The ACTEW Blog

The Ontario Government tabled the 2007-2008 provincial budget on Thursday, March 22, 2007. The government’s pre-election budget is focused on addressing poverty within Ontario. A few highlights include:

• An increase in the minimum wage by 75 cents a year over next three years to $10.25 by 2010;
  
  
• 2% increase for people receiving social assistance or disabled benefits (this is the first increase to those benefits in four years);
  
  
• $2.1 billion Ontario Child Benefit program to give low-income families up to $250 per child in 2006 escalating to $1,100 by 2011;
  
  
• New housing allowance starting in 2008, worth up to $100 a month to help low-income families pay their rent; and
  
  
• An additional $25 million for child care, doubling to $50 million in fiscal 2008.

Several organizations have provided an analysis of the Ontario budget and its impacts on working Ontarians.

For example, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has released an analysis that sees “a very short list of very modest initiatives spread out over a very long period of time.”

CCPA finds that the increased funding in child care represents only half of what the federal government has transferred to Ontario towards child care, and CCPA states that the Ontario Child Benefit is a new initiative that will take 5 years to fully implement. They also note that the measures do not address the need for affordable child care, which is "the biggest obstacle to employment faced by social assistance recipients."

CCPA concludes that the focus on child poverty "[ignores] the obvious—that children don’t live in poverty by themselves. They live with parents who live in poverty” which “doesn’t deal with the reality of families living in poverty.”

Download the CCPA Budget report for the full analysis.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends

The federal government has not provided any funding for the Labour Market Partnership Agreement (LMPA) but the federal budget tabled on Monday does allocate funds with a similar intention.

The Conservative government states it has earmarked:

$500 million annually starting in 2008–09 for a new approach to labour market training to help ensure that Canadians who need skills training will receive it. This provides a total of $3 billion more for training by 2013–14.

It's unclear whether this is to honour the LMPA or replace it. Will the money have similar allocations and target groups that include apprenticeships, integration of immigrants, literacy and essential skills, workplace skills development, assistance for Aboriginals, and assistance to
others facing labour market barriers? We also don't know how much of the $500 million will make its way to the province of Ontario. By comparison, the LMPA earmarked an investment of $300 million per year into Ontario. If we do hear any clarity on these questions, we'll pass them along to you.

Other relevant highlights of the 2007 Federal Budget include:

• Renegotiating LMDAs with other provinces to fully devolve all agreements (some provinces have "co-managed" agreements, meaning the the province and the federal government work together)

• the possibility of devolving other pan-Canadian employment and training programs, such as programming for youth, people with disabilities, and older workers.
  

Several groups have examined the federal budget overall to determine its impacts on Canadians.

In particular, FAFIA has released a document on the impacts of the Budget on Canadian women, stating that...

women in Canada are affected differently than men by tax and spending policies of governments as a result of their varying labour market opportunities, family and community responsibilities, and levels of economic security.

FAFIA's report provides an overview of the budget in regards to poverty measures, tax breaks, social programs, and values. Download the report from the FAFIA web site.

Labels: LMDA, LMPA

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) recently released a study The Rich and the Rest of Us: The Changing Face of Canada’s Growing Gap. The study, by Armine Yalnizyan, focuses on the incomes of Canadian families through 1970s to 2000s raising children under the age of 18.

Her research demonstrates the Canada's income gap between the richest and the poorest families is increasing. This may not come as a surprise to you, but Yalnizyan points out that the income gap is increasing despite a prosperous economy: "[Canadian families] are falling behind in the best of economic times, under conditions that would typically yield a reduced income gap: low unemployment rates, more Canadians working, and more Canadians putting in longer hours in the workplace."

How much has this gap actually increased? Yalnizyan's economic analysis found that thirty years ago, the richest 10% of Canadians had incomes 31 times as big as the bottom 10%. Today, their incomes are 82 times as big. The bottom 40% of Canadians (about 12 million people) are actually worse off, with lower incomes today (after inflation).

Most of the rest of Canadians are managing to keep pace or slightly improve their incomes only by working considerably longer hours. Yalnizyan found that only the richest families are actually doing better, earning significantly more and working fewer hours.

Yalnizyan concludes that "despite a decade of emphasis on how much Canadian governments can do for working families by cutting taxes, the bigger benefit to families came through income supports (transfers)." In a Toronto Star article from March 16, Linda McQuaig situates the CCPA study within the upcoming federal budget and the focus on tax cuts, arguing "tax cuts are of little benefit to most Canadians. In fact, they ultimately hurt the majority of Canadians, by depriving government of revenue it needs to fund social programs and transfers, which do help Canadians."

Labels: Issues_and_Trends, Resources_and_Research

ACTEW’s project manager Deanna Yerichuk attended the two-day conference CEDAW in 2007-2008: Preparing for the Upcoming Review at the United Nations in Ottawa on March 9 and 10, 2007.

FAFIA and Oxfam Canada partnered to host this opportunity to discuss the upcoming United Nations review of Canada under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expected in late 2007 or early 2008 (FAFIA has an excellent overview of CEDAW and the UN recommendations for Canada in 2003).

Some highlights included:

• Sheila Regehr (National Council of Welfare) presented NWC's anti-poverty strategy report, which is based on four cornerstones focus on: 1) creating a national anti-poverty strategy with targets and timelines; 2) developing a coordinated plan of action; 3) ensuring accountability; and 4) establishing official poverty indicators. (Download Solving Poverty: Four cornerstones of a workable national strategy for Canada from the NWC web site.)

• Trish Hennessey (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) presented on CCPA's Growing Gap research project, which is finding that the income gap between Canadians is growing, even though Canada's prosperous economy provides the conditions for the income gap to shrink. Trish quoted research from CCPA's recent report The Rich and the Rest of Us that found 80% of Canadian families are working more hours and taking home less pay.

• Lisa Phillips (Osgoode Hall, York University) offered an analysis of the tax cuts being considered by the federal government, which she suggested benefit higher income earners, offering these statistics: 60% of individuals earn less than $30,000, and 75% of women earn less than $30,000. She pointed out that 38% of women do not pay income tax due to low incomes.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends, Meetings_and_Events, Resources_and_Research

While Ontario's Labour Market Development Agreement (LMDA) recognizes new immigrants as one of several client groups having “more complex needs” that may be met through “enhanced services”, it does not name the particular needs and barriers of immigrant women.

Employment is a central concern for immigrant women, yet they face many barriers to securing stable, suitable work.

Research by the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada (NOIVMWC) confirms that immigrant women still statistically remain at a disadvantage in securing sustainable employment. In their study of employers' perspectives, NOIVMWC found that women’s immigration status poses the biggest barrier to employment. Immigration status provoked issues such as credential recognition, language proficiency, lack of Canadian experience and cultural knowledge.

NOIVMWC identifies two key issues specific to immigrant women that must be addressed to achieve systemic employment gains:

• the need for changes in government policy and settlement services so that there is an integrated process for guiding immigrant women into the job market and enabling them to have access to adequately compensated jobs commensurate with their educational background and professional experience gained either in their countries of origin or in third countries
  
  
• the need to upgrade the services offered, so that immigrant women can be professionally accompanied from settlement to integration in the Canadian economy and society.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends, Resources_and_Research

Most service providers know that the LMDA was not the only agreement signed between Ontario and Canada in November 2005. The Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement will be injecting a substantial amount of new funding into Ontario’s settlement sector to support newcomers through increased language training and settlement services.

The Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration (CIC) states that:

“Over the next five years, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) plans to invest $920 million in new funding (subject to parliamentary appropriations) for settlement and language training programs and services in Ontario. The overall goal of these strategies is to support the successful social and economic integration of immigrants in Ontario.”

While employment and training are not the focus of this new agreement, a series of CIC community consultations report that newcomer women are particularly concerned about employment and related issues:

“financial independence is a priority for newcomer families and for women thus making it extremely important for them to find appropriate employment commensurate with their skills and experience.”

The LMDA does focus on employment and training issues, and names newcomers as a group experiencing “more complex needs.”

Given the overall goal of economic integration, these two new agreements will have a broad impact on the continuum of services to newcomers, women and men.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends

The employment insurance surplus has hit $51-billion, representing an increase of $7 billion since 2004. This excess money generated by EI rates can be freely used by the federal government.

An article by Sue Bailey for Canadian Press on the surplus notes that:

“... almost 17 per cent of workers who pay into the [EI] program never qualify for support because they don't rack up enough hours. It's especially hard for part-time employees, many of them women, to ever collect on their EI contributions because requirements were toughened in 1996.”

ACTEW's research supports these assertions. Recently in this blog, we showed how EI requirements disproportionately exclude women. And here's our fact sheet on EI eligibility.

Bailey interviews experts who argue alternately to reduce EI premiums, increase benefits, and/or lower eligibility requirements.

Labels: Issues_and_Trends