Posted at 2:00 p.m.
Mr. Minister, you seem ready to act to enable people to cope with the sharp increase in the cost of living in recent months. You have already announced that your March 22 budget will include measures to “help people’s pockets”.
As you know, price increases, whether for transport, food or housing, affect people living in poverty the most. When someone is already unable to eat three meals a day, each price increase forces them to cut… in what was already lacking.
Not only do you need to pay special attention to people experiencing poverty in your next budget, but you also need to avoid the trap of one-off and cosmetic measures.
Measures such as the “exceptional benefit for the cost of living” paid last January do not solve anything.
Of course, you have to act quickly, but to enable people to get their heads above water in the long term, you must give priority to structural measures. Here are three recommendations that go in that direction and that you should consider.
1. Increase public protections to ensure that all households have an income at least equal to the MBM
In Quebec, an average of 800,000 people have an income below the Market Basket Measure (MBM). It is one in ten people who do not have enough money to cover their essential needs and who must therefore deprive themselves regularly, at the risk of their health and dignity.
Yet, according to the An Act to combat poverty and social exclusionthe government is required to “increase the income granted to individuals and families in a situation of poverty, taking into account their particular situation and the resources available to them to cover their essential needs”.
Mr. Minister, the coverage of basic needs should not be seen as a luxury: it is a minimum.
2. Set the minimum wage to at least $18 an hour
To get out of poverty, it takes at least $18 an hour for someone working 35 hours a week. With the increase of 75 cents expected on 1er next May, the rate will drop to $14.25 an hour, which will barely allow workers to cover their basic needs.
Mr. Minister, it is time for your government to stop caring only about the well-being of corporations and pay attention to the plight of workers at the bottom of the ladder.
3. Make a massive and immediate reinvestment in public services
Public services play a fundamental role in the fight against poverty and socio-economic inequalities by participating in the redistribution of wealth. If the pandemic has recalled their capital importance, it has also revealed how many of them have suffered from chronic underfunding for years. And how this underfunding first affects the less fortunate.
A massive and immediate reinvestment is necessary, and we would like to remind you here of some concrete measures that could make a big difference in the lives of people living in poverty.
For example, why not freeze electricity rates during this period of high inflation and not give the Régie de l’énergie the mandate to set the residential electricity rate?
Why not respect your commitments and inject the necessary funds into the AccèsLogis program to deliver all the social housing already planned? Why not finance without further delay a major project of 50,000 social housing units in five years?
Or why not invest, on a recurring basis, an additional $460 million in funding for the global mission of independent community action organizations?
When reviewing your budget, Mr. Minister, we hope you will keep this very simple statistic in mind: even before the pandemic, even before the recent price spike, one in ten people in Quebec could not meet their needs. essential. You have the responsibility to offer them measures that will help to improve their living conditions in the long term. You can’t disappoint them again.