Montreal –
As provincial governments hand out one-time cash payments to help residents cope with inflation, anti-poverty advocates say these efforts are a missed opportunity to help those who need it most.
Doug Pawson, executive director of the Newfoundland-based anti-poverty group End Homelessness St. John’s, says that while every dollar helps, the one-time nature of the payments means they don’t meet people’s lasting needs.
“It seems like a bit of a lazy policy to me in the sense that you could really target those funds to have more impact and meaningful impact,” he said in an interview on Sunday.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government announced last week that it will send $500 checks to all residents who earned less than $100,000 last year, those earning up to $125,000 will receive smaller checks – a plan that echoes similar programs in Quebec and Saskatchewan.
The initiative is expected to cost nearly $200 million.
Pawson said at a time when an “unprecedented” number of people and families in St. John’s are homeless, it would be best to provide sustained support to help those struggling to pay for utilities. , food and basic expenses.
“That’s a lot of money being spent and there’s nothing significant coming out of it, in the same way that targeted investments in housing, for example, might have had,” he said. .
The Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Finance said the measure was just one of several measures to help people deal with inflation.
“We have one of the most responsive sets of cost of living measures compared to other Canadian provinces,” spokeswoman Victoria Barbour wrote in an email. “Many of these cost-of-living initiatives have focused on the most vulnerable people. These included increases to the earnings supplement and seniors’ benefits, as well as a one-time payment to people on income support.
Other provinces have taken similar steps. Saskatchewan said it would give all residents who filed taxes last year a one-time payment of $500, while Manitoba gives all families with income up to $175.00 a check for $250 for their first child and $200 for each additional child under 18.
In Quebec, where the provincial government sent checks for $500 to most residents earlier this year, a second round of inflation-linked payments is scheduled for December. These will see all residents who earned less than $100,000 in 2021 get $400, with those earning less than $50,000 receiving an additional $200.
The cost of this second payment is estimated at around $3.5 billion.
Tasha Lackman, executive director of the Depot Community Food Center in Montreal, said her group had seen requests for emergency food aid double since the spring, as people on fixed or low incomes struggled to make ends meet. to the rising cost of groceries.
“These kinds of measures are not long-term solutions, they are band-aid solutions,” she said in an interview on Sunday. “These band-aid solutions do not solve the major problems. We need stable income thresholds, below which no one can fall; we need social housing, or affordable housing, and access to these housing programs, and that’s not what we’re seeing.”
Ewan Sauves, spokesman for Quebec Premier Francois Legault, said the rising cost of living affects everyone and that December payments will be “more generous for low-income individuals and families”.
Sauves wrote in an email that the Quebec government has also pledged to spend $1.8 billion to build new social and affordable housing, help more than 7,000 households pay their rent, and provide $20 million. dollars in infrastructure funding for food banks.
Dan Meades, provincial coordinator for the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Transition Houses, said in an interview Saturday that while inflation affects everyone, high-income families have the opportunity to make choices about their spending that aren’t open to someone making $15,000 a year.
“I don’t dispute that everyone is going through a difficult time, but it cannot be the government’s job to take care of those of us who have the most, it must be the government’s job to take care of those of us who are most vulnerable and have the least, first,” he said.