The federal government says it has a bold plan to reduce poverty. While the adjective is debatable, the Liberals have at least given Canadians a yardstick to measure them by.
The Opportunity for All plan released on Tuesday has no new spending and no new policies, but it rolls together a bunch of programs that have already been announced and fastens them to a timeline. The government wants to cut 2015 poverty rates in half by 2030.
It aims to lift 650,000 people out of poverty by 2019 over 2015 levels. By 2020, poverty rates would be 20 per cent lower than 2015 figures — about 900,000 fewer people living below the income threshold. If provinces use their powers to supplement federal efforts, even more people could be helped out of poverty.
Even if the efforts succeed as planned, it would still leave 2.1 million people in poverty in 2030, including 534,000 children.
It’s an ambitious goal, and $22 billion is committed to it or promised, including the Canada Child Benefit and rent supplements. Anti-poverty groups aren’t all upset about the lack of new money because they see a plan and some numbers they can use to keep the government honest in its efforts.
The numbers include the “market basket measure,” which will use a basket of goods and services tailored to 50 different communities to determine how many people live in poverty in those communities.
With the yardstick in hand, it will be up to Canadians to hold the government to its promises.
