Jason Mann
Communist Party of Canada
Prince George Collective
Their mother, Kim, who asked that all their names be changed, is delighted the kids are so happy. Life has been rough for them lately. She, her husband, Leo, and the three youngsters, aged 8, 6 and 4, live on the first floor of an old brick home in downtown Toronto. A tattered sheet divides the kids' bedroom from the living room, which serves as the adults' quarters. Insulation protrudes through holes in the ceiling tiles. The situation wouldn't be so bad if it were temporary, Kim says. But it's not: the family has lived in the cramped, $765-a-month apartment for more than two years because that's the best they can afford. She doesn't see them moving anytime soon.
They used to live in a nice large apartment, but it was destroyed in a tire that Tim, their middle child, then 3, set when playing with a cigarette lighter. He and his siblings lost everything in the blaze--toys, books, baby photographs. Tim was recently diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a condition associated with disruptive behaviour, and he becomes aggressive, sometimes violent, when the subject of the tire is brought up.
It took Kim and Leo six months to find their current accommodation, camping out in the interim with friends and relatives. Without subsidized day care, Kim can't afford to work, so Leo, a self-employed handyman, takes on as many jobs as he can find. In winter, he has shovelled neighbours' driveways for a few extra dollars. But when he declares his meagre earnings, social services subtracts the amount from the family's next monthly welfare cheque of $1,047.
That leaves less than $300 a month for all the necessities a family of five needs--and nothing for the little extras that can help make life easier to bear. Kim feels sad about all the normal childhood experiences her children are missing out on, from family outings to buying new back-to-school clothes. She tries to compensate with activities like the tie-dying, which serves both as a pastime and as a source of recycled clothing. But more pressing is her fear her children will remain in a long-term cycle of poverty. John has a hearing impairment, and Kim is waiting to learn whether it can be fixed by surgery. If it can, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan will pay. Otherwise, Kim doesn't know where she'll find the money for hearing aids. Tim is struggling in school and, despite his ADHD, is receiving no extra help. When a visiting reporter asked him about his life, he didn't have much to say. His sorrowful eyes, which look years older than they should, did the talking for him.
This is the reality of what living in poverty is like in Canada. Regardless of how a person defines poverty, the people in these examples are not living up to the standard of living that we would like all Canadians to enjoy.
The calculations used to determine the basic needs lines used by Sarlo are computed with poor statistics and unrealistic assumptions. On page 90 of his book, he states, and quite correctly, the cost for a three bedroom apartment in Toronto is approximately $738 per month. In his calculation of basic needs, he estimates that a family of six in Toronto needs approximately $18,323 to be above the poverty line (Sarlo 112). This would include $8,051 to be spent on the cost of renting an apartment. This works out to be $670, a full $70 less than the cost of renting a three bedroom apartment in Toronto, not including utilities. The family either lives in a two bedroom apartment with the parents in one room and the four children living in the other room or perhaps a three bedroom apartment that is close to being condemned, but shared by 6 people. The food budget for the family amounts to $5,867 (Ibid). This works out to be approximately a little bit more than $2.50 per day per person. The Fraser Institute claims these people can still eat nutritiously according to the Canada food guide. It should be noted that Sarlo is an economist and not a nutritionist. Serious problems are noted in his analysis of dietary needs. Sarlo uses a form of business math known as linear programming, in which, the absolute lowest cost of eating can be found by a series of mathematical equations, for example, the precise number of pickles to eat in a month. The problem with this system is it is a math formula and not a diet developed by a nutritionist. Secondly, Canadians are not mathematicians and do not keep track specifically of what they eat. This system leads to a way of eating that has no variety. The other main flaw in his calculation for food is he classifies cheese as a meat product when cheese, of course, is a dairy product (Sarlo 59). This allows him to lower the average cost of dairy products as well as lower the average cost of meat products. Lowering the average costs of half of the food groups results is an inaccurate conclusion on costs of the dietary needs of Canadians. After calculating food and shelter, the final component of the poverty line is the “Other Necessities” category. For a family of six this category includes clothing, transportation ($359 a year), personal hygiene, cleaning products, telephone and furniture. This category does not include electricity, heating, Christmas presents, school supplies, books, entertainment, basic toys for children, Medicare expenses, prescription drugs, or any other costs associated with four children attending school. These expenses are not actually included in the formation of the Sarlo poverty line at all, in any category. Christopher Sarlo did however update his formation of the line in 1996 to include computer disks, an item not included in the Sarlo poverty line prior to 1996 (Counting the Poor). One should question why Sarlo chose to add computer disks to his calculation of poverty when he did not include electricity. Arguably the poverty line set by Sarlo is far two low. Any family that can afford to pay for the costs of Sarlo’s calculation for food, other necessities, shelter and still be able to afford one prescription (medication or glasses) would be not in poverty according to Sarlo, regardless of the fact that they would not have heating.
Sarlo attempts to take advantage of the fact that there is no official line for poverty in Canada. He correctly points out that Low Income Cut Off lines produced by Statistics Canada are not technically intended to represent poverty but instead represent inequality (Cosh). Sarlo asserts that LICO lines are used only by anti-poverty activists to inflate the rates of poverty in Canada. The Government of Canada in its report “Poverty Profile 1998” uses LICOs as poverty lines. It states that “they are not the only measure of poverty used in Canada, but they are the most widely accepted and are roughly comparable to most alternative measures (Poverty Profile 5). Obviously LICO lines are not only used by social activists, contrary to what Sarlo would like us to believe. As mentioned, there are other alternatives to the Sarlo and LICO lines. A new poverty line being developed by the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Working Group called, The Market Basket Measure of Poverty, could be the new official poverty line for Canada after it has been developed. This line being developed falls between LICO line and basic need lines such as Sarlo’s. Although it does represent a more objective view of poverty than the Sarlo line, it is not by any means an acceptable way of measuring the minimum standard of living for Canadians. Although the Market Basket Measure does include food items such as bread, it refers to bread as a “more costly process[ed] food (Constructing the Revised Market Based Measure). A country that is as well developed as Canada should not have to refer to bread as a costly food.
Improving the conditions of poverty in Canada can only begin when average Canadians truly understand what living in poverty means. There are many misconceptions that unfortunately have been pushed by conservative politicians in order to justify the actions that they take regarding poverty. Such an example of a misconception is displayed by Sarlo himself, quoted in the Edmonton Journal on December 2, 2002,
Continued on next page