Gov'ts getting 'meaner' with welfare: Report
Prince George Citizen
August 25, 2006

EXCERPT

OTTAWA (CP) -- Fewer needy Canadians are qualifying for welfare and those who do qualify are getting less money, especially in booming Alberta, says a new report.

Welfare payment levels peaked nationally in 1994, and those seeking social assistance in the dozen years since have been forced to make do with dwindling monthly allowances, said the study, released Thursday by the National Council of Welfare.

In some provinces, the plight of the poor is the worst it has been in 20 years, such as Alberta and New Brunswick, cited as among the stingiest jurisdictions.

In prosperous Alberta, a single adult's welfare cheque dipped to $5,050 last year from the present-day equivalent of $9,881 in 1986. The near 49 per cent drop, even after accounting for inflation, is among the biggest rollbacks in Canada.

And in New Brunswick, a single unemployed adult received $3,427 last year, the lowest current payment anywhere in Canada.

The council, a citizens' advisory group to Ottawa, wants the federal government to revamp its national poverty strategy to do more than its recent one per cent cut in the GST and its $1,200 yearly child-care payments.

Council chairman John Murphy called those Conservative measures a "band-aid approach" to poverty.

"Governments have become meaner," Murphy said. "The people of Canada have put the recipients of welfare behind closed doors."

The council said about 4.9 million Canadians lived in poverty in 2003, the last year for which national numbers are available.

And it's not just the disabled and unemployed who are struggling in the midst of an economic boom, Murphy said. Many people continue to languish in low-income brackets, adding to the ranks of the working poor...

"We've got to get the minimum wage up because lots of people are still below the poverty line," Murphy said...

New Democrat child and youth critic Olivia Chow called the report's findings a "national disgrace."

The Toronto MP said the Conservative government needs to introduce measures to help families lift themselves from below the poverty line.

"Cuts to child-care programs, as well as cuts to employment insurance retraining initiatives, made it harder for families to break the cycle of poverty," Chow said in a release.

Lisa Murray, spokeswoman for Human Resources Minister Diane Finley, said alleviating poverty requires more than just child-care spaces.

She said the government's moves to cut 655,000 low-income Canadians from income-tax rolls and create 25,000 day-care spaces are among new programs being implemented to tackle poverty.