Canada's Poor face Emergency :UN

[ken hanly <northsunm@xxxxxxxxx>]

Canada's poor face `emergency': UN
UN group says social programs lacking
Sharply critical on rights of aboriginals
May 23, 2006. 05:28 AM
JOHN GODDARD
STAFF REPORTER


Welfare benefits in most provinces have dropped in
value in the past 10 years and often amount to less
than half of basic living costs, a UN watchdog group
charged yesterday.

The employment insurance program needs to be more
accessible, minimum wages don't meet basic needs, and
homelessness and inadequate housing amount to a
"national emergency," says the UN body's report from
Geneva.

The watchdog committee is formally called the UN
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It
last examined Canada's performance in 1998, and sat
for three weeks this month taking submissions on five
countries including Monaco, Liechtenstein, Morocco and
Mexico.

Its sharp criticism of Canada on poverty issues echoes
that voiced last week by a special Toronto task force
of experts ranging from bankers to community
advocates, particularly on questions of employment
insurance and help for the working poor.

On employment insurance, the UN body reported: "In
2001, only 39 per cent of unemployed Canadians were
eligible for benefits ... (and in) Ontario eligibility
rates were even lower."

In Toronto, the local task force said the eligibility
figure stands at 22 per cent.

"Minimum wages in all provinces," the UN report said,
"are insufficient to enable workers and their families
to enjoy a decent standard of living." About 51 per
cent of people using food banks, it also said, are
receiving inadequate social insurance benefits.

In the same vein, the Toronto task force said hundreds
of thousands of working-age Ontarians are living in
poverty and it would take $4.6 billion a year in
overhauled government programs to lift them out of it.

"Having been present at the review, I can tell you
that the committee was dismayed to find that social
assistance rates in Canada bear no resemblance to the
actual cost of living," said Emily Paradis of the
Feminist Organization for Women's Advancement of
Rights, or Forward, a group concerned with
homelessness.

The UN body had much to say about aboriginal rights,
singling out the Lubicon Lake Cree of northern Alberta
for special mention.

Using the uncommonly forceful diplomatic term
"strongly recommends," the committee called on Canada
to reopen land-rights talks and consult the Lubicon
"prior to the grant of licences for economic purposes
on disputed land."

The Alberta government plans to auction oil sands
licences to 50,000 hectares of traditional Lubicon
lands on June 14, Lubicon band negotiator Kevin Thomas
said in a phone interview explaining the reference.

No land negotiations have taken place since 2003, he
said.

Canada has done nothing to end discrimination against
women with Indian status in matters of matrimonial
property, the committee also said.

"When a status woman marries a non-status man she
loses her status and all the rights that go with it
(under federal law)," said Doreen Silversmith of the
Six Nations Confederacy of southwestern Ontario, who
attended the Geneva meetings.

By comparison, a status man marrying a non-status
woman keeps his status.

"It's discrimination," Silversmith said. "It still
hasn't been resolved."

Relative to the general population, poverty rates
remain disproportionately high among "aboriginal
peoples, African-Canadians, immigrants, persons with
disabilities, youth, low-income women and single
mothers," the report said.

The same gap exists when it comes to access to water,
health, housing and education, it said. And aboriginal
and African-Canadian families "are over-represented in
families whose children are relinquished to foster
care."

The UN committee congratulated Canada on progress in
some areas.

Fewer people are living below what the federal
government calls the "low-income cut-off" line and
others call the poverty line. The rate improved to
11.2 per cent in 2004 compared to 13.7 per cent in
1998.

Maternity and parental benefits have been extended to
one year from six months, the committee said
approvingly.

Disparities between aboriginal people and the rest of
the population narrowed regarding infant mortality and
high school enrolment. Measures were taken toward
equal pay for equal work. And foreign aid currently
stands at 0.33 per cent of gross domestic product, up
from 0.27 per cent in 2004, the UN committee said.

In London yesterday, Amnesty International reported
that the focus on counter-terrorism and public
security in developed countries is draining attention
from crises afflicting the poor and underprivileged.

In its 2006 annual report, the human rights watchdog
also urged the UN to address abuses in the Darfur
region of western Sudan, where violence has killed
more than 180,000 people and displaced 2.5 million
since 2003.

Amnesty also urged Washington to close the prison in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and asked for full disclosure on
prisoners implicated elsewhere in the "war on terror."


with files from the associated press