop, the cinema verite masterpiece tells the story of the unlikely friendship between a cynic pawnbroker and his sweet but psychopathic assistant. Broke. is a complex, powerful cinema verite account of the day to day life in a pawnshop. The documentary gives us an intimate glimpse into a world most of us luckily do not have to know. Although often as funny and surprising as a sitcom, it bluntly points to the hardships and desperations of the marginalized. As the pawnbroker states: "You don't see it in your rarified living conditions, you don't see how the poor people live, unless you come here. Tragic some of it."

http://www.idproductions.ca/

http://broke.filmbinder.com/

(7) The war at home: An intimate portrait of Canada's poor

Outspoken social activist Pat Capponi travels from coast to coast to investigate the lives and communities of this country's poor and examine the changes that have beset the disadvantaged in this new era of reduced social programs and "pull up your bootstraps" legislation. From St. John's to Vancouver, Pat examines the unique communities the poor create, how poverty differs from city to city, and the inventive ways some groups have found to improve their conditions and lives. In stark yet moving prose, Pat illuminates how specific government policies, such as the reduction of welfare payments, workfare and government-sponsored casinos are changing the very nature of poverty in this country. Hard-hitting, gritty, but also hopeful, The War At Home examines the neglected margins of society and the human face of a changing Canada.

Sunday, 10 July 2011

(6) Jeffrey Sachs, "The End Of Poverty"

The aphorism "The poor are always with us" dates back to the New Testament, but while the phrase is still sadly apt in the 21st century, few seem to be able to explain why poverty is so widespread. Activist filmmaker Philippe Diaz examines the history and impact of economic inequality in the third world in the documentary The End of Poverty?, and makes the compelling argument that it's not an accident or simple bad luck that has created a growing underclass around the world. Diaz traces the growth of global poverty back to colonization in the 15th century, and features interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians who explain how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policies that allow powerful nations to exploit poorer countries for their assets and keep money in the hands of the wealthy rather than distributing it more equitably to the people who have helped them gain their fortunes. Diaz also explores how wealthy nations (especially the United States) seize a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, and how this imbalance is having a dire impact on the environment as well as the economy. The End of Poverty? was an official selection at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival

Global poverty did not just happen. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land, minerals and forced labor. Today, the problem persists because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies — in other words, wealthy countries taking advantage of poor, developing countries. Renowned actor and activist, Martin Sheen, narrates THE END OF POVERTY?, a feature-length documentary directed by award-winning director, Philippe Diaz, which explains how today's financial crisis is a direct consequence of these unchallenged policies that have lasted centuries. Consider that 20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate. At this rate, to maintain our lifestyle means more and more people will sink below the poverty line. Filmed in the slums of Africa and the barrios of Latin America, THE END OF POVERTY? features expert insights from: Nobel prize winners in Economics, Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; acclaimed authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson; university professors William Easterly and Michael Watts; government ministers such as Bolivia's Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera and the leaders of social movements in Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania. It is produced by Cinema Libre Studio in collaboration with the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Can we really end poverty within our current economic system? Think again.

Friday, 8 July 2011

(5) Mel Hurtig -- Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids

The Tragedy and Disgrace of Poverty in Canada

http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771042140

(4) The Swedish Model: from Poor No More, a Canadian feature documentary

"Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly and for the same reason." -- Author Unknown

Poor No More is a feature documentary about Canadians who are worrying about how to make ends meet.

Our host, film and television star Mary Walsh (as seen in "This Hour Has 22 Minutes"), takes our characters to see how poverty has been reduced in Ireland and Sweden and how it might be reduced in Canada.

They discover a world where people do not have to beg, where housing is affordable and university education is free.

The message is of critical importance and the timing is perfect. As the economic meltdown threatens, people are looking for solutions. Poor No More is the first film to explain the roots of this economic crisis, its impact on working Canadians, and what can be done about it.

On Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poor-No-More-A-Feature-Documentary/25371678643?ref=ts

On Twitter
http://twitter.com/PoorNoMoreFilm

Education is Affordable in Europe: from Poor No More

Income Inequality and Child Poverty in Canada: from Poor No More

Canadians and Welfare--Permanent Poverty?: from Poor No More

Taxes in Sweden: from Poor No More

Dr. Neil Brooks on the influence of the wealthy -- from "Poor No More"

Poor No More

We were always told, "If you work hard, things will get better." But many hard-working Canadians have only seen things get worse. Corporate profits soared, but only the rich got richer. The recession took away more jobs and piled up more debt, leaving more people poor or insecure.

Poor No More offers solutions to Canada's working poor. The film takes three Canadians to a world where people do not have to beg, where housing is affordable and university education is free. They ask themselves: if other countries can do this, why don't we?

Hosted by TV and film star Mary Walsh, Poor No More offers an engaging look at Canadians stuck in low paying jobs with no security and no future. Mary then takes us on a journey to Ireland and Sweden so we can see how these countries have tackled poverty while strengthening their economies. The film offers hope to those who have to work two jobs a day and to those who cannot even find work
Read more >>
http://www.poornomore.ca/

Poverty In Canada