Wallace's Corner

A socialist perspective on today's events

Poverty Canada: Right Wing Common Sense equals Common Nonsense

9 November 1999

Canada's Mr. Conrad Black, right-wing owner of Southam Press failed in his attempt to gain peerage within England's House of Lords which would have given him the malodorous heavy air of "nobility". To substitute for this disappointment much media attention (from his own newspapers) has been made of the one year anniversary of his right-wing national rag - The National Post.

Editorial writers of Mr. Black's newspapers have entered the twilight of journalistic hackdom kowtowing to his philosophy - the ideology of free marketism, the hack and thrust at the welfare state, all finding political expression through endorsement and support of the most conservative of conservative minded political leaders in the name of anti-socialism.

The one year anniversary of The National Post coincided with a flurry of attacks on the weakest segments of the working class - the poor, the low income.

Editorial statements and reports abounded that there was a great deal of misconception about poverty in this country. They eagerly seized on the report "Poverty in Canada (2nd Edition)" by Christopher A. Sarlo, published by British Columbia's Fraser Institute. They echoed in chorus what Sarlo's capitalised in his own report - "POVERTY IS NOT A MAJOR PROBLEM in Canada".

In an attempt to stifle opposition to the inequalities created by capitalism Sarlo argued that:

"We find it hard to believe that 3 to 5 million Canadians are poor. It is difficult for us to understand how a senior couple who own their own home can be impoverished if their 1990 income is $14,000. And we simply cannot believe that a great many college and university students, our future income elite, are among Canada's poor."

Further, he claims his results fly "in the face of numerous media stories about the growing numbers of poor who must do without food or resort to food banks to prevent starvation; about the dreadful inadequacy of welfare benefits to cover even basic necessities; about the crisis of child poverty. These stories, frequently written by self styled social reformers, would have us believe that poverty is Canada's major problem. The good common sense of Canadians prevents them from being taken in by blatant exaggeration, emotional appeals and, at best, anecdotal evidence."

Students will be our future economic elite! Seniors with disposable income averaging $150 a week are middle class! Food banks and homelessness are not real, they are illusions of over-emotive social reformers with hidden political agendas.

In fact, he goes a step further. The Canadian working class has never had it so good!

"The fact is that necessities have never been a better bargain. They have never been easier to acquire. Indeed, there is more opportunity now than ever before for individuals and families to achieve a middle class living standard. Higher real wages, more leisure time, fewer children to support and more dual income households means that enjoyment of amenities, available only to the wealthy twenty five years ago, is a realistic goal for everyone."

Sarlo provides no proofs, no real evidence or original research to support his claims. You see, one does not need hard facts when espouses "common sense".

Of course, "common sense" tells us that the Sun revolves around the Earth, but by using our understanding we know that this is not so.

Sarlo's "common sense" is the "common sense" of the Fraser Institute - a right-wing think tank for capitalist apologetics founded in 1974 "to redirect public attention to the role markets can play in providing for the economic and social well-being of Canadians."

Mystifying its origins "from humble beginnings" (sort of like Abe Lincoln's log cabin) the Institute now has 2,500 individual, corporate and foundation supporters in Canada, the United States and twelve other countries. It is "funded entirely from the contributions of members and the sale of publications". Well, er, kind of . . . over 60 % of the Institute's funding comes from corporations and corporate foundations.

Admittedly the statistics on poverty in Canada are open to interpretation. They are based on the low-income lines published by Statistics Canada. The measures used are blunt instruments.

These poverty lines (or income levels) vary with the size of your family and community. For example, for a large city, in 1997, the poverty lines were set at $17,409 for an individual and $32,759 for a family of four. People with incomes below these poverty lines have to spend at least 20 percent more of their income than most families pay for food, clothing, and shelter.

An estimated 5,222,000 people were living below this "poverty line" in 1997. This figure does not include Aboriginal people on reserves, residents of the Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories, and people who live in institutions (prisons, hospitals, and homes for the aged). Using these stats, 17.5 % of Canadian are poor.

As for income disparity, if we take all of the income in Canada and divide it up we find that the richest fifth of Canadians receives 44.3 % of all income in Canada and the poorest fifth receive only 4.6 % . This statistic does not even begin to consider the great disparity in the ownership and control of wealth.

Socialists have no use for capitalist apologetics for the inequities of the system. And we go far beyond ill fated attempts by social reformers who in the past hundred years have tried to lessen its severity.

Poverty has and will always be a part of the capitalist system. We have the ability to feed, clothe and shelter everyone. The necessity for it exists. We have the potential to create it. And the possibility stares us in the face each day.

If you want to abolish poverty, abolish capitalism.

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