SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Matthew Green

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • NDP
  • Hamilton Centre
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $131,250.15

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24
Mr. Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, NDP)
  • May/8/24 6:22:15 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, there are few opportunities to rise in the House that give me the type of honour that has been bestowed upon me to speak alongside my incredible colleague and seatmate, the member for Winnipeg Centre, on this particular issue this evening. There are few topics I could speak to that connect more with the material conditions for people in Hamilton Centre. New Democrats come to our politics honestly. We come to them by viewing, watching and observing, and many times experiencing, the struggles, the poverty and the abject conditions that people face, the legislated poverty. Watching people suffer in my city has radicalized me over the years because there is, for some reason, a notion that it has always been done this way. There is no alternative. It always has to be this way. We have to be in this zero-sum economy of winners and losers, and the concentration of wealth and prosperity in this country always has to be distributed to the top. We can look at what is before us in the bill for a guaranteed basic livable income. We heard something from even the Conservative members who spoke on the bill. They admit that there is an opportunity to put this bill to second reading, and to begin to have a discussion about how we can lift people truly out of poverty and raise the material conditions for people. This is not a new topic. I will share with members that in Hamilton, much like the material conditions that exist for people in Winnipeg Centre, people continue to struggle. Often we are the canaries in the coal mine. When city centres like Toronto catch a cold, we suffer the most. I will share with members something that goes back to 2009. We first started the social assistance review, and I was in rooms with people such as Tom Cooper from the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction. It was led by people with lived experience and included the campaign for adequate welfare and disability, and people like Elizabeth McGuire, and Margie and Dan Gould, folks who were legislated to live in poverty. In talking about that, let us put things into perspective for a moment. Forget about the ultrawealthy. We can barely conceive, in this country, what a billion dollars is. However, there is something that people who are watching tonight can understand, and it is clear. Currently, in this province, Ontario Works is $733 a month. That is $733 a month to live in this economy. When we talk about the cost of living, what we are talking about is the crisis of capitalism, runaway profits and the inability for people to meet their basic needs. We are talking about the crumbling of the mythology of a liberal economy where people should be able to work hard, go to school, get good jobs and take care of their families. That is no more. Quite rightly, my compassionate colleague refocused us with the understanding that people's worth and value ought not be tied to their employment, their productivity and our GDP. Humans have an inherent worth, regardless of how they are utilized within a capitalist economy. I will share that people who are living right now on ODSP, sentenced to live in poverty, are receiving $1,300 a month. How can anybody, anywhere, with a straight face, say that that is enough for people to survive? The Liberal government has the audacity to suggest that an additional $200 a month would cover it. There are a lot of people who think that this is the only way that things can be done and there is no alternative. The member for Winnipeg Centre brought up the example of Dauphin. Right in Hamilton, not too long ago, there was a provincial Liberal government that put in a basic income. That is not to be confused with the guaranteed livable income. The basic income project was, in fact, legislated poverty because it still sentenced people to live below the low-income cut off. I find it abhorrent that the Liberal member for Winnipeg North stood up and completely dismissed this, when 80% of the Liberals' membership, in their last policy convention, stood for this. The Liberals continue to pay lip service to lifting people out of poverty, while standing up and having the audacity to dismiss a real discussion about this at second reading. I say shame to the member. Let us talk about the Hamilton basic income pilot project that was brought up. I want people to take a moment to humanize the issue. There was some incredible work done by Jessie Golem, who put together the “Humans of Basic Income” photography series. She profiled people like my friend Tim Button, as well as my dearly missed comrade Michael Hampson, a disability justice advocate who spoke to this pilot project in Hamilton. It was a project that granted people a meagre $17,000 a year, which is still well below the low-income cut-off. About that little lift up, he said, “It changed my life. Gave me back my dignity and faith in my community. ODSP chained me in poverty, causing high stress and poor nutritional opportunities.” He said that basic income gave healing to the recipients. This was a man we sorely lost during COVID. Today, I rise to honour him and to lift up his voice. I rise to lift up all the voices of the Hamiltonians who, for a brief moment, were given a bit of life and dignity. By having this support, people could then pursue the education options they wanted, have the opportunity to transition into jobs and, yes, flee gender-based violence. That is what we are talking about in this moment. That is why this bill is so important. For anybody who would not have the courage to at least allow this to go to second reading and have the discussion, I want them to think about those humans of basic income. I want them to think about and look at the encampments they have in their communities. We talk about the runaway crisis of capitalism, the way the profiteering is happening and the corporate concentration of wealth. There is prosperity in this country. Right now it is not a supply issue with housing. We have condos dotting the skies, cranes going up every day, and year after year a record number of building permits. We also have record numbers of people sentenced to live in tents in this country. In this country, New Democrats believe that everybody has the right to dignity, safety, housing, food, the necessities of life, education and opportunity. The audacity of the liberalism that speaks about the middle-class and those working hard to join them, as though what they lie about is that the most hard-working people in this country are the ones sentenced to live in low-income, in subsistence and in deep poverty, is what we are here to change today. Madam Speaker, before I conclude, I am going to go ahead and beat my Liberal colleagues to the punch. I withdraw the term “lie”.
1202 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border