Oct. 17: International Day Against Poverty

October 17th marks the International Day Against Poverty

Poverty is a human rights violation.

Every woman, man, youth and child has the human right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, to food, clothing, housing, medical care and social services.

These fundamental human rights are defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CEDAW, the International Covenants and other widely adhered to international human rights treaties and Declarations -- powerful tools that can empower efforts for social and economic justice worldwide.

How much do you know about poverty?

World Poverty Quiz

Poverty in Canada Quiz

Select the answer you think is correct and then follow the check your answer link to see if you are right!

Responses of Canadian children to the question “What does poverty mean?”


What is Poverty?

Poverty in Parliament

Poverty Coast to Coast

Canada in Comparison

Social Consequences

Excerpts from Status of Women Canada report

World Poverty Quiz

1. The total population in developing countries as of 2000 is 5.2 billion. Of this, how many people live on less than $1 a day?

a. 300 million
b. 1.2 billion
c. 2.8 billion

check your answer

2. Excluding China, over the last 10 years, has the number of people living on less than $1 a day in the developing world increased, decreased or stayed the same?

a. Increased
b. Decreased
c. Stayed the same

check your answer

3. In 1990, 44 million people lived on less than $2 a day in Europe and Central Asia. How many people lived in 1999 on less than $2 a day in the region?

a. 10 million
b. 51 million
c. 91 million

check your answer

4. In 2000, the United States was ranked the third richest economy in the world, based on its $34,100 Gross National Income (GNI) per capita in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms. What was the GNI per capita in PPP terms in the country ranked as the poorest, Sierra Leone?

a. $480
b. $3,340
c. $5,680

check your answer

5. The average income for the richest twenty countries in the world was 15 times the average for the poorest twenty countries in 1960. What is it now?

a. 5 times
b. 20 times
c. 30 times

check your answer

6. The world population in 2000 was 6 billion. By 2015, what will be the world population?

a. 6 billion
b. 7 billion
c. 10 billion

check your answer

7. The world population is forecast to increase by about 1 billion between the years 2000 and 2015. What percentage of this increase will take place in developing countries?

a. 25 percent
b. 43 percent
c. 97 percent

check your answer

8. In 1960, 24 percent of developing countries' population lived in cities. What was the percentage in 2000?

a. 28 percent
b. 41 percent
c. 79 percent

check your answer

9. In the United States, between 1990 and 1998, 8 women died for every 100,000 live births. In Eritrea and the Central African Republic, what is this figure?

a. 10
b. 100
c. 1,000

check your answer

10. In 1970, in the developing world, 110 infants died per 1,000 live births. How many infants died in 2000 per 1,000 live births?

a. 10
b. 58
c. 120

check your answer

11. Between 1988 and 1998, in the developing world, 32 boys out of 1,000 died between the ages of one and five. What was the figure for girls?

a. 13 per 1,000
b. 41 per 1,000
c. 114 per 1,000

check your answer

12. Life expectancy in the developing world increased from 60 years in 1980 to 64 years in 2000. Life expectancy in Botswana was 58 years in 1980; what is the figure for 2000?

a. 76 years
b. 67 years
c. 39 years

check your answer

 

 

13. In 2000, 36 million people were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS. How many of them live in developing countries?

a. less than 10 percent
b. about 60 percent
c. over 95 percent

check your answer

14. Of the 3.4 billion adults living in the developing world in 1998, how many were illiterate?

a. 340 million (one in ten)
b. 870 million (one in four)
c. 1.7 billion (one in two)

check your answer

15. Of the 110 million children that are out of school today in developing countries, how many are girls?

a. 42 million (38 percent)
b. 51 million (46 percent)
c. 66 million (60 percent)

check your answer

16. In the developing world in 2000, 18 percent of men were illiterate. What is the percentage of illiterate women?

a. 21 percent
b. 31 percent
c. 39 percent

check your answer

17. Considering 15-19 year olds from the poorest 40 percent of the population in India, Pakistan, Mali and Benin, what is the median number of years these teenagers have been to school?

a. 0 years
b. 3 years
c. 6 years

check your answer

18. What percentage of urban sewage in the developing world is discharged into rivers, lakes and coastal waterways without any treatment?

a. 40 percent
b. 70 percent
c. 90 percent

check your answer

19. How much have carbon dioxide emissions increased in developing countries since 1960?

a. 121 percent
b. 440 percent
c. 550 percent

check your answer

20. What percentage of OECD countries' Gross National Income (GNI) went to Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries in 2000?

a. 0.01 percent
b. 0.22 percent
c. 0.70 percent

check your answer

Source: World Bank Group

Poverty in Canada Quiz

1. How may children in Canada lived in poverty in the year 2000?

a. 680,000
b. 925,000
c. 1.1 million

check your answer

2. In what year did the Canadian government resolve to eliminate poverty by the year 2000?

a. 1989
b. 1990
c. 1992

check your answer

3. According to the 2001 Census, did gains in child poverty in Canada increase, decrease or stay the same over the past decade?

a. Increased
b. Decreased
c. Stayed the same

check your answer

4. Has the rise in child poverty among immigrant families in Canada increased, decreased or stayed the same over the past two decades?

a. Increased
b. Decreased
c. Stayed the same

check your answer

5. Over the past decade, has inequality between the poorest families and the riches families increased, decreased or stayed the same?

a. Increased
b. Decreased
c. Stayed the same

check your answer

6. The biggest income gaps exist in which Canadian cities?

a. Vancouver
b. Toronto
c. Toronto and Vancouver

check your answer

Source: Campaign 2000

7. How much would a lone mother in the province of Saskatchewan, with a typical $10,000 annual income, have to pay in user fees for child care?

a. $0
b. $1,500
c. $3,500

check your answer

8. How many Women in Canada were living in poverty in 1997?

a. 1.6 million
b. 2.8 million
c. 3.1 million

check your answer

9. In 1989, Louise Gosselin launched a challenge against the Government of Quebec in an important case that was eventually heard by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2001. Did the case challenge...

a. Employment Insurance policy
b. Social Assistance policy
c. Canada Pension Plan policy

check your answer

10. In 2001, Kimberly Rogers, pleaded guilty to welfare fraud for collecting $13,648 in student loans while receiving welfare so she could attend college. She received a conditional sentenced of 6 months under house arrest and was banned from collecting welfare for 3 months under the Ontario government's new zero tolerance policy on welfare fraud. Ms. Rogers launched a charter challenge and had her benefits reinstated by a Toronto judge pending the appeal. After the monthly fee towards the overpayment was deducted from her benefits cheque and her rent was paid, how much money was Kimberly Rogers (who was pregnant) left with each month until her death on August 9, 2001?

a. $18 per month
b. $116 per month
c. $308 per month

check your answer

11. How much did the rate of food bank use in Canada rise between 1989 and 2000?

a. 43%
b. 78%
c. 96%

check your answer

 

12. What percentage of the Canadian population experienced a spell of poverty between 1990 and 1995?

a. 1 out of 2
b. 1 out of 4
c. 1 out of 6

check your answer

13. How much does the average aboriginal woman in Canada earn as compared to other Canadian women?

a. roughly the same
b. 68% of what other women earn
c. 41% of what other women earn

check your answer

14. How many single women over the age of 65 in Canada live in poverty?

a. 28%
b. 39%
c. 49%

check your answer

15. How much does the average Canadian woman with a university degree earn as compared to the average Canadian man with a university degree?

a. university-educated women earn 75% of what men earn
b. university-educated men earn 75% of what women earn
c. university-educated women earn 90% of what men earn

check your answer

16. A single person receiving social assistance in Manitoba lives how close to the poverty-line?

a. 23% below the poverty line
b. 45% below
c. 70% below

check your answer

17. A single mother with 2 children who works full-time, full-year at minimum wage in Manitoba lives how close to the poverty line?

a. 12% above the poverty line
b. 31% below
c. 52% below

check your answer

18. Women with disAbilities face economic disadvantage in the labour market that are greater, lessor or equal to the their male counterparts?

a. greater than male counterparts
b. lessor than
c. equal to

check your answer

 

19. How do Women who are part of visible minority groups compare to other Women in terms of likelihood to be persistently poor?

a. more likely
b. less likely
c. about the same

check your answer

20. What percentage of federally incarcerated women have children?

a. 1/3
b. 1/2
c. 2/3

check your answer

What is Poverty?

An introduction to the concept
There are a number of standards set by different policy analysts to measure who is poor and who is not. Governments determine their criteria (and by extension a course of action) based on the evaluation that fits their policy agenda; this of course boils down to political decisions. But there are a number of widely recognized ways to measure poverty and deprivation levels. The following section outlines a few of these methods and clarifies some of the common terminology.

Poverty Versus Inequality
The term ‘poverty’ is meant to represent an absolute status or condition, relating to scarcity or lack. Inequality, on the other hand, is a relative measurement of the distribution of resources.

In Canada, many anti-poverty activists speak about the ‘poverty line’ in terms of Statistics Canada’s definition of a low-income cut-off (LICO), which represents the number of Canadians who spend 20 percent more of their gross income on food, shelter and clothing than the average Canadian. But, as Statistics Canada (STATSCAN) regularly points out, this is a measure of income inequality. Such relative definitions don't really tell us about poverty, but rather about inequality, or the way that wealth is distributed.

What is Child Poverty?
Nevertheless, the low-income cut-off (LICO) is still the most used ‘poverty’ indicator. As a measurement, it is based on the concept that people in poverty live in compromised circumstances-defined as spending a disproportionate amount of their total gross income on food, clothing, and shelter.

Household expenditure surveys conducted by Statistics Canada show that the average family spends 35 percent of their gross income (total income from all sources before tax) on food, clothing, and shelter.

A family is considered to be in "straightened circumstances" if they spend 55 percent of their income on these three items. The LICO’s include 35 low-income thresholds based on size of households and size of community (since urban settings are generally more costly places to live). Based on its survey, STATSCAN then tabulates the number of families with children 18 years and younger that live in households with gross incomes below their respective threshold.

Statistics Canada (STATSCAN)
Since the early 1970s, STATSCAN has produced the LICO statistic. In the late 1980s, a second measure called the Low Income Measure (LIM) began gaining popularity for certain types of analyses. Both represent relative measurements, but in the absence of any real poverty line, they are often interpreted as the official poverty line.

Market Basket Measure
STATSCAN’s website reports that there is a government-sponsored initiative underway in Canada, to devise a needs-based measure of poverty called the Market Basket Measure (MBM). In a sense, the MBM would represent a kind of absolute measure of poverty whereby the ‘poverty line’ would be based on the income needed to purchase a ‘basket’ of market-priced goods and services deemed necessary for acceptable living.

Read STATSCAN’s position on ‘poverty’ measurements

The World Bank
The World Bank calculates international poverty estimates by following a similar principle to the MBM basket measure. In order to express a poverty line based on a common unit across countries, reference lines of $1/day and $2/day are established using so-called Purchasing Power Parity dollars ($PPP). $PPP’s streamline currency values in order to estimate how much it will cost to buy necessary goods and services in different countries.

As of 1998, using this methodology, the World Bank estimated that 1.2 billion people had consumption levels below $1/day (including 24 percent of the developing world’s population), while 2.8 billion people lived on less than $2/day.

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) uses yet another relative measure of poverty. It takes all of the after-tax incomes in a particular country and finds the income such that half the country’s people make more and half make less. That makes up the median after-tax income; anyone who makes less than half of that median income is considered poor.

By that measure, Canada's poverty rate in the 1993-1995 period was 10.9 per cent. In the US, the rate is 16 percent, while in Denmark it's 4.7 per cent. This is similar to STATSCAN’s Low Income Measures (LIM) mentioned above.

The Fraser Institute
The Fraser Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Vancouver, has taken exception to what it calls, an inflation of poverty figures due to misrepresentations of the LICO indicator by many anti-poverty groups. The Institute commissioned its own report, prepared by Chris Sarlo, an economics professor at Nipissing University. The report, called Measuring Poverty in Canada, estimates that 8 percent of Canadians are living in poverty, compared to the oft-cited 17 percent.

Using what Professor Sarlo calls a “basic needs” approach, the study calculated the amount of income families in varying locations would require to get by. His poverty line for a family of four in Montreal is around $18,000 per year, or $22,000 per year in Toronto. This starkly contrasts with the $34,000 per year figure that is often used by social advocacy groups as a cross-country estimate.

Read more about the Fraser Institute’s Measuring Poverty in Canada report and find a pdf version of it here.

Poverty in Parliament

Where the parties stand on poverty issues
Given that there is so much room for interpretation, it is understandable that a variety of perspectives prevail on Parliament Hill. Here is a short rundown of the party lines on poverty issues.

Liberal Party
As with many policy areas, the Liberals have been accused of being aimless with regard to poverty issues. The 1990s will go down in history as a decade of fiscal responsibility and major cutbacks to social programs. Anti-poverty activists have been disillusioned by the decade’s results, but are hopeful that the Jean Chrétien’s so-called ‘legacy’ campaign will result in a reinvestment in social programs to cut poverty levels.

Alliance Party
The Alliance Party is renowned for representing the interests of Canada’s corporate community, but also advocates the rehabilitation of traditional family structures. As such, they emphasize that government should not expend a disproportionate amount of its resources on social equality. Instead, it places the onus on other community institutions (e.g. churches, charitable organizations, etc.) to strengthen Canada’s social fabric and ameliorate the effects of economic problems, such as poverty.

New Democratic Party
Poverty is central to the New Democratic Party (NDP) platform. They posit that aggressive wealth re-distribution and government expenditures on social programs are the most effective solution for poverty and inequality. The NDP feels that investing in Canada’s human resources and social infrastructure will provide a net benefit for Canada’s productive capacity.

Progressive Conservatives Party
As a more established version of the right-centre position, the Progressive Conservatives (PC) emphasize fiscal responsibility above all else. But in many ways, the PCs have become indistinguishable, walking a middle ground between the Liberals and the Alliance Party; while pushing for investment in affordable housing projects, they also call for restraint on taxation levels and wealth redistribution.

Parti Québécois
Despite their reluctance to represent a national interest, the Parti Québécois holds a left-of-centre belief in social democracy and re-distributive economic policies. They emphasize an amelioration of the economic and social polarization that ‘globalization’ has brought to Québéc.

Poverty from Coast to Coast

Provincial poverty numbers

There is a wealth of information pertaining to poverty in Canada, much of it available on the Internet. Here is a sampling of some the data that has made waves of late.

The Statistics Canada 2001 Census provided the first tally of Canadians living in shelters. The following tables are a summary of their findings.

Summary of STATSCAN figures:

STATSCAN figures compiled by CBC:

Child Poverty Rates

Using STATSCAN’s LICO measurement, the Canadian Council on Social Development released a sombre report that included the following figures for child poverty rates across the country (1990-1996).

‘Basic Needs’ Poverty Lines

Using its own ‘basic needs’ methodology, the Fraser Institute published the following delineation of poverty lines across the country.

Fraser Institute: Measuring Poverty in Canada

Comparing Poverty: Canada and the World

How Canada stacks up among similar states

While Canada routinely ranks among the top three countries in the world for overall living standards, UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) has criticized the Canadian government for maintaining disproportionately high levels of child poverty.

In 2001, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) did a study of all 29 of its member states looking at poverty rates and found that 47 million children in these countries live below the poverty line.

The report primarily examines inequality, using the OECD’s own methodology of after-tax relative measurements (i.e. total income is half or less of the average national income).

Förster, M. (2000), “Trends and driving factors in income distribution and poverty in the OECD area”, Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Paper, No. 42, OECD, Paris.

OECD Child Poverty Statistics

Child poverty statistics (i.e. the percentage of families with children under the age of 18 whose income is half or less of the average national income) were also provided.

USA has one of the highest rates of relative child poverty of all OECD members. 22.4 percent of its children live in poverty; second only to

• Mexico, with 26.2 percent
• Italy’s rate is 20.5 percent
• United Kingdom sits at 19.8 percent
• Turkey 19.7 percent
• Canada is at 15.5 percent
• Australia at 12.6 percent
• Germany at 10.7 percent
• Hungary at 10.3 percent
• France at 7.9 percent
• Finland at 4.4 percent
• Sweden 2.6 percent

The report found an overall correlation between higher levels of public expenditures and lower relative poverty measures.

Social Consequences of Poverty

Some of the ramifications of poverty for Canadian society

The effects of poverty reach beyond hardships for individuals and families.

Many reports have documented connections between poverty and low birth-weights, increased illness, lower labour force participation, family disintegration, and increased rates of homicide or suicide.

Education and development studies have further confirmed this issue. A number of surveys have found that children at the lower end of the socio-economic scale had poorer health and developmental outcomes than children in the middle, and that children at the top of the socio-economic scale had better results still.

Parents at the lower end of the scale showed some effects of living in poverty. They suffered increased stress and difficulties functioning with their children and higher levels of depression, both of which are bound to have serious effects on the capacity of parents to take care of their children.

While living standards are difficult to measure or calculate, the basic economic ramifications of poverty are easier to deduce. Economic performance is markedly affected by the problems associated with poverty. The productive capacity of a healthy workforce has been shown to be greater than that of an unhealthy workforce.

Source: Poverty In Canada: The New Reality Facing Canadians - Mapleleafweb.com

Answers

1. Correct answer is b. » 1.2 billion
In 1999, 1.2 billion people lived on less than $1 a day. 300 million is the number of people living on less than $1 a day in sub-Saharan Africa alone. 2.8 billion is the number of people living on less than $2 a day in developing countries.

Go to question 2

2. Correct answer is a. » increased
Excluding China, the number of people living on less than $1 a day has increased from 916 million in 1990 to 936 million in 1999.

Go to question 3

3. Correct answer is c. » 91 million
In 1999, 91 million people were estimated to be living on less than $2 a day in Europe and Central Asia.

Go to question 4

4. Correct answer is a. » $480
In 2000, Sierra Leone's GNI per capita in PPP terms was $480. $3,340 was Syria's GNI per capita in PPP terms, and $5,680 was Panama's.

Go to question 5

5. Correct answer is c. » 30
The average for the richest twenty countries in the world was 15 times the average for the poorest twenty countries in 1960, and it is now 30 times — twice as high.

Go to question 6

6. Correct answer is b. » 7 billion
The world population is forecast to reach 7.1 billion by 2015.

Go to question 7

7. Correct answer is c. » 97 percent
97 percent of the increase in world population will take place in developing countries.

Go to question 8

8. Correct answer is b. » 41 percent
In 2000, 41 percent of developing countries' population lived in cities. 28 is the percentage of people living in cities in South Asia, while 79 is the percentage of people living in cities in High Income economies.

Go to question 9

9. Correct answer is c. » 1,000
1,000 women die for every 100,000 live births in Eritrea and the Central African Republic.

Go to question 10

10. Correct answer is b. » 58
Infant mortality in the developing world has decreased from 110 per 1,000 live births in 1970 to 58 per 1,000 live births in 2000.

Go to question 11

11. Correct answer is b. » 41 per 1,000
Between 1988 and 1998, in the developing world, 41 girls out of 1,000 died between the ages of one and five. In East Asia, 13 girls out of 1,000 died between the ages of one and five, and in Sub-Saharan Africa 114 out of 1,000.

Go to question 12

12. Correct answer is c. » 39 years
Life expectancy in Botswana has decreased from 58 years in 1980 to 39 years in 2000, mostly because of the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Go to question 13

13. Correct answer is c. » over 95 percent
Over 95 percent of people with HIV/AIDS live in the developing world.

Go to question 14

14. Correct answer is b. » 870 million (one in four)
In 1998, 870 million adults in the developing world (one in four) were illiterate.

Go to question 15

15. Correct answer is c. » 66 million (60 percent)
60 percent of the 110 million children out of school in the developing world today are girls (66 million).

Go to question 16

16. Correct answer is b. » 31 percent
In 2000, 31 percent of women living in the developing world (one in three) were illiterate. 21 is the percentage of women who are illiterate in East Asia. 39 was the percentage of illiterate women in the developing world in 1990.

Go to question 17

17. Correct answer is a. » 0 years
In India and Pakistan, as well as in Benin and Mali (among other West African countries), the median grade completed among 15 to 19 years olds from the bottom 40 percent of households is zero.

Go to question 18

18. Correct answer is c. » 90 percent
In cities in the developing world, only 10 percent of sewage is discharged after treatment.

Go to question 19

19. Correct answer is c. » 550 percent
Carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 550 percent between 1960 and today.

Go to question 20

20. Correct answer is b. » 0.22 percent
Although industrialized countries set 0.7 percent of GNP as the target for Official Development Assistance in the 1970s, only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden have reached or exceeded that target.

Go to the Poverty in Canada Quiz

1. Correct answer is c. » 1.1 million
One in six children, or 1,139,000 children, still lives in poverty in Canada - a 21% increase since 1989

According to Campaign 2000, 16.2% of all children, or more than 1.1 million children, remained in poverty in 2000. In the same year, two parent families with children actually fell deeper into poverty. These families would need an additional $10,032, on average, just to reach the poverty line. And despite some improvement, female lone-parent families would still require an additional $8,500 to reach the pre-tax LICO (Low Income Cut-offs).

Go to question 2

2. Correct answer is a. » 1989
"This house seeks to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000."
— House of Commons unanimous all party resolution, November 24, 1989

Go to question 3

3. Correct answer is c. » stayed the same
18.4% of children under age 18 were living in low income in 2000, a number virtually unchanged from 1990, (decreased down slightly from 19.4% in 1980).

Go to question 4

4. Correct answer is a. » increased
While low income among children with Canadian born parents has declined during each of the past two decades, the low income rate among children with immigrant parents has increased dramatically.

The low income rate among children where at least one parent immigrated in the previous decade was at 33% in 2000, up from 27% in 1990 and 20% in 1980. When both parents had immigrated in the last decade, the low income rates were even higher- 39% in 2000, 33% in 1990 and 22% in 1980. Conversely, among children with Canadian born parents 16% were in low income in 2000 compared with 17% in 1990 and 19% in 1980.

Go to question 5

5. Correct answer is a. » increased
Inequality grows: no gains for poorest families while top earners surge further ahead during the past decade. While families at the bottom half of income distribution showed little improvement through the 1990’s, the richest 10% of Canadian families experienced substantial gains. In 2000 the combined income of the 10% of Canadian families with the highest incomes accounted for 28% of total family income, up from 26% in 1990. The 10% of families with the lowest income made up less than 2% of all family income, similar to 1990 levels.

Go to question 6

6. Correct answer is c. » Toronto, Vancouver
Biggest income gaps in Toronto, Vancouver. For every dollar of income flowing into the poorest ten percent of families in Toronto, families in the top ten percent received $27.30. Vancouver had the next largest gap, with the lowest ten percent of families living on an average income of $8,700 and the highest having an average income of $205,200.

Go to question 7

7. Correct answer is c. » $3,500
A lone mother with a typical $10,000 annual income would pay almost $3,500 in user fees in Saskatchewan but could have her child care fees entirely covered in Ontario.

Go to question 8

8. Correct answer is b. » 2.8 million
In 1997, 2.8 million women, 19% of the total female population in Canada, were living in low-income situations and 56% of all families headed by single mothers were living in poverty.

Go to question 9

Source: Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (RTF doc)

9. Correct answer is b. » social assistance policy
In 1989, Louise Gosselin went to court in Quebec to challenge massive cuts to social assistance benefits imposed by Quebec's "workfare" programme. As a single person under 30, employable, but not enrolled in a workfare placement, Ms. Gosselin had her benefits drastically reduced from an entitlement of $434 per month to a mere $158. Eventually it was increased, but only by about $30 to just $185 per month. It is largely undisputed that no one could find adequate food and housing in Montreal for this paltry amount. As a result, thousands of young women and men on social assistance had to resort to degrading or illegal activities just to survive. Ms. Gosselin was forced to endure homelessness, an abusive relationship, and other risks to her security.

Ms. Gosselin challenged the Government of Quebec for denying her, financial assistance adequate to cover the basic necessities of life.

Her case was heard on October 29, 2001 by the Supreme Court of Canada - the first claim under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the first claim under human rights legislation to a right to an adequate level of social assistance for those in need.

Louise Gosselin v. Quebec is the first case where the Supreme Court of Canada has considered whether it is a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to deny low income people adequate welfare – which results in homelessness, hunger and deprivation of other basic needs. ~ CERA & BEWG Press Release dd Dec. 19, 2002

On December 19, 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal and the case lost on a 5-4 split decision.

"The appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Quebec (Montreal), Number 500-09-001092-923 (Louise Gosselin), dated April 23, 1999, heard on October 29, 2001 is dismissed. L'Heureux-Dubé, Bastarache, Arbour and LeBel JJ. are dissenting."
source: www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/com/2002/html/02-12-19.3.html

For more information on the Gosselin case, visit the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL)'s website.

Go to question 10

10. Correct answer is a. » $18 per month
In April 2001 Kimberly Rogers was convicted of welfare fraud for receiving $13,648.31 in student loans while collecting social assistance. She received a conditional sentence of 6 months house arrest and her welfare benefits were suspended for 3 months, leaving her with no source of income to pay her rent or basic needs (food, telephone, utilities, transportation).

In May 2001, Kimberly Rogers launched a charter challenge that, if successful, would have had a major impact on how welfare fraud cases are handled in Ontario. A few weeks later, on appeal of the conviction and sentence, a Toronto judge granted a temporary injunction reinstating Kimberly's benefits.

The monthly benefit for a single person on Ontario Works is $520 a month: $325 for shelter and $195 for basic needs. After a $52 deduction towards the overpayment, and after paying $450 for rent, Kimberly was left with just $18 a month to pay for basic needs.

Kimberly Rogers died during a blistering heat wave, 8 months pregnant, alone and destitute. Her badly decomposed body was found on Aug 9, three days after she had last been seen alive.

An inquest into the death of Kimberly Rogers heard 30 days of evidence over 6 weeks. Final submissions were made to the jury on Dec 11 and 12th.

The 5-member jury delivered their verdict and recommendations on December 19, 2002 recommending an end to the temporary and lifetime welfare bans.

The Ontario government continues to ignore the recommendations from the Rogers Inquest Jury.

Source: DAWN Ontario's Kimberly Rogers site

Go to question 11

11. Correct answer is c. » 96%
The fact that poverty in Canada has risen is reflected in a growing reliance on food banks and emergency shelters. Hunger Count 2000 reported that food bank use grew by 96% between 1989 and 2000.

Source: Beth Wilson with Carly Steinman, Hunger Count 2000: A Surplus of Hunger, for the Canadian Association of Food banks, October 2000.

Food bank use even rose during a period of strong economic growth, increasing 9.4% between 1997 and 2000. The crisis of homelessness and the lack of adequate housing has become a problem that cannot be ignored. The problem is evident not only in the growing numbers of people living on the street and sleeping in emergency shelters, but by the fact that youth and young families are the fastest growing groups of homeless people.

Source: Taking Responsibility for Homelessness: An Action Plan for Toronto. Report of the Mayor’s Homelessness Action Task Force. City of Toronto, January 1999, p. 50

Go to question 12

12. Correct answer is b. » 1 out of 4
28.1% of all Canadians experienced poverty between 1990 and 1995.

Go to question 13

13. Correct answer is b. » 68% of what other women earn
The average woman in Canada earns slightly more than the average aboriginal man while aboriginal women earn only 67.6% of what aboriginal men earn.

Go to question 14

14. Correct answer is c. » 49%
Almost half of single Canadian women over the age of 65 live in poverty, meaning they receive less than Statistics Canada Low-Income Cut Off (LICO).

Go to question 15

15. Correct answer is a. » university-educated women earn 75% of what men earn
A university-educated woman in Canada earns only 3/4 of what a university-educated Canadian man earns.

Go to question 16

16. Correct answer is c. » 70% below the poverty line
A single person, without dependants, in Manitoba lives 70% below the poverty line.

Go to question 17

17. Correct answer is c. » 52% below
A single mother with 2 children who works full-time, all year lives more than 50% below the poverty line.

Go to question 18

18. Correct answer is a. » greater than male counterparts
Women with disabilities face economic disadvantage in a number of respects. In her comprehensive economic portrait of disability in Canada, Gail Fawcett (1996: 151) states that:

"compared to their male counterparts, women with disabilities have lower rates of participation in the labour force, higher rates of unemployment when they are in the labour force, lower employment earnings, less access to the more generous income support programs, and higher rates of poverty overall."

Go to question 19

19. Correct answer is a. » more likely
Women who are part of visible minority groups are about twice as likely to be persistently poor than other women, but interestingly, displayed a lower incidence of transitional poverty. Analysis in The Dynamics of Women's Poverty in Canada, a report by Status of Women Canada, suggests that immigration status, recent immigration especially, is an important contributing factor to the prevalence of persistent poverty among women from visible minority groups.

Go to question 20

20. Correct answer is b. » 2/3
2/3 of federally sentenced women have children. Most were the primary, if not sole, caregivers for their children prior to their incarceration. It is not unusual for a mother in prison to be declared an 'unfit' parent, whose children are taken away by authorities and placed in state custody. This is the most central problem for women in prison after their release.

Among federally sentenced women, 23% were Aboriginal, 90% of whose backgrounds included physical abuse and 61% sexual abuse. Also, many were adopted or placed in non-Aboriginal foster homes where they experienced intense racism from an early age.

Incarceration often results in loss of employment, housing, support from family and friends, as well as the loss of children to the state.

Go to Responses of Canadian children to the question “What does poverty mean?”

Excerpts from the Status of Women Canada report: The Dynamics of Women's Poverty in Canada -

Conclusion

The solution to women's poverty lies in providing a range of options that afford women a choice over their lives. The fact that women are more vulnerable to poverty and that their poverty hangs on access to the income of other family members as we have found in this study suggests that there is an acute need for policies and programs that foster women's economic independence. The link between economic security and dependency through marriage or other personal relationships, revealed in this study, is problematic. Paid employment is clearly one route to greater economic autonomy, but only one. In addition, we need to look at issues of autonomy within households and vis-à-vis the state. Alleviating women's poverty is ultimately about giving women choice: the choice to pursue paid labour, the choice to care for others or even follow other personal interests without sacrificing their own well-being or the well-being of their families.

From the Executive Summary:

This report examines gendered dimensions of movements into and out of poverty, drawing on the new longitudinal Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for 1993 to 1994. Specifically, it looks at the situation of different groups of women in an effort to identify the interaction of competing forces shaping women's movement into and out of poverty, and key transitional events in women's lives which have an impact on their economic security and the rights of citizenship...

These data suggest that a multi-faceted approach is necessary to alleviate women's poverty, one that combines specific initiatives targeted at high-risk groups (such as single mothers and older women) and initiatives that improve women's economic standing more generally.

Anti-Poverty Strategies:

1) Transform current social assistance program into one based on citizenship.
2) Reduce relative importance of means-tested programs in supporting poor women.
3) Enrich benefit levels.
4) Recognize the value of caring labour in program design and delivery.
5) Provide a flexible range of income support programs.
6)Integrate income support options with long-term education and/or employment strategies.
7) Provide "bridging" programs.
8) Address gender inequities in immigration policy.
9) Provide a range of support services for all poor women.

Fostering Women's Equality

1) Introduce and enforce equal opportunity and pay equity laws and programs to reduce workplace discrimination.
2) Enhance and enrich paid maternity, parental and family leave.
3) Build a high-quality, affordable and accessible public child care system.
4) Address conditions in the low-wage labour market.
5) Facilitate the organization of workers.
6) Encourage a more equitable balance of power and resources within families/households.
7) Value caring labour.

Go To Top

Return to DAWN Ontario index page

Go To Top

Page last updated August 31, 2003