“If ending poverty were profitable, we’d end it tomorrow,” said Dennis Raphael, Professor of Health Policy and Management at York University, during a recent interview with rabble.
Instead, various levels of government are diligently developing and implementing policies which worsen the living conditions of the most vulnerable Canadians.
That constitutes social murder.
Coined by Friedrich Engels in his book The Condition of the Working-Class in England (1845), social murder was used to describe the abominable working and living conditions in Manchester during the Industrial Revolution.
The term was revived after the Grenville Tower fire in West London killed 72 people and left as many injured. It’s become mainstream language amongst those fighting for social justice in Canada.
A matter of health
The living and working conditions of individuals and families are part of the primary social determinants of health. The bottom 15 to 20 per cent of Canadians have incomes that barely let them survive let alone thrive. Yet, successive provincial governments have implemented policies severely restricting minimum wage increases to amounts well below those needed to ensure an adequate standard of living.
Instead of framing minimum wage as the amount a worker needs to live and thrive, government policy establishes the least amount of money that an employer is legally allowed to pay an employee.
Without reflecting the cost of living or ensuring a just and equitable share of the profits, the difference in life spans between the have and have not can be as much as 21-years.
Provincial governments also treat people receiving social assistance benefits as undeserving of financial support and wrap around services. Instead, provincial governments condemn recipients to impoverished lives which knowingly leads to poor health outcomes and death.
Income inequality means that 40,000 Canadians die each year because they are not as healthy as the wealthiest 20 per cent. Health Canada reports on poverty but fails to follow through and eradicate it.
Instead, public policy establishes this social inequality by allowing power and influence to shape policy which in turn, outlines the quality and distribution of the social determinants of health.
Basic income guarantee
Canada is a liberal welfare state which means the marketplace influences, some would argue dictates, governmental policy. The result is legislation that is recklessly indifferent to human life but that effectively props up the economy.
The United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland are also liberal welfare states run by the marketplace rather than by the state.
As corporate dominance and power grows, so does government support of free-market capitalism, deregulation, and decreased spending. Public policy based on low wages, a lack of unions, low corporate and wealth taxes, and a weakened welfare state expands the economic abyss.
Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) has been on the Canadian radar since the 1970 when the provincial NDP government in Manitoba partnered with the federal Liberal government to develop and implement the Mincome Pilot.
More recently, the Wynne Liberals designed and launched a BIG pilot program for Ontario. Despite campaigning on a promise to ride out the pilot, Doug Ford cancelled the project within weeks of taking office in 2018.
A single adult receiving Ontario Works (OW) payments has an annual income of $8,652. The Ontario BIG pilot increased that to $16,989 per year. There is no question an increase of that magnitude improved lives, but it still left recipients significantly below the national $24,950 poverty line for a single adult.
Despite this obvious shortfall, supporters believe by making BIG a universal program it will gain greater acceptance. Raphael is not so sure.
“I don’t think it’s going to gain acceptance because of the attitudes people have. It’s also not going to gain acceptance because you’re not going to spend billions and billions of dollars to give everybody $17,000 a year,” observes Raphael.
He went on to say, “at conferences, I find people are profoundly naïve. They don’t know anything about the Canadian liberal welfare state, issues of unionization, or issues of corporate power.”
Raphael remains cautious of government support of a BIG. He warns, “Don’t underestimate the ability of the powers that be to distort, to take something and to use it in order to do bad things.”
Basic income could threaten other social programs
There is a well-founded fear that once a BIG program is implemented, neoliberal governments will discontinue essential services like prescription support, dental care, and other wrap around services currently available to those receiving social assistance.
These services would still be needed because as Raphael sees it, BIG lifts people out of desperate poverty and into relative poverty that still leaves them below the poverty line unable to thrive.
“What you want is a society that flourishes. And, a society that flourishes has decent wages, decent programs, decent social support. And, when you look at where Canada stands in terms of support for families, we’re almost dead last in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). When you look at where we stand in terms of job training and what we call active labour policy, we’re right at the bottom. When you look at where we’re at with public pensions we’re kind of right at the bottom. So, this basic income as a solution to all of our problems is not going to happen and is diverting attention from what I think are more important issues.”– Dennis Raphael
That’s what happened in 1989 when the federal parties agreed to end child poverty by 2000. Yet, 1.3 million Canadian children continue to live impoverished lives and many become victims of social murder.
Addressing child poverty
Anti-poverty groups like Campaign 2000 believed child poverty would have more traction than focusing on family poverty which often leads to parent blaming and stereotyping as alcoholics, drug addicts or drop outs.
Government limited their focus to the Canada Child Benefit (CCB), a tax-free monthly payment made to eligible families with children under 18 years of age. The additional $7,000 per child per year in benefits brings many families closer to the poverty line. In fact, this money is often the reason families relying on minimum wage incomes are able to get by.
Child poverty was an extremely effectively smoke screen diverting attention away from the real sources of poverty – low wages, a lack of unionization, an inequitable tax structure, and corporate domination of public policy. It also ignored the fact that the largest single group of poor people in Canada is not children but unattached adults 18 to 65 years of age.
“I’ve said for the last ten years, we’re going to get child care because child care does not threaten the Royal Bank’s profits. Child care does not threaten Tim Horton’s. But talk about wages or talk about social assistance benefits and somebody says how are you going to fund social assistance? You say, these banks made $4 billion last quarter. You tax them more and you take these people’s lives out of misery,” said Raphael.
Political cooperation can end social murder
Canadians are generally uncomfortable with the absolute poverty of social assistance rates. Raphael believes that would make doubling OW and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) payments relatively more tolerable than implementing a BIG.
Once the government reduced the misery and suffering of the most vulnerable groups, then ideally it would focus on issues affecting the working poor, namely, a lack of unionization, low wages, and job insecurity.
Raphael looks to Scandinavia where labour unions represent 80 to 90 per cent of the population. He concludes that everyone benefits when government has to listen to labour.
Unfortunately, such fundamental changes are not in the interest of those with power nor those in power. Instead, those influencing and making policy skirt around the edges offering insubstantial programs like Walmart donating fork lifts to food banks instead of paying workers a living wage with pro-rated benefits.
Or, Trudeau giving $200,000 million to food banks instead of changing the tax structure to keep more money in the pockets of lower income earners empowering them to purchase their own food.
Unfortunately, social murder is not limited to the realm of income inequality. Its invasive reach has infiltrated every aspect of Canadian life.
In a recent article, climate activist Don McLean detailed Canada’s history of putting private profit ahead of the public good. The corporatization of government ultimately leads to regime inertia when it comes to issues like the climate emergency, environmental racism, health care and other public services. The less powerful and influential become collateral damage — the cost of doing business.
Raphael sees proportional representation as a way to get rid of the liberal welfare state. When every government is a minority government the only choice is to work with other parties. That’s when consequential social improvements are achievable.
There’s a more equitable distribution of the social determinants of health when left-leaning political parties have power or influence. That’s how Canada got universal health care, unemployment insurance and public pensions.
According to Raphael, recent polls show that 58 per cent of Canadians view socialism in a positive light. Only 40 per cent have negative views. It seems Canadians, especially the youth of Canada, are questioning the validity of the current economic system and the political systems that support it.
The problem according to Raphael is that no one wants to make that explicit – not media nor those with political interests.
As for the future of social murder, Raphael says, “It’s power. It’s influence. And, it’s getting worse. Really worse. And nobody seems to care.”
Hear more of Nicoll’s conversation with Raphael in the latest episode of rabble radio.
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