[PEN-L:6768] Statement by Canadian Bishops

[D Shniad <shniad@xxxxxx>]

The Ottawa Citizen            October 17, 1996 - News - A1

Governments 'abuse' children, bishops say:

                  POVERTY LEVELS 'DAMNING,'
                    SAY CATHOLIC LEADERS

                              By: Bob Harvey


   Canada's failure to eliminate child poverty is akin
to "child abuse" by federal and provincial governments,
Canada's Catholic bishops say.
   In the toughest statement any mainstream Canadian
church has made in more than a decade, the bishops say
women and children bear the brunt of government social
and financial policies.
   Governments are pursuing deficit reduction and debt
repayment while "there is no doubt: Poverty must remain
the top priority," the bishops say.
   "To think that almost one Canadian child in five
lives in poverty in one of the richest societies in
world history is nothing less than a damning indictment
of the present socio-economic order," says the 12-page
pastoral letter, to be released today in Halifax before
the bishops' annual meeting.
   The pastoral letter quotes from a recent report by
an inter-church coalition, which said: "In our society,
if a parent denies a child food, clothing, and social
security, it is considered child abuse, but when our
government denies 1,362,000 children the same, it is
simply balancing the budget."
   The bishops' letter, titled The Struggle Against
Poverty: A Sign of Hope for Our World, attacks the
dismantling of Canada's social security system, and
suggests that governments must spend more on education
and health. This was the key to eliminating poverty in
11 countries studied by the United Nations, say the
bishops.
   The bishops' statement got some backing from the
Washington-based Bread for World Institute. It has
released a study that shows that among the world's
industrialized countries, Canada is tied with Australia
with a child poverty rate of 14 per cent, second only
to 22 per cent in the United States. Child poverty
rates are far lower in Europe.
   The Bread for World Institute study sets the
poverty line at one-half the mean family income of a
country, which tends to measure the extent of income
disparity in a society. It is based on 1994 statistics
compiled by the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development and covers children under 18 years of
age.
   The report's editor, Mark Cohen, pointed out that
"poverty is a relative thing. The poverty line in the
U.S. is $15,000 for a family of four, which would not
be poverty in Bangladesh.
   "So what we are showing is that a lot of other
industrialized countries do a lot better in supporting
families with low incomes that we do in the U.S., or
you do in Canada."
   Cohen attributed the disparity to government income
support programs that tend to be less generous and
universal in North America.
   In their statement, the Catholic bishops also put
themselves squarely on the side of women, unions, and
the poor of the Third World.
   Their letter points out that in all age groups,
poverty rates for women are higher than for men, and
the group with the highest poverty rate was single-
parent mothers with children under 18.
   "Solving the problem of poverty among women is the
key to eliminating poverty in Canada," according to the
pastoral letter.
   No one is speaking for the women, aboriginals,
displaced persons, children, and young people in
families, who make up the bulk of Canada's 4.8 million
poor, so Christians must speak out and lobby for
change, the bishops say.
   They also advocate a renewed government emphasis on
job creation. "The most effective anti-poverty remedy
in Canada is a good and steady job.... Canadians can
ill afford to allow the current damaging level of
unemployment."
   The bishops call on Christians to revitalize the
labor movement because of its role in generating higher
wages, improving working conditions and reducing the
salary differential between men and women.
   "What is called for is a new global ethic. The
current catastrophic state of the world eloquently
shows what happens when neoliberal economic policies
impoverish women and men."
   Among those who drafted the statement for the
bishops' social affairs commission were Ottawa's
Archbishop Marcel Gervais and Bishop Francois
Thibodeau, of Edmundston, N.B. They're expected to
present the statement at today's press conference.
   The only comparable church statement in recent
memory is the Catholic bishops' New Year's Eve
statement in 1982, Ethical Reflections on the Economic
Crisis. It was a blistering critique of the
unemployment and suffering caused by then-prime
minister Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government. Trudeau
dismissed the bishops as "poor economists."