A recent report from Statistics Canada shows that one
in ten Canadians experienced "food insecurity"in the late 1990s,
but a right-wing think tank wants welfare to be abolished.

While recent reports from the right-wing Fraser Institute running in the Montreal Gazette suggest that many Canadians are poor by choice and welfare laws need to be made tougher, a recent report released by Statistics Canada reveals that 10 percents of Canadians experienced "food insecurity" at some point in 1998 and 1999.

"Food insecurity" means everything from not being able to afford food to being worried about lacking the money to buy food.

Some may be surprised to learn that 2.5 million Canadians couldn't afford to properly feed themselves and another half a million-many of whom were described as "middle class"- were worried they wouldn't be able to feed themselves during the survey period.

Look at the survey results, however, and the number of Canadians who experience "food insecurity" is probably much higher.

Not included among the 50,000 people Statistics Canada surveyed for the report were homeless people or aboriginal people living on reserves. Had these people been able to give the government direct input, it is almost certain the number of people experience "food insecurity" would have skyrocketed.

The Tenant Rights Action Coalition estimates that in 1999 there were over 200,000 homeless people in Canada, and an Aboriginal People's Survey showed that almost one-half of Aboriginal persons (47.2%) lived on less than $10,000 a year in 1990.

The Canadian Association of Food Banks says the number of people using the country's food banks has been steadily increasing for 20 years. In March, nearly 800,000 people were using the nation's 615 food banks, and thousands of others were being turned away because of lack of food supply.

Despite this, recent issues of the Montreal Gazette would have us believe many Canadians choose to be poor.

Earlier this month, the Gazette began publishing on its front page a "series of exclusive excerpts from the forthcoming book Memos to the Prime Minister: What Canada Could be in the 21st Century" and other articles based on research from the Fraser Institute.

On August 9, the "memo" written by Fred McMahon, the director of the social-affairs centre at the Fraser Institute, began "Poverty in Canada could be virtually eliminated in a generation. The policy prescription is easy. End welfare. Reinstitute poorhouses and homes for unwed mothers."

Using a number of sophistic arguments, McMahon aruged that "Given all the opportunities each of us faces, poverty is now largely a voluntary choice."

Arguing that if businesses didn't have fire insurance there would be fewer fires, McMahon believes that if welfare was abolished, more students would stay in school, fewer teenage girls would get pregnant, and people in economically-depressed areas like the Maritimes would find work (instead of collecting employment insurance).

Meanwhile, he fails to address barriers such as high tuition costs, access to birth control, and lack of employment alternatives for people living in areas with natural resource-based economies.

"If all welfare programs were ended tomorrow, it would be catastrophe for those who have become dependent on welfare," wrote McMahon. "But far fewer people would be poor in the future."

He tries to further his argument by pointing out that many immigrants who came to Canada 100 years ago arrived with few possessions, money or the ability to speak English-yet their descendents thrived.

Conveniently forgotten in this is the low life expectancy rate for those early immigrants, the high infant mortality rate, rampant health problems, exploitative factory conditions, and a host of other social ills that lead Canada to create a social safety net in the first place.

Had Canada not addressed these issues in the first half of the 20th century, it would not have prospered as a nation as a much higher percentage of its population would still be living in third world conditions

Instead of viewing wealth as an individual responsibility, Canada recognized that the nation would benefit as a whole if it had a social system that would help its population in times of need.

Earlier this year, Canada's unwillingness to deal with its poverty problem was viewed as a primary reason for it slipping from first to third place in the UN Human Development Index.

The reason Canada managed to stay on top throughout most of the 1990s was because it otherwise excelled when our life expectancy, adult literacy, school enrolment and economic prosperity was compared to the other 173 countries in the world.

When the Canadian Press story on "food insecurity" ran in the Gazette, it shared a page with another Fraser Institute-based article arguing that Canada should adopt a more US-like welfare system.

The article clearly relied on the Fraser Institute's study Surveying Canadian and US Welfare Reform, which argues the Canadian government should follow the US lead and limit how long a person can be on welfare; it should take welfare away from people who aren't complying with welfare's rules (ie: not found to be actively job searching when checked); it should impose immediate work requirements (so people are forced to "work" for their welfare); and instead of focusing on retraining people, it should force people into whatever jobs are available at the time, no matter how menial or low paying.

For-profit welfare providers should also be permitted and there should be a greater reliance on faith-based non-profit organizations to help the poor.

Ironically, the day same day the article ran in the Gazette, the Globe and Mail ran a story about a 40-year-old pregnant woman living in Mike Harris' Ontario who died in her sweltering Sudbury apartment after she had been placed under house arrest for welfare fraud.

Earlier in the year, the woman admitted to collecting welfare while receiving student loans. She wasplaced under house arrest for six months, was asked to make restitution and initially had her welfare payments cut off until social workers intervened on her behalf.

While it doesn't appear her death was a result of heat stroke, this doesn't make her death any less troublesome.

"It stops us all in our tracks and makes us wonder whatever has become of our society that we would condemn a pregnant woman to house arrest in a sweltering apartment without appropriate food, medical care or the … income to survive," said Liberal MPP Michael Gravelle.

Given that at least 10 per cent of our society is suffering from food insecurity while our right-wing owned mainstream press is making argueing for a new social system which would dramatically increasing this figure, now might be the time for Canadians to reconsider how we should best tackle our social programs.

We have a choice.

If we follow the Fraser Institute's advice we can make individuals responsible for their own welfare and transform our society into one that mirror's Dicken's London, or we can collectively deal with this problem as a nation to ensure that in our future one in 10 of us won't go hungry.