According to the latest HungerCount, the number of people receiving food aid each month has increased by 33% since 2019, reaching 671,000. Food banks are running out of food to meet ever-increasing demand . It’s a sad reality: hundreds of thousands of people are unable to cover their basic needs in Quebec, and many have seen their situation deteriorate in recent years.
Faced with this situation, your government, Minister Chantal Rouleau, chose inaction in its first mandate. As if it were normal that so many people cannot even cover their essential needs in a rich society like Quebec.
In such a context, it goes without saying that we look forward to hearing about your intentions as Minister responsible for Social Solidarity and Community Action. Today, we draw your attention to two issues that should keep you busy in the short term and that could change a lot of things for people living in poverty.
The fourth anti-poverty plan
On December 13, we will mark the 20e anniversary of the unanimous adoption of the Act to combat poverty and social exclusion by the National Assembly. This law commits all parliamentarians to act “to combat poverty, prevent its causes, mitigate its effects on individuals and families, counter social exclusion and move towards a poverty-free Quebec”.
Under this law, the government has an obligation to produce action plans which detail, in particular, the actions planned to “improve the economic and social situation of persons and families living in poverty” and which establish poverty reduction to be achieved.
The least we can say is that our organization placed great hopes on this law. But we could only note the patent failure of the first three action plans. It is impossible for timid investments, piecemeal measures and, above all, a lack of ambition in the targets to be achieved to lead to significant progress.
The current action plan expires in 2023. While your predecessor at Social Solidarity, Jean Boulet, contented himself with surfing on an already adopted plan to fight against poverty, you will have the task of ensuring the development of the next. This is a great opportunity, Madam Minister, to mark a change of course.
The first step for your department will obviously be to launch consultations. To properly measure people’s needs, everywhere in Quebec, you should opt for a traveling parliamentary committee with general consultation. We look forward to taking part and letting you know our proposals so that this plan allows us collectively to “move towards a Quebec without poverty”.
The basic income program
The basic income program was the only interesting measure of the last anti-poverty plan. About 84,000 people with severe limitations to long-term employment should be able to benefit from it from 1er next January.
This program includes several advances, such as the individualization of benefits and the possibility for eligible persons to earn work income or to hold higher liquid assets than in other social assistance programs.
Its most interesting aspect is without a doubt that it should, at the outset, allow people to count on a disposable income at least equivalent to the market basket measure (MBM). Unfortunately, your government, Madam Minister, has decided not to adjust the amounts provided based on the recent revision of the MBM by Statistics Canada, which represents a shortfall of several hundred dollars for those eligible for the program.
The use of the new base for calculating the MPC is one of the recommendations that we submitted to your predecessor and that you should use as inspiration to improve the program. For example, we should also mention the need to abolish “purgatory”, this 66-month period imposed by the Social Solidarity program which unduly blocks access to basic income.
This brings us to the main problem we see with the basic income program: it is reserved for a category of people on social assistance. In our view, this discriminatory approach is simply indefensible.
We dare to hope that you do not support this logic according to which certain people, in Quebec, deserve more to cover their basic needs than others. We invite you to consider the possibility of extending the basic income program to all people on social assistance.
A question of rights
In closing, we would like to remind you, Madam Minister, that the fight against poverty is above all a question of respect for human dignity and human rights. It should never come as an option, regardless of the government.
As a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Quebec recognizes “the right of every person to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including food, clothing and adequate housing, as well as the constant improvement of their living conditions”. Under the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, it recognizes the right of the person “to measures of financial assistance and to social measures […] likely to provide him with a decent standard of living.
By tolerating poverty, the Government of Quebec is flouting the rights of a significant portion of its population. We invite you, Madam Minister, to do everything possible to put an end to this tolerance.