A coalition of faith groups in the province says the budget handed down this week does little to address poverty.
The Religious Social Action Coalition (RSAC) brings together various faith groups in the province, including Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh faith groups, to tackle issues mostly related to poverty.
“It’s billed as a ‘stay the course’ budget, which doesn’t address some of the systemic problems that we see through our faith communities week in and week out,” said RSAC co-ordinator David Burrows, a priest with the Anglican Church. “I have a member of my congregation who works two jobs. She works 80 hours a week in one job, and 62 hours a week in another and it’s keeping a household afloat.”
“When you’re faced with making decisions around keeping the heat on versus putting food on the table, or working long hours or spending quality time with family, I think it really shows great concern and also great disservice to the majority of the population.”
In a statement issued by the RSAC, the group wrote that there’s no attention in the budget about problems of people struggling to get by on a minimum wage.
The RSAC acknowledged some initiatives in the budget around daycare, mental health and education. For example, the budget allocated funds to replace the Waterford Hospital with a new mental health facility near the Health Sciences Centre.
It also designated $6.95 million toward implementing more recommendations in the Premier’s Task Force on Improving Educational Outcomes, which includes money to increase the number of reading specialists, learning resource teachers and instructional assistants in schools.
Early childhood development is allocated $61.6 million in the budget — $22 million of which is coming over three years through a bilateral agreement under the federal government’s child care strategy.
The RSAC said these initiatives might affect future generations, but do not help people who are struggling to get by right now.
“We see the importance of a living wage,” Burrows said. “So that people can afford to live in a home, can afford transportation, afford child care, food and also, give them a sense of dignity.
“We’d hoped to see a better distribution of services and wealth such that the gap between the rich and the poor would get smaller, rather than get larger. … That’s ultimately unfair because our belief is if one person in society is poor, then the whole society is poor.”
In the RSAC’s statement, the group also addressed unemployment rates in the province, stating that a rate of 15 per cent is accepted as normal.
“Although the budget avoids public-sector layoffs, it does little to generate employment,” the statement reads. “We realize that the province faces crushing deficits, but we need to do more to reduce poverty and put food on the tables of people who need it.”
Burrows said the RSAC encourages politicians to pledge to eliminate poverty, “and we challenge them on how that’s happening.”
juanita.mercer@thetelegram.com
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