On August 21, 2018, Jean-Yves Dulcos, Minister of Families Children and Social Development, released Opportunity for All: Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy / Une chance pour tous : la première Stratégie canadienne de réduction de la pauvreté. This document is touted as Canada’s first poverty reduction strategy.
The strategy bundles mostly already existing initiatives under one of three pillars: Dignity, Opportunity and Inclusion, and Resilience and Security with very little ‘new’ money identified.
The strategy gives an inclusive definition of poverty,
Poverty is: The condition of a person who is deprived of the resources, means, choices and power necessary to acquire and maintain a basic level of living standards and to facilitate integration and participation in society.[1]
I especially like that the definition goes beyond discussing only resources by including power and choice.
In addition, the strategy defines “Canada’s Official Poverty Line” based on the cost of a basket of goods and services and adjusted to account for some 50 regional differences. The strategy will be embedded in an act of Parliament. An advisory council on poverty will be created to advise the Minister.
Chapter 4 deals with the pillar of Opportunity and Inclusion. Literacy and numeracy levels are recognized as critical to reducing poverty,
Promoting opportunity means removing barriers and helping all Canadians excel through access to life-long education and skills development, which lead to quality jobs. These essential skills include literacy and numeracy among all Canadians, but particularly among young people, with their engagement in employment, education and training continually on the rise.
In a world where technology is increasingly part of all aspects of our life, more than ever, all Canadians need to be able to read, write and perform basic math to be able to participate in their communities. Young people should be actively engaged, whether in employment, education or training. Adults should be supported in pursuing life-long learning, gaining new skills and strengthening existing skills.[2]
The inclusion of literacy and numeracy is welcomed, and the government seems to understand their importance to reducing poverty.
Several federal government initiatives are cited that contribute to improved skills including the various labour market transfers, the creation of the Future Skills organization, the Digital Literacy Exchange, and the Skills Boost[3] pilot for EI claimants and adults to pursue formal education. I was disappointed that OLES and its adult literacy and essential skills program was not mentioned in the strategy.
The strategy defines its key indicators for tracking progress. Literacy and numeracy will only be tracked at this time for 15-year-old youth using Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results every three years.
For adults, however, only one set of Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) data is available so a trend line won’t be available until 2022, two years beyond the first poverty reduction target date.
Opportunity for All has several infographics making the information easy to understand. It also has a chapter on Indigenous people and poverty based on distinguishing between First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, a distinction that often is ignored. And as with recent federal budgets, the poverty reduction strategy has a Gender-Based Analysis chapter.
Kudos to Frontier College and ABC Canada for their efforts to have literacy and numeracy included, and to all those who took part in the consultations.
Naming literacy and numeracy as indicators in the strategy is a positive step forward even if the indicators will, for the near future, only apply to youth.
[1] Page 7
[2] Page 36
[3] See http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/102.nsf/eng/home for more information about the Digital Literacy Exchange Program and https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/skills-boost.html for more information about Skills Boost.
