Integrated approach needed to end poverty

Opinion

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This article was published 31/05/2024 (468 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba just earned a grade of F for food security, at a time when low-income people are struggling to afford to eat.

The Canadian and Manitoban governments have committed themselves to respecting, protecting, and fulfilling the human rights of people living in poverty. Yet poverty persists, denying Manitobans surviving under the poverty line the fundamental right to a reasonable standard of living.

The problem is getting worse. According to the new Poverty Report Card by Food Banks Canada, the people with the least amount of money are being hurt the most by the affordability crisis.

Food Banks Canada reports more people are struggling with poverty and food insecurity. Government policy is not doing enough to help vulnerable people hit hard by inflation. Manitoba’s overall grade from Food Banks Canada fell from a “C minus” to a “D minus” in 2024.

On food, Manitoba’s grade is even worse. The report found food insecurity in Manitoba went from a dismal rate of “D plus”, to an “F” this year. Upwards of 50,000 people access food banks every month in Manitoba. This number rose by 30 per cent from 2022 to 2023. The largest group of food bank users are on social assistance — 42 per cent — the highest proportion in the country.

Food banks were created as a temporary measure to respond to the economic recession of the early 1980s, but they have become a fixture as provincial governments have failed to acknowledge food as a necessity of life and the human right to food. The charitable model will not solve food insecurity — government-level income redistribution is needed.

Food Banks Canada recommends what many other experts have been calling for: income support to get money into the pockets of those most in need. This works. The Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) brought poverty rates down to 6.4 per cent when it was introduced in 2020.

Now these rates are climbing right back up again with the end of the CERB.

This high and rising rate of poverty costs us all. A recent estimate is $2.5 billion dollars per year of direct costs to the health care and justice systems due to the damage poverty causes people.

This amounts to 3.4 per cent of Manitoba’s GDP, or $1,952 per Manitoban. Health and justice are priority provincial policy areas for the Manitoba government, and action on poverty could save Manitoba millions. For example, research finds a low-income person is 100 per cent more likely to have diabetes than someone in the second income quintile.

They can’t afford healthy enough food to prevent this debilitating disease. Research also shows that social and economic disadvantage is strongly associated with crime. Offenders are more likely to be unemployed or employed in low-paying, unskilled jobs. The increase in shoplifting food from small grocery and corner stores is a sad and dangerous example of the bad choices people make when they are desperate.

Back in 2013, local anti-poverty activists pushed the province to “have a heart and raise the shelter rates,” which resulted in the creation of Rent Assist.

Food Banks Canada notes Manitoba’s Rent Assist Program is an example for the Canadian government to adopt. While still insufficient, Rent Assist is an income transfer that increases each year in line with the cost of rent. However, the amount for food and basic hygiene items is stagnant and not indexed to the cost of living. A single person on EIA gets just $245 per month or $7.90 a day for food and all other basics. Could you survive on that?

Low rates sentence people to survival mode. Human potential is lost when people are held back by not having enough to eat or a decent place to live, which are basic human rights. Change begins by trusting low-income people to make the best decisions about their lives. Government income transfers should not be held back because of antiquated ideas of the poor and a lack of trust in people.

To uphold human rights and respect for low-income people, Make Poverty History Manitoba recommends a Liveable Basic Needs Benefit that sets the monthly amount received for food and other basics to the poverty line, and then indexes it to the cost of living. The new provincial poverty reduction strategy should include this within a comprehensive plan to end poverty: social housing, mental health and addiction supports, accessible free child care for low-income parents, training, education and more.

The Manitoba government’s current boutique approach to poverty falls short during the affordability crisis: school nutrition programs are good but aren’t available for kids on weekends and holidays. Chronic homelessness will not be solved if people don’t have enough money to eat.

Poverty is costly.

It is time that Manitoba provides adequate income transfers, and acts on the human right to a dignified life.

Molly McCracken is the provincial chair of Make Poverty History Manitoba and Manitoba director at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.