A new report suggests the number of people relying on food banks nationwide could be set to increase dramatically unless there are significant changes to the current welfare system.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study, entitled Understanding the Link Between Welfare Policy and the Use of Food Banks, focuses on all of Canada but its British Columbian authors draw much of their evidence from their home province.
They criticize both of the province’s biggest parties with statements like “cuts to welfare of the type instituted in BC, both by the NDP in 1996 and after the Liberals came to power in 2001, are associated with substantial increases in food bank use.”
By the authors’ calculations, a 10-per-cent cut in the number of welfare recipients and a similar decrease in rates are likely to lead to four and 14-per-cent increases in food bank use respectively.
“These results suggest that arguments that welfare cuts are a form of “tough love” that ultimately leave potential welfare recipients better off are certainly not universally true,” according to the report.
While noting that the sharpest increases in food bank use occurred under the NDP during the late 1990s and that the 2008 figure was lower than the 2004 peak, the authors suggest Canada’s strong economy partly masked the effects of Liberal welfare policies in this decade. They attribute the higher increase in the 1990s to a stable labour market that allowed the true impact of welfare cuts to be apparent.
And unless current policies change or the economy suddenly turns around, the authors believe the numbers are likely to shoot up.
“First and foremost, the provinces must shift from welfare policies based on distrust of welfare recipients (with provinces essentially setting up rules that punish them), to one that responds to the needs of people,” said the report.
To that end, the authors suggest the following 10 steps to reduce food insecurity in Canada:
Ensure that those in need have access to income assistance.
Establish what people should be able to afford with income assistance.
Increase welfare rates immediately.
Increase rates annually to keep up with the cost of living.
Establish a fairer minimum wage and increase it annually.
Increase the Canada Child Tax Benefit.
Make child care more affordable.
Allow welfare recipients to pursue their education and learn skills.
Improve financial support and access to language training for recent immigrants and refugees.
Make rental housing more affordable.
Rob Annandale reports for The Tyee.
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RossK
3 years ago
There They Go Again....
....That darned CCPA....Trying to get us to think about real issues when we all know the only thing we really care about is how that the terrible, awful, no good NDP is going to force us to pay more for.....
....Beer.
What?
What's that you say?
The "Beer Problem" was actually caused by Gordon Campbell?
Say it ain't so Gordo.
Say it ain't so.....
(Because the mainstream Lotuslandian media, with one notable exception, sure won't.)
.
realisticman
3 years ago
The CCPA is right
RossK is crying in his beer.
Here's the eleventh step in the list to reduce food insecurity in Canada:
Do not elect the BC NDP.
As the CCPA says, and Rob Annandale writes above:
".. the sharpest increases in food bank use occurred under the NDP during the late 1990s.."
Tony Martinson
3 years ago
Hey look, a dishonest Liberal supporter
I love love love how you clipped that quote to make it look like it was just a simple condemnation of the NDP. Some would call it misleading, others disingenous. I, however, would call it baldface lying. Congratulations on earning your membership in the BC Liberal party supporter club.
Here's the full quote, for those who might be swayed by dishonesty:
While noting that the sharpest increases in food bank use occurred under the NDP during the late 1990s and that the 2008 figure was lower than the 2004 peak, the authors suggest Canada’s strong economy partly masked the effects of Liberal welfare policies in this decade. They attribute the higher increase in the 1990s to a stable labour market that allowed the true impact of welfare cuts to be apparent.
RossK
3 years ago
Yup, Quote Clipping....
....And context burying are your stock-in-trade when obfusction is your overarching objective.
Which is precisely the point that I make in the post linked to above.
_____
(And while I don't usually rise to take the bait of trolls, in this case I will respond by pointing out that there are no tears, crocodile-generated or otherwise, in my beer. Why? Because I buy it where it's cheapest, where the people selling it to me make a living wage, and where the revenue generated actually benefits me, my family, my friends, and all my fellow British Columbians).
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realisticman
3 years ago
A Suitable Clipping
The reason it was clipped is because the rest is bafflegab.
What does this spin mean"
"They attribute the higher increase in the 1990s to a stable labour market that allowed the true impact of welfare cuts to be apparent." ?
I guess the only way to read it is this; The NDP cut welfare and the rate of people working didn't change, so more people became poor and subsequently went to food-banks.
What other way is there to read this?
How was this integral to the complete statement and not simply redundant?
Frank
3 years ago
James kicked GC's butt
Clearly Campbell raised the cost of transit so much that the people involved in Canada's highest child poverty rate can no longer afford to get to the food bank.
Since Campbell has failed to produce as many jobs as the NDP and has kept welfare rates obscenely low its only natural that 2009 will set a new "record" for food bank use in Beautiful BC.
Of course BC wasn't the only province enduring Paul Martin's deficit cutting agenda in the 1990's to experience high food bank use as Ontarians under Mike Harris and Albertans under Ralph Klein know.
But of course Klein was cheered by the right-wing brigade around here when he threw dollars on the floor of a shelter so that the "clients" would grovel at his feet.