Hon. Kim Pate: Thank you to Senator Gagné and Senator Marshall for their comments. I echo the appreciation expressed to all members of the Finance Committee, as well as the support staff.

Honourable senators, the government has committed to recovery for all — a response to COVID-19 that leaves no one behind, neither during nor after this pandemic. The reality so far is, quite frankly, starkly inadequate.

A significant part of Supplementary Estimates (B) concerns responses to the pandemic. Millions of Canadians remain below the poverty line, yet for nearly two years meaningful economic supports have been unavailable to those who vitally need them. The evidence continues to roll in with regard to the avoidable human, social and financial toll of excluding disproportionate numbers — in fact, millions — of women, Indigenous, African-Canadian and other racialized people, as well as those with disabilities.

We have an opportunity and duty to urge the government to be bold. Emerging from this pandemic should not mean going back to normal but, rather, building toward greater equality.

Programs like the CERB and CRB have demonstrated the difference that direct income supports can make for those in need. For many who lost jobs or income as a result of the pandemic, $2,000 per month meant being able to put the health and well-being of themselves, their families and communities first, without the worry of how to feed their families or the spectre of eviction.

For those who did not qualify for programs like the CERB because their incomes were too low, new data reaffirms the inadequacy of the alternative supports available. Already inadequate social assistance payments were compounded by inadequate emergency pandemic supports. In some provinces, a single person was left with as little as $660 per month. This had to cover not only everyday necessities such as housing, food and clothing, but the many extra costs of trying to safely survive the pandemic.

In many provinces, the combined provincial and territorial emergency pandemic benefits for those on social assistance amounted to only 1 to 2% of what a CERB recipient received — $24 per month, or less than a dollar a day.

Across Canada, people continued to be abandoned to poverty at a time when it became impossible to ignore the link between economic stability, health and well-being. There was not a single jurisdiction, not a single province or territory, where amounts were sufficient to get people out of deep poverty, let alone above the poverty line.

Even for those who were able to access programs like the CERB, there are sharp differences in outcomes for those with the least and those who are more well off.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, this year about 88,222 of Canada’s lowest-income seniors lost part or all of their entitlement to a non-pandemic basic income program, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, on which they rely to make ends meet. Why? Because they claimed CERB last year, and when their new GIS payments were calculated this summer based on last year’s income, CERB payments were counted.

The situation is more dire for many who claimed CERB in good faith and later found out they were not eligible. They are being told to make CERB repayments to the government. At the same time, their GIS payments have been cut. Where will they get the money to repay? How will they survive this, let alone live?

Families have also seen cuts to Canada Child Benefit payments for the same reason. Since at least May, federal officials have acknowledged this problem with CERB and similar types of pandemic supports, such as the CRB and the recently proposed Canada worker lockdown benefit, and yet have not taken corrective steps. The effect on lowest-income recipients has been the worst.

While CERB has functioned as intended for many higher-income recipients, for those with less, the programs have not prevented but have only delayed economic hardship. Against this backdrop, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic alone, the wealth of 47 Canadian billionaires increased by $78 billion.

For decades, wealth inequality has been increasing in Canada. As of 2019, one quarter of Canada’s family net wealth was held by 1% of families. The 40% of families with the least had access to a mere 1.1% of total wealth.

To date, pandemic economic policy has reinforced — worse yet, increased — inequalities.

Honourable senators, we have not yet seen recovery for all, and we have an obligation to demand nothing less.

On the eve of the pandemic, in more than half of the households in which people went hungry, family members were working but not earning enough to cover the costs of basic necessities. Economic inequality results in worse health and social outcomes. It also contributes to outrageous and unacceptable situations such as the steady increase in and reliance on food banks. Too many forced to seek such sustenance are seniors and people with disabilities. Many food banks also report a significant number of clientele who are workers, too many of whom are also living in homeless shelters. Food banks were created as temporary measures. They have become permanent fixtures with significant costs that treat the symptoms but fail to address the root causes of poverty, inadequate wages and income supports.

Escalating economic inequality leads to increased costs in terms of homelessness, shelters, the criminal legal system and emergency health care. It also significantly impedes economic growth.

In 2014, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, found that rising inequality in wealthy countries significantly impacts gross domestic product.

Furthermore, the UN’s World Social Report 2020 emphasizes that slower economic growth is associated with income inequality, in particular because of disparities in health care and education.

Today, the National Advisory Council on Poverty reported that, relative to 2015 levels, the government had reduced poverty by 30% by 2020, but they caution that the numbers conceal the deep inequities that persist in Canada. They recommend a whole-of-society approach to create equitable systems to address poverty.

The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance is still awaiting a full response from the Department of Finance to questions regarding how the government is evaluating whether the measures it is proposing in the supplementary estimates are expected to achieve recovery for all.

Unfortunately, what we have seen so far reveals we are missing the mark. It is long past time, honourable senators, for measures like a guaranteed liveable income to ensure that no one is left behind. Poverty puts people’s health, well-being and lives at risk. Alleviation is a question of human rights that Canada cannot afford to continue to ignore.

Thank you, honourable senators. Meegwetch.