UN rebukes Canada on poverty
World body says minimum wages in all provinces "are insufficient to enable workers and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living"
By Judith McCormack
This commentary was first published in the Toronto Star on Sep. 29, 2006. It is one in a series of commentaries the Star is running sparked by the story of Maheswary Puvaneswaran, one of 650,000 Canadians struggling to make ends meet.
A United Nations committee may not be the first thing on the mind of a working mother facing eviction in Toronto. The chances are that she has more urgent problems ó scraping together emergency shelter, for example, or stretching her meagre wages to feed her children.
But even if she has little time to think about international agencies, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has been thinking about her.
Composed of independent experts from around the world, this UN committee examines how well countries are fulfilling their obligations under an international covenant.
The Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights requires signatory countries like Canada to ensure its people have adequate food, clothing, housing, education and health care.
And for its working population, Canada is required to provide "just and favourable" working conditions that produce fair wages and a decent living.
This might be news to quite a number of working mothers, and to many of the other people who walk through the doors of Downtown Legal Services as well.
A legal clinic operated by the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Downtown Legal Services utilizes law students to provide free legal assistance to more than a thousand low-income people each year.
The students' clients include a wide range of people living in poverty ó workers with unpaid wages, women facing domestic violence, people with disabilities, refugees, the homeless and children with special needs.
As it turns out, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has something to say to their clients. And not only to them, but to Canada's policy-makers and legislators as well.
In May, the committee issued its most recent set of conclusions evaluating Canada's performance under the international covenant. How is Canada doing? Not very well, according to the committee's members.
They listed 30 concerns, ranging from the high poverty rates among disadvantaged groups to the inadequacy of social assistance rates. Among other things, the committee observed that 2.3 million people in Canada suffer from food insecurity, and that about 40 per cent of food bank users are children and young people.
And the working poor? The committee pointed out that the minimum wages in all provinces "are insufficient to enable workers and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living."
The law students at Downtown Legal Services see much of this first-hand. They meet the living faces of poverty on a weekly basis ó people who must decide between paying the rent or feeding their children, newcomers struggling to make ends meet by working two jobs, street youth who have turned to prostitution.
The ingredients of poverty are familiar to them as well. As law student Tanya Thompson says, "poverty isn't just another inevitable force of nature ó it's perpetuated by the choices we make as a society. At the clinic, I see every day how limited educational opportunities, inadequate social assistance, lack of child care and the need for legal services are coalescing to keep people from getting on their feet."
Trenchant words from a young lawyer-to-be. The harsh reality is that Canada is failing both its international obligations and its people.
Perhaps it's time for our legislators and policy-makers to take a turn at going back to school.
