Today we hold an election in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Meanwhile the people of Ontario go to the polls October 10, and Canadians as a whole are likely facing an election within the year.
On the eastern edge of North America, we are enjoying material wealth such as most of the world has never seen before. Downtown St. John's is crammed with tony boutiques and new condominiums that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Attached Victorian homes that wouldn't fetch $10,000 in my youth now sell for $300,000 or more. An always full Japanese restaurant with a Nobu-trained chef sits next to the grand old courthouse.
Newfoundland was never as poor as many Canadians think it was; a couple of years ago a smug Globe and Mail columnist referred to the island as "the most scenic ghetto in the world," and the next time I go to mainland Canada, I'd rather not be asked, again, if I grew up with electricity. An overview of our economic history is impossible here; suffice it to say that historically Newfoundland was like anywhere else in North America or Europe, with a stratified class system that meant some people had more than others and rural people generally had less. These days, offshore money (well, what Ottawa allows us to keep) means that most people now have more. Incomes have risen, houses are bigger, and you just can't beat the shopping.
But the poor are still with us, and they are comparatively poorer than they used to be. As the dollars flow in, people living in poverty are being left behind.
With the demise of the important cod stocks, our governments lived on debt and deficit for too long. Our hospitals and schools suffered, our roads went to pot. Business and government could not create enough jobs for those displaced by the tragic loss of the fishery. Now we are trying to catch up.
The Danny Williams government has introduced a poverty reduction strategy. (The government is Progressive Conservative, but there is no political spectrum in Newfoundland; there is, instead, something of an entrenched centre-left consensus). The poverty reduction strategy includes such measures as small scholarships for residents of public housing, and an enhanced Pharmacare program for all on low-incomes.
But there is no single government office to ensure the anti-poverty strategy succeeds. There is no staff person to make sure that every government policy and program is filtered through an anti-poverty lens. Our neighbours in Quebec do have such an office and staff, and they are seeing successes in their efforts to reduce poverty.
The Religious Social Action Coalition of Newfoundland and Labrador recently formed with the goal of getting people to talk about poverty and to make poverty an election issue. The Coalition is made up of representatives of the Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian faiths --all of which call adherents to address the inequalities among us. The Coalition has convinced CBC to host and broadcast two "town halls" on poverty in our province. It has pressured candidates to specify their poverty reduction ideas, and their timeline for reducing poverty. It has kept their feet to the fire, as Jesus and the Prophet Muhammed would have done and want us to do. Says Robin Barrett of the Anglican Church, "In a wealthy society, poverty is a failure of community."
According to the Coalition, 66,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians --too many-- still live in poverty. As our once proud fishing communities wither away, we have the highest rate of rural poverty in Canada. We have among us people who must choose between heat and food. Some Indigenous communities in Coastal Labrador still don't have running water. We now have adults and youth sitting on our downtown streets day and night, à la Toronto's Yonge Street and Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Some are economic refugees from other provinces. Can't we offer them what they came here for?
Veeresh Gadag of the Hindu Temple says, "For people of faith, charity and compassion are only the starting points. On a practical level, we need more work that pays well if we are to get our fellow citizens out of poverty." Arnold Bennett of the Jewish community says: "This is a failure that can be overcome." Bennett points out that our North Atlantic neighbours have successfully tackled poverty: Ireland has cut poverty in half and Iceland has just about wiped it out.
Imam Mahmoud Haddara urges us to hold onto our traditional values, even as the oil money washes over us. "Newfoundland is a place where people believe in the power of community and are used to sharing," he reminds us sagely.
This failure of community is general across Canada where Indigenous people suffer Third World conditions that have been condemned by the United Nations. Fifteen of the 24 OECD countries have cut poverty rates, but Canada is not among them. The Czech Republic has made more progress than Canada has, even though that country had to emerge from much social and economic turmoil after the wall fell. Remember Campaign 2000? Remember the unanimous resolution in the House of Parliament to make child poverty a thing of the past by the new millennium?
Poverty is the result of human actions, specifically government policy. Its ugly spectre looms when candidates toy with privatizing health care; when Ottawa fails to adequately fund water and sewage needs on First Nations reserves, Inuit communities, and Métis settlements; and when politicians generally talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Ask your candidate what he or she will do for the most vulnerable people among us.
This past Thanksgiving Weekend was Poverty Sabbath in Newfoundland and Labrador. Ministers, rabbis, priests, and imams gave sermons that urged us to vote with poverty in mind. The people of the Religious Social Action Coalition are optimistic that our political leaders want to eliminate poverty, and that they see poverty as a justice issue. I hope that this hope and love is not misplaced.
Maura Hanrahan's (www.maurahanrahan.com) new book is The Alphabet Fleet: The Pride of the Newfoundland Coastal Service.
for internet marketing, web site design, development, promotion, and maintenance.
