Greens Call for Poverty Elimination Strategy

Greens Call for Poverty Elimination Strategy

Monday, February 28, 2011 at 14:19

The federal Green Party is advocating for a national poverty elimination strategy.

The strategy it would like to see would involve universal daycare, more adequate affordable housing and an instant $5000 given to families in poverty to they could have some finances while they re-enter the workforce.

Rebecca Harrison is the party’s poverty elimination critic and is running in the Whitby-Oshawa riding next election.

Harrison says the Green Party doesn’t want to take ownership of the strategy, as she says it shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and many non-government groups are calling for the same thing.

Harrison says at least 10 per cent of children in Canada are in poverty, and she says in some cases that is higher.

She says a disproportionate amount of those children are Aboriginal.

Harrison doesn’t know what kind of price tag would come with a poverty elimination strategy but notes a 2008 report by the Ontario food banks said the cost of poverty then was $30 billion.