Commentary by: Laurie Monsebraaten
The optimism and promise of Ontario’s first NDP government in the early 1990s and Marvyn Novick’s speech to provincial-territorial social service ministers in Toronto during that time — remain beacons of hope amid the cuts and chaos of Doug Ford’s fledgling Progressive Conservative government in 2019.
As host of the 1991 provincial-territorial conference, Ontario’s social services minister, Zanana Akande, was basking in the glow of her government’s first budget. Despite a crippling recession, the NDP was investing in affordable housing, recommitting to social assistance reform and expanding non-profit child care.
At a time when Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives in Ottawa were slashing Canada Assistance Plan payments to provinces, Marvyn’s speech focused on the need for federal-provincial-municipal partnerships, universal programs and a “common mission” to tackle problems facing vulnerable families and individuals. He noted that cross-national research clearly demonstrates that reduced federal government investment, more targeted, and less universal programs result in higher rates of poverty and inequality.
His words are just as relevant today.
After nearly a generation of austerity and efforts to reduce deficits by curtailing investments in social programs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberals have renewed social spending for housing, child care and public health initiatives. But the Ford government in Ontario is taking a step back. Instead, Premier Ford is weakening social assistance, cancelling the basic income pilot project, gutting child care safety regulations and sucking support for at risk youth from public education.
Indeed, Ford seems determined to erase social gains under the previous provincial Liberals and to make war with the Trudeau Liberals and the City of Toronto. It is hard to believe the June 2018 election that swept Ford to power featured provincial Liberal and NDP leaders proposing sweeping welfare reform, public drug and dental benefits for low-income working people, a new housing benefit and inclusionary zoning, a basic income, free child care for pre-schoolers and a $15 minimum wage. Municipalities struggling with mounting homelessness, child care wait lists and increasing poverty, were cheering.
These provincial initiatives, coupled with the federal government’s indexed child benefit, $7 billion national child care framework (under-funded, yes, but a framework upon which to build none-the-less), $40 billion national housing strategy and an enhanced workers’ benefit were laying the ground work for true social change. Canada’s first national poverty reduction strategy with a goal of cutting poverty for everyone — not just children — by 20 per cent by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2030, showed how the two levels of government were working together on a common mission to strengthen social supports for all citizens.
The election of Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives was a huge set back. It heralds a return to targeted support for individuals and families living in poverty and a likely push towards private delivery of social assistance and child care. Under Ford, social programs will not be viewed as universal public services.
Ford could certainly learn from Marvyn’s words to federal-provincial ministers and their staff in 1991. Targeted programs meet just one of the four goals of social policy and are not cost-effective. As Marvyn noted, programs for the poor will always be poor programs.
At the time of Marvyn’s speech, the National Child Benefit had not even been introduced. Thirty years later, the Trudeau government’s new and consolidated Canada Child Benefit has the potential to do for children what the Guaranteed Income Supplement and Old Age Security did for seniors in the 1960s and 1970s. Marvyn saw the introduction of income security programs for seniors as an example of what governments can accomplish when there is a partnership among governments and a common mission. The federal government is now committed to addressing poverty for all residents, not just for children, a recognition some of the country’s highest poverty rates are among single working-age adults, racialized Canadians, people with disabilities and Indigenous peoples.
But without a partner in Ontario — the country’s largest province — Marvyn’s vision is stalled. As he said in 1991, strong social policy requires partnerships, universal programs and a common mission. It is a message that rings true today and one that social policy advocates must continue to promote — especially in Ontario where so much is now at risk.
A copy of Marvyn’s speech can be found here.
Laurie Monsebraaten was the social justice reporter for The Toronto Star.
