Commentary by Brigitte Kitchen
With the Declaration of Child Poverty: A Fair Chance of For All Children (1986), the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) issued a powerful demand for justice for children.
The group, consisting of academics, social workers, educators, health care providers and social planners, had spontaneously come together at an eye-opening child poverty conference, hosted by the Social Planning Council of Toronto, to address the doubling of the number of children growing up poor in the aftermath of the economic recession in the early 1980s.
With the Declaration of Child Poverty: A Fair Chance of For All Children (1986), the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) issued a powerful demand for justice for children. The group, consisting of academics, social workers, educators, health care providers and social planners, had spontaneously come together at an eye-opening child poverty conference, hosted by the Social Planning Council of Toronto, to address the doubling of the number of children growing up poor in the aftermath of the economic recession in the early 1980s.
The unfortunate combination of high unemployment and inflation rates had led to a stagnation of market wages and the inflationary decline of the value of social programs. Living standards were falling, particularly in low income parent families; and poverty in Canada had become that of a child.
In a hard-hitting analysis of both structural and cultural dimensions of poverty the Declaration deplored child poverty as a national neglect of children and the under-valuation of the service parents contribute to society. Children, the report maintained, were more than a source of personal fulfilment for their parents. They were in fact the most crucial resource of a country, establishing a shared partnership and responsibility for their upbringing between parents and their national community.
This partnership had been still prevalent in the 1970s. Poor Kids, (1975), a report by the National Council of Welfare, setting out the unfairness to children having to grow up poor, had been followed up by the introduction of the Refundable Child Tax credit in support of children in low- and modest income families.
Marvyn with three cooperators from CPAG sought to revive this sense of civic responsibility for children with the idea of a National Income for Children, a startlingly bold and compelling policy proposal to ensure that all children, regardless of the socio-economic circumstances of their parents, would …”be given equality of life chances to develop as persons and citizens of the national community.” This was the fundamental birthright of every child in Canada.
The National Income for Children consists of three components: (1) a basic income floor, reflecting the annual average costs of raising a child; (2) a parental employment income guarantee of 60% of the average industrial wage; and (3) a parental solidarity income top-up for parents with incomes below an acceptable level.
It could not have come forward at a most unpropitious time. A tidal wave of neoliberal forces was sweeping Canada. The persistence of large budgetary deficits was used as a convenient expedient in reducing the role of government. The corresponding increase in the power of markets was, according to neoliberal thinking, an economic imperative and not a political choice.
A new and ambitious social transfer program was anathema in the social climate of the time. Children were reduced to consumption goods as parents were to ask themselves whether they had adequate material means to afford them.
Yet the idea of a National Income for Children and the fundamental demand for fairness for all children had not vanished. Thirty years later, in July 2016, the introduction of an income scaled Canada Child Benefit came close to its model. Finance Minister Bill Morneau called the Canada Child Benefit to be the most significant social policy innovation since universal health care.
The Benefit is clearly effective as the reduction in the number of poor children shows. In 2015, the UNICEF report card 11 had ranked Canada 17th among the 29 richest countries in the world on the scale of child poverty with 15% of its children living in poverty. In 2017, the child poverty rate had fallen to 9%.
The national shame of children growing up poor is still a shameful reality. But Marvyn’s and the Child Poverty Action Group’s keen income proposal has pointed the way to end it. Unfortunately in the years, following the report, public funds allocated for the support of children have been a far cry from being considered a national income for children. Canada’s child poverty ranks us today (2022) 23rd among 35 industrialized countries, according to Campaign 2000. A national income for children is a struggle that still has to be won.
Brigitte Kitchen, PhD is a founding member of the Child Poverty Action Group and a close friend and colleague of Marvyn.
