Group releases alternative budget

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/04/2020 (2212 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the first time in 14 years the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba office released an alternative provincial budget (APB).

But the centre’s early March launch for the Change Starts Here: Manitoba Alternative Provincial Budget 2020 Report may have been swept under the rug as the COVID-19 pandemic tightened its grip on Winnipeg.

Although the CCPA didn’t plan to publish the report during a global health crisis, the significance of the ideas presented in the document is emphasized by gaps that have become evident during the pandemic, according to the authors.

“The challenges presented by COVID-19 — the need for a quality health system, a strong social safety net and protection for vulnerable and working people — shows that the ideas presented in the APB matter more than ever,” Molly McCracken, director of CCPA Manitoba, wrote in a letter.

The report explores 20 areas of society and government — from childcare to food security, and housing to justice — the CCPA believes can be improved, and provides recommendations for how to achieve these outcomes.

“We just think that very often the budgets that are prepared by governments … do not necessarily reflect the needs of the people on the ground,” said Lynne Fernandez, the Errol Black chair in labour issues at CCPA Manitoba.

The centre hadn’t released an alternative provincial budget since 2006 but felt that 2020 was the year to make a comeback.

“We were concerned with the decisions being made by the current government, and we saw Manitoba becoming a more difficult place to live in,” Fernandez said.

The authors designed the 143-page budget following community consultations, under the guidance of five principles: equitable distribution of wealth, labour rights, reconciliation and economic equality between groups, protection of social services and programs, and climate change.

The APB is structured similarly to Manitoba’s 2020-21 budget, which was unveiled mid-March.

“We tried to reflect the same categories that the government uses so that it could be compared to the government document,” Fernandez said.

When asked about the alternative budget’s key points, she noted the Green New Deal and the Liveable Basic Needs Benefit.

The former aims to integrate job creation and economic growth with environmental action.

“They’re not mutually exclusive. We should be thinking about the jobs that people can do that actually make the planet a better place to live and keeps people employed, and that’s sort of the notion behind a Green New Deal,” Fernandez said.

Currently, the province is using its Climate and Green Plan to guide its environmental action efforts. The plan allocates $45 million for climate resiliency projects, and the Green Levy carbon tax of $25 per tonne level.

The APB replaces the Green Levy with a tax of $30 per tonne — equal to the federal carbon tax which is set to rise to $50 per tonne by 2022 — yielding approximately $300 million in revenue.

As well, the alternative budget recommends more than $500 million over five years to incentivize energy retrofits of houses and public buildings. Manitoba’s Climate and Green Plan assigns $25 million for a similar program.

When it comes to social welfare, the alternative budget outlines the “inadequacies” of Employment and Income Assistance. The budget presents the Liveable Basic Needs Benefit which, in addition to Rent Assist and federal financial benefits such as the Canada Child Benefit, “would raise incomes of all households in Manitoba to at least Canada’s official poverty line.”

The benefit would also help individuals transition into employment and avoid punitive clawbacks.

“Obviously this costs a lot of money, and we fundamentally believe that higher income people and corporations need to pay more tax to help pay for these things,” Fernandez said.

“Taxes have been reduced dramatically in Manitoba and Canada over the last 30 years to the point that we don’t have enough funds to pay for the programs that we need. So we think that it’s time to start reversing that.”

Recommendations made in the alternative budget could help with rebuilding the province after the COVID-19 pandemic, Fernandez said.

“We want the document to be used to get people to think about how things can be done different … to be used as a tool. And we want it to educate the public, we want it to inspire activists to go out and advocate for change, and we want it to challenge the status quo. We want to challenge politicians and policymakers to think differently.”

The first APB was released in 1991 by Winnipeg-based group Cho!ces. After they disbanded in 2002, CCPA, which had already been working with Cho!ces on the project, continued the task.

For more information about CCPA Manitoba’s alternative provincial budget, visit policyalternatives.ca/mbapb2020