Tenants and people with low incomes deplore the lack of attention paid by political parties to poverty and housing problems in the context of the current election campaign in Quebec.
Promising a check or one-time or one-off aid to fight inflation is not enough, because it does not tackle the basic problem, criticized in an interview Thursday Serge Petitclerc, spokesperson for the Collective for a Quebec without poverty.
To truly help low-income people, more “structuring” measures would be needed, such as an increase in the minimum wage, an increase in social assistance benefits, an increase in the solidarity tax credit and “strong public services” , argues Mr. Petitclerc.
He is also disappointed with the lack of commitment from political parties in terms of social housing. First, affordable housing is not social housing, because it remains in the private sphere, he points out.
Then, even so-called affordable housing is not always affordable for minimum wage workers or people on social assistance, he argues.
Mr. Petitclerc believes that political parties have said little about poverty and social housing “because the poorest vote less” and that these issues are not “sexy” or politically profitable in their eyes.
To see in video