SPECIAL Ontario Budget Bulletin - ICERD Review, March 21, April 17 and the ongoing avoidance, denial and dismissal of the growing colour-coded or racialized inequality in Ontario !?

[Colour of Poverty]

Colour of Change Network - SPECIAL Ontario Budget Bulletin ( April 20, 2012 ) - though Ontario and Canada has just gone through a UN review of its considerable failings with respect to their obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination ( ICERD ), and we've just sadly witness the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination ( March 21 ) and April 17 - the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms go largely unacknowledged - officially - across this province and country - with the provincial budget brought forward by the Liberal government - and the ensuing debates and apparent discussions taking place behind closed doors - we see an effective ongoing avoidance, denial and dismissal of the growing colour-coded or racialized inequality in Ontario. In an effort to bring this critical piece into both the political policy deliberations as well as the broader public conversation - see below and attached - a public statement from Colour of Poverty - Colour of Change, as well as a selection of the growing body of research and reporting that serve to ever more disturbingly document these ever more troubling realities and ever more stark inequalities. We need all of your help to get this information out into the widest circulation possible - as well as to put ever greater pressure on both our Liberal and NDP political representatives - so as they cobble together some sort of common positions with respect to the provincial budget - they meaningfully address - see attached our Four Point Plan for Racial Justice priority policy recommendations - these widening and deepening "colour-coded" disparities !!

THIS WEEKEND - please call, email, text or twitter - Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Cabinet colleagues, Andrea Horvath - Leader of the Ontario NDP, and her caucus mates - as well as your MPP's - we need to seize this moment - for REAL initiative - as best we can !!

good luck - michael

COLOUR OF POVERTY – COLOUR OF CHANGE

 

Austerity driven mythologies are driving ever greater inequity – a comment on needed investments and the Ontario budget deficit negotiations.

 

( Toronto – April 20, 2012 ) - In the most recent provincial election, the Liberal party put together a platform that they called “Forward Together”.  Yet the first budget introduced by the McGuinty Government since the election represents a major step backward for the people of Ontario.

 

During the election, Premier McGuinty promised to invest in the skills and education of our people – to get the needed results for individuals, for families and for our economy.  Yet, the budget as brought forward delivers major cuts to our education system, deep cuts to our public services as well as to our health care system – while it does nothing to create good jobs that ALL Ontario families need to prosper.

 

This budget will hurt all Ontarians, but especially those who live on the margins.

 

A recent valuable report from the Wellesley Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives confirms that a "colour code" is keeping racialized communities members – both First Peoples and peoples of colour – out of good jobs in the Canadian labour market.  And of course inequality in employment leads directly to income inequity.  As a result, people from these diverse racialized communities are two to four times, and in some cases up to six or seven times more likely to live in poverty in Ontario.

 

So at a time where the these population groups in the province are moving ever closer to being a full 33% or 1/3 of Ontarians – rather than investing in measures to address the growing racial inequities and income disparities, in its austerity driven obsessions, our Government has completely ignored the impacts of these budget cuts on marginalized groups.  In doing so, it has also effectively abandoned through indifference particularly relevant and valuable initiatives that the Government itself had begun to build to start the work of addressing and redressing these disparities – such as the equity and inclusive strategy in the public education system, the equity agenda in the health system and above all, its Poverty Reduction Strategy.

 

In this budget, the Government has traded equity with “cost effectiveness”.  For instance, it proposes to tie the health funding formula to “efficiency”, without looking at how such a formula may differently impact and affect those communities with additional barriers to accessing health services, as well as disadvantaged individuals with multiple health care needs, who could very well end up getting less health service because it is not “efficient” to serve them.

 

The budget will also reduce at least 1000 full-time public service jobs.  The Government made a promise that the cuts will not affect service.  But we all know that this is simply a promise they cannot keep.  And any time public service is being cut, those who will be most affected are the ones who are most dependent on those same services, namely, low income Ontarians – most of whom are First Peoples, peoples of colour, women, people with disabilities, and new Canadians.

 

Further, cutting good public service jobs does not bring prosperity to this province.  What Ontarians need are more good jobs, equitably accessible good jobs, not less.  We need jobs that come with decent wages, with benefits, and in workplaces where workers’ rights are protected.  Racialized communities members are often denied opportunities to good jobs, but laying off public servants will in no way serve to correct that disadvantage.

 

This is clearly a pro-business budget.  The Government says it will continue to invest $2 billion a year in the Jobs and Prosperity Fund to encourage business investment and job creation.  Yet there is no fixed requirement for the companies that benefit from the fund to adopt equitable hiring principles and practices so that those who are under-represented in the labour market will thereby have equal access to all of the jobs created.

 

The Government wants to have a balanced budget.  But we question the need to balance the budget in five years, and more critically, we challenge the assumption that cutting and slashing public services is the only way to balance a budget. By focusing exclusively on spending cuts, and by refusing to consider more measures to increase revenues – through a truly progressive tax system, the McGuinty government is giving the people of Ontario very short shrift – by denying us all the tools we need to put our financial house in order.

 

Instead of freezing the planned corporate taxes, the government should in fact reverse the tax cuts that have already been implemented – over the last several years.

 

And instead of imposing only a surtax on those making over $500,000 – half a million dollars – a year in income, Ontario should move towards an income and corporate tax system that sees an equitable transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, from the CEOs of the banks to the janitors who clean their offices.

 

In addition, there are several budget-neutral measures that the Government can put in place even now to effectively address the growing “colour-coded” and other inequities.   Critical initiatives like provincial employment equity will help level the playing field for disadvantaged groups without costing the government any money.  Yet to date, neither the Government nor the opposition parties would appear to have put forward any of these much needed equity and fairness delivering policies.

 

Our Government can and should help bring prosperity to every Ontario family.  This can only happen by making sure all Ontarians, regardless of their race, gender and ability, have the supports they need – and the opportunities they deserve – to succeed.   We need our government to invest in public programs and services, to deliver on it stated equity commitments, to create truly universal and accessible education and health care systems, and to design a tax system that would achieve an equitable distribution of wealth.  Then – and only then – will Ontario prosper.

Sampling of recent Research and Reporting on Ontario's growing diversity and "colour-coded" inequality - below AND attached -

1) Population Projections of Visible Minority Groups, Canada, Provinces and Regions in 2017 ( Statistics Canada - March 2005 ) - the report presents the main results of population projections according to some ethno-cultural variables ( visible minority group, immigrant status, religion, mother tongue ) for Canada, provinces and selected metropolitan areas. Based on the January 1st 2001 estimation of the permanent resident population, results of five projection scenarios from a micro-simulation model that take into account differentials in behaviors and intergenerational transfers are presented for the years 2001 to 2017. See - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/bsolc/olc-cel/olc-cel?catno=91-541-X&lang=eng

2) Colour Coded Health Care - The Impact of Race and Racism on Canadians’ Health ( Wellesley Institute - January 2012 ) - http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/health-care/colour-coded-health-care-the-impact-of-race-and-racism-on-canadians-health/
Full Report - http://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Colour-Coded-Health-Care-Sheryl-Nestel.pdf

3) "Sorry, It's Rented" - Measuring Discrimination in Toronto's Rental Housing Market ( Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation - July 2009 ) - http://www.equalityrights.org/cera/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/CERAFinalReport.pdf

4) Colour by Numbers - Minority Earnings in Canada - 1996 - 2006 ( Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Diversity - May 2011 ) - http://mbc.metropolis.net/assets/uploads/files/wp/2011/WP11-05.pdf

5) Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labour Market ( Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Diversity - May 2009 ) - http://mbc.metropolis.net/assets/uploads/files/wp/2009/WP09-03.pdf

6) Canada’s Colour Coded Labour Market - The Gap for Racialized Workers ( Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - March 2011 ) - http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/canadas-colour-coded-labour-market
Full Report - http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2011/03/Colour%20Coded%20Labour%20Market.pdf

7) Census Portraits - Understanding Our Students' Ethno-racial Backgrounds ( Toronto District School Board - May 2011 ) - http://www.tdsb.on.ca/_site/ViewItem.asp?siteid=310&menuid=36377&pageid=30763

8) 2006 Student Census - Linking Demographic Data with Student Achievement - pages 14-19 and 28-39 ( Toronto District School Board - April 2008 ) - http://www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/about_us/external_research_application/docs/2006StudentCensusLinkingAchievementDemoFinal-Email.pdf

9) 2008 Parent Census, Kindergarten-Grade 6 - System Overview and Detailed Findings - pages 11-12 and 24 ( Toronto District School Board - February 2009 ) - http://www.tdsb.on.ca/wwwdocuments/about_us/external_research_application/docs/2008ParentCensusK-6SystemOverviewAndDetailedFindings.pdf

10) Police board chair seeks race-based probe of stops ( Toronto Star - March 15, 2012 ) - following the valuable "Known to Police" series of pieces from the Toronto Star newspaper ( link below - Known to police - Toronto police stop and document Black and brown people far more than whites - Toronto Star - March 9, 2012 ) - the chair of the Toronto Police Services Board is thankfully calling for an independent review of police contacts with citizens, particularly youth from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Alok Mukherjee’s request follows Known to police, the latest piece in a decade-long Star investigation into race, policing and crime in Toronto, which analyzed police contact card data and highlighted the inherent tensions created by police stops of youth, many of them black or brown. “No explanation can provide a credible alternative reason for the significant discrepancy in the contact between the police and young people from different ethno-racial backgrounds.” Mukherjee recommends that the city auditor general Jeff Griffiths “collect and analyze” race-based data from police contacts with citizens and report back with a baseline study and recommendations by the end of 2013. Mukherjee’s needed and critical recommendations will be discussed at the March 22, 2012 meeting of the seven-member Toronto civilian police board. See - http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/1147239--police-board-chair-seeks-race-based-probe-of-stops  and for the complete Known to Police series see -  http://www.thestar.com/specialsections/knowntopolice


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michael kerr
Coordinator
Colour of Poverty - Colour of Change
# 1701 - 180 Dundas St. W.
Toronto, Ontario
M5G 1Z8
Canada
Phone - 416-966-3882
Fax - 416-971-6780
E-mail - kerr.m...@gmail.com
Web-site - www.colourofpoverty.ca
Blog - www.racesEDJ.ca
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