Pre-budget Letter to Province 2003

Honourable Greg Selinger
Minister of Finance
103 Legislative Building
450 Broadway
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3C 0V8

February 10, 2003.

Dear Mr. Selinger:

Thank you for once again providing an opportunity for Manitobans to offer their input towards the Manitoba Provincial Budget. As an organization committed to women’s equality, we have the privilege to hear about the lives of many women both in our province and around the world. In particular, through our Women & Economy project we have spent the last 21 months listening to women talk about their experiences within the economy. The opportunity to listen to women’s stories brings with it the responsibility to share these stories with both the general public and decision-makers who have the power to make systemic changes.

Although women make indispensable contributions to economic life in Manitoba, many women in our province feel that the economy leaves them high and dry. We have a number of specific suggestions that address women’s economic inequality.

First of all, we believe there could be a much more comprehensive investment in children in our province. A good place to start would be to raise the social assistance rates of single parents, generally mothers, who are raising young children. Although child-rearing is a job that is crucially important to the future well-being (economic and social) of our province, single parents are not given enough resources to do this job. According to Statistics Canada Low-Income Cut-Off, a family of two (one adult, one child) on social assistance, falls 56% below the poverty-line. This puts children growing up in such families at a severe disadvantage at a very early stage in their life and does not benefit anyone in the long run.

Another way of improving the lives of children and the people raising them would be to improve child care services. Only one child in nine under the age of 12 in this province has licensed child care. In the past you have made promises to create more licensed child care spaces and we encourage you to follow through on those promises. We also ask that you work towards fair and professional wages for child care workers. And while we are grateful for the parent-child centres around the province, we do not believe they are a replacement for child care centres. We need a more comprehensive approach, for example, the 5-year plan proposed by the Child Care Coalition of Manitoba. We ask that you re-read this plan and work towards its implementation.

Our second concern is poverty among adults in Manitoba. Using the Statistics Canada Low-Income Cut-Off, a family of three (one adult, two children) in which the adult works full-time, full-year and earns minimum wage, falls 50% below the poverty-line. Women are most affected as they make up two-thirds of all minimum wage earners in Canada. Life is still more precarious for the many adults who are unable to find full-time work. We ask that you raise minimum wage rates beyond the promised $0.25 and we encourage investment in the creation of full-time jobs throughout the province.

We also ask that there be improvements in social assistance services. We find it extremely disturbing that the social assistance rates in Manitoba have not risen in over a decade. Single parents raising children, people living with physical and mental illnesses, and others who are unable to work for pay, are also citizens of our province and deserve to have their needs met. Not only are rates not high enough to meet even basic needs, but we find it appalling that delivery of these services is not always done in a compassionate or caring manner. People often feel criminalized by the system and are frustrated that they are not made aware of extra money available to them. We ask that this situation be remedied immediately.

A practice that would ensure that no one be left behind in our province is the implementation of a Guaranteed Annual Income. Manitoba did once experiment with this idea and we ask that a flexible GAI be revisited. We pay a heavy price for poverty in our province, both economic and social, and we urge you to make investments that would ease this cost.

Strong investment into affordable housing would benefit both children and adults in Manitoba, especially those living in poverty. Lack of affordable housing is set to reach critical levels and many people are being left out in the cold. We ask that there be investment not only in home-ownership programs but also in other forms of housing that fit the needs of all vulnerable families and individuals.

It is clear to us that women’s experience of life in Manitoba is very different than men’s. The rules and regulations that are used in the governance of our province do not affect men and women in the same way. In order to ensure that women are not discriminated against by government policy and practice, we ask that a comprehensive gender-based analysis approach of all policy in all government departments be made mandatory in order to ensure that men and women benefit equally.

We recognize that the task that you have been assigned is a difficult one. We urge you to consider our province’s most vulnerable people as you make your decisions.

We wish you all the best.

In solidarity,

Jennifer deGroot
Women & Economy Project Coordinator

for the UN Platform for Action Committee (UNPAC) Coordinating Group
UN Platform for Action Committee
PO Box 36 Station L
Winnipeg, MB
R3H 0Z4

cc: Premier Gary Doer, all Cabinet Ministers