Poverty Reduction and Prevention Strategy Written Submission
Introduction: From Patchwork Responses to Poverty Prevention
The Newfoundland and Labrador Anti-Poverty Coalition (NLAPC) welcomes the Provincial Government’s commitment to developing a 10-year Poverty Reduction and Prevention Strategy and its ambition to achieve the lowest poverty rate in Canada by 2036.
Newfoundland and Labrador has demonstrated before that coordinated and ambitious poverty reduction is achievable. The 2006 Poverty Reduction Strategy adopted a long-term, integrated approach grounded in prevention, partnership, regional responsiveness, accountability, and the measurement of progress. It was also accompanied by concrete measures, including increases to Income Support and inflation indexation. The new strategy provides an opportunity to build on these strengths while responding to the realities facing individuals, families, and communities in 2026 and beyond.
Poverty in Newfoundland and Labrador does not persist because of a lack of knowledge about what works. It persists because incomes remain inadequate, essential costs are unaffordable, supports are fragmented and punitive, community organizations are underfunded, and government commitments are not consistently tied to clear timelines and measurable outcomes.
Newfoundland and Labrador does not need another strategy that manages poverty through temporary programs, emergency responses, and unpaid community labour. It needs a funded and measurable plan that guarantees adequate incomes, protects access to life’s essentials, invests in communities, and steadily reduces the need for crisis intervention.
The urgency of this work cannot be overstated. Across Newfoundland and Labrador, rising costs for housing, food, electricity, transportation, and other essentials are leaving many people unable to meet their basic needs and pushing those already living in poverty even further behind. Community organizations are responding to increasingly complex and urgent needs with insufficient and often unstable resources, while people living on the lowest incomes are forced to make impossible choices between necessities. These conditions demand more than incremental adjustments or one-off short-term measures.
Without a prompt, substantial, and cross-party commitment to reducing poverty, the well-being of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians will continue to decline. Income is a social determinant of health that has significant downstream effects on our population’s educational achievement, workforce participation, healthcare costs, and overall wellness. We also know that poverty reduction has positive impacts for crime reduction, social cohesion, and community sense of safety and trust.
As a signatory to the 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Canada has committed to ensuring an adequate standard of living for all. Importantly, this treaty obligates all levels of government, including provincial governments, to act towards the elimination of conditions of poverty.
Our Coalition and Our Process
This submission draws on the expertise of community organizations from across Newfoundland and Labrador. The NLAPC includes 50 diverse organizations, from all corners of the province. Our Coalition has further rooted our recommendations in community by conducting 8 roundtable discussions with additional organizations whose communities are impacted by poverty (report forthcoming).
What has emerged from the first year of the NLAPC’s work together, as well as further community outreach, is an emerging cross-sectoral consensus for change in 4 core areas. Together, these priorities address the immediate need to reduce hardship, the structural conditions that create and sustain poverty, and the accountability mechanisms required to ensure lasting progress.
Summary of Recommendations
1. Recommendations to Increase Incomes:
Immediately index Income Support rates to inflation
Raise Income Support rates to meet the MBM poverty line within the timeline of the Strategy
Increase minimum wage to living wage
Create a Newfoundland and Labrador Groceries and Essentials Benefit to complement the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit
Work in tandem with the Federal government towards a Guaranteed Basic Income
2. Recommendations on Housing:
Implement a provincial housing and homelessness strategy with defined goals and timelines
Modernize the Residential Tenancies Act to end no-fault evictions
Implement rent control policies
Enforce the Residential Tenancies Act
Set aggressive targets for the creation of affordable housing units
Establish a dedicated housing pathway for women and children leaving gender-based violence
3. Recommendations on non-market options for basic necessities
Invest in public transit both between and within communities across the province
Support the development and operation of non-profit grocery stores and wholesalers
Continue to expand $10/Day Childcare and the School Meal Program
Provide subsidized access to energy and retrofits for low-income households
Build more non-market housing options
4. Recommendations: Measurement and Accountability
Pass a Poverty Reduction Strategy Implementation Act into law. Within that Act, include:
A target of NL having the lowest poverty rate in Canada with a date for this target to be achieved
Interim targets with specific dates of achievement
Agreed-upon measurements of poverty and related concepts
Creation of a multi-sector guidance council
Mandatory annual reporting to the House of Assembly
Implement a provincial housing and homelessness strategy with defined goals and timelines
Redefine the relationship between government and the community sector by:
Establishing meaningful joint governance of key priorities
Providing secure multi-year funding that allows community partners to plan
Aligning compensation between the community and public sectors
Increasing Incomes
An effective poverty reduction strategy must begin by ensuring that everyone has enough income to meet their basic needs.We recommend targeted interventions that put money directly into the pockets of individuals and households living on the lowest incomes. Our recommendations are rooted in years of research and collaboration both nationally and provincially.
Measures aimed at reducing taxes for the general population may make modest improvements for middle-income households, but ultimately, the benefits of these measures go primarily to high-income households. Research shows that tax cuts yield little to no benefits for those living near or under the poverty line. Rather, direct transfers to the lowest earners is a proven and effective means of reducing poverty. Indeed, Newfoundland and Labrador’s 2006 Poverty Reduction Strategy is still regularly cited as a success story for provincial interventions that successfully moved the needle.
What we heard around the province
In recent roundtable conversations across Newfoundland and Labrador, roundtable participants repeatedly said that people “cannot afford to get off income support.” Disincentives to gaining employment are currently baked into the Income Support program. For many individuals on income support, entering into employment can be a risky, or even illogical decision, given steep clawback rates for additional income, and the loss of key supports like a drug plan. No one should be financially worse off because they accepted additional hours, entered training, formed a household, or moved from Income Support to precarious employment. The system should celebrate and support people’s progress rather than punish them for modest improvements in income.
Recommendations on Income:
Increase & Index Income Support Benefits to Inflation
The most immediate and direct way the province of Newfoundland and Labrador can address poverty is by raising Income Support (IS) benefit rates. At the bare minimum, Income Support should bring recipients to or above the poverty line. This change can be understood and quantified through the Market Basket Measure, Canada’s Official Poverty Line, through which poverty is defined based on a standardized basket of basic goods and necessities. When benefit rates are so low that a household cannot afford to purchase this basket of necessities, as they are now, Income Support can be described as a program of “legislated poverty”.
We recommend that the province establish a funded, multi-year schedule to raise total incomes available to income support recipients to at least Canada’s Official Poverty Line, adjusted for household size and region. Newfoundland and Labrador contains vast regional variations in the cost of living. We know that regional disparities are felt sharply, especially for Labradorians who experience substantially higher costs of living and rates of inflation. We strongly advocate for an Income Support system that attends to these differences by ensuring equitable benefit rates based on regional cost of living calculations.
In addition to increasing baseline benefit rates, we recommend that the province index those benefit rates to inflation. Income Support recipients risk losing ground every year as prices go up because Income Support is not indexed to inflation. We know from research that indexing benefits was one of the most effective tools from the previous Poverty Reduction Strategy, developed and administered under the last PC administration. It was then quietly removed, and people’s standard of living immediately and relentlessly started to decline. In 2014, a single employable person received $11,035 annually. If rates had been indexed since then, that rate should have reached $15,164 in 2025. The actual rate, however, was only $12,962 – 15.7% lower than an indexed system would have delivered and the equivalent of having basic support reduced every year.
Aside from financial impacts, indexing to inflation also provides stability and predictability to people who rely on income support to survive and pull themselves out of poverty. While rates have improved in recent years, these increases have been unpredictable from the perspective of recipients. This contrasts sharply with our system for administering the provincial minimum wage, which is indexed to inflation - why is one kind of income being penalized while another is not? Following the powerful precedent set by the 2006 Poverty Reduction Strategy — the new strategy should restore indexation, and ensure all benefit programs adhere to this model.
Raise the Minimum Wage to a Living Wage
Any person working a full-time job in our province should not be living in poverty. We recommend raising the minimum wage to a living wage.
The living wage for Newfoundland and Labrador is calculated on an annual basis, and incorporates the cost of all basic necessities required for dignified life. The most recent weighted living wage calculation for our province as a whole was $25.31/hour for 2025, with a new 2026 wage expected in the near future. We recommend implementing a regionalized living wage that reflects the vast cost differences in key essentials across the province.
The living wages across Newfoundland and Labrador ranges from $24.40/hour in Central, and $28.30/hour for the Labrador-Northern Peninsula region. With our current minimum wage sitting at $16.35/hour, workers at this wage earn only 64.6% of what would be required to live adequately, based on the provincial weighted average living wage.
The current minimum wage rate is untenable for workers, but also unsustainable for employers and our economy. Nearly a quarter of workers in our province live off of wages that are less than $20/hour. The harms associated with a meagre minimum wage are compounded by weak employment standards and oversight that allow employers to intentionally withhold full-time hours from employees. Given the steady decline in public services and programs once made available to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, workers today require substantially higher wages to account for the loss of other key supports over the past several years.
Minimum wage, but also wages across the board, are lower for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians than in other jurisdictions (including those with similar living wage rates), lending to the sense among workers in our province that ‘life is better elsewhere’ in Canada. At a time when employers report struggling with staff recruitment, retention, and absenteeism, we should consider the role that financial strain plays on an employee’s ability to show up fully on the job. Stigmatizing and unsubstantiated claims that ‘people just don’t want to work anymore’ are not reflected in our experiences of supporting members of our community without employment. Rather, folks are rightly refusing precarious labour at undignified wages. Overwhelming evidence enforces our experiences that fair, livable wages support employee attendance, morale, and productivity, while benefiting employers through reductions in turnover costs and improvements in business metrics like customer satisfaction.
Create a Newfoundland Groceries and Essentials Benefit (NLGEB):
We recommend that the provincial government create a Newfoundland and Labrador Groceries and Essentials Benefit that can complement the recently implemented Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (CGEB).
The federal CGEB benefit expands the preexisting HST rebate to provide more cost-of-living relief to low- and moderate-income households — it is tax free, paid quarterly, and automatically assessed through income-tax filing. Unfortunately, the dollar value of this benefit is still low – less than half that was proposed by the Affordability Action Council in their original proposal for a GEB. For the July 2026 to June 2027 benefit year, the max federal amount is $679 for a single individual, $890 for a couple, and $234 for each eligible child.
Additional measures to bolster targeted households are necessary because increasing and indexing benefits isn’t enough when the cost of essential goods themselves is much higher than the general rate of inflation. We urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to create an NL Groceries and Essentials Benefit that matches the Canadian GEB dollar-for-dollar, bringing it much closer to the original proposed amount. This intervention would be similar to the NL Disability Benefit (though in that case, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is providing a two-to-one match to the federal program). As tax filing is a requirement for receipt of the federal benefit, the strategy should also fund free, accessible, year-round tax-filing assistance, including outreach to people experiencing homelessness, newcomers, people leaving incarceration, and folks without reliable identification or addresses.
Engage in dialogue with the federal government to implement a Basic Income Guarantee:
We urge the provincial government to engage in dialogue with the federal government to implement a full and robust Basic Income.
We recognize that collaboration with the federal government and program design for this structurally transformative program will take time - we suggest this process occurs in tandem with the income recommendations noted above. Newfoundland and Labrador has a strong cohort of dedicated advocates for a Basic Income program in our province.
Early advocacy efforts toward a GBI have since coalesced into a broader program for transformative changes, and are now held by our Coalition. Our survey of community organizations has yielded a 100% support rate for a GBI in our province. Years of research and collaboration inform our recommendations, and public opinion polling strongly supports this stance.
Implementing a GBI would provide greater stability, reduce stigma and administrative burden, and reach folks whose needs do not fit neatly within existing program categories. Compared to the existing social support system, a GBI would also better support entrepreneurship, rural economic development, and the pursuance of further education by lower-income Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
To move towards implementation we suggest building off the results of existing targeted basic income programs as well as key recommendations from the Report of the All-Party Committee on Basic Income. There are a range of costed models for a provincial Basic Income that would have a significant impact on poverty. At the lower end of this range are models that the provincial government could afford and implement without federal investment or additional costs for the average taxpayer. However, in the absence of federal investment, this may need to be a targeted program. We suggest that a targeted program nonetheless be implemented fully, evaluated accordingly, and resourced appropriately through annual budget cycles. This will avoid harmful patterns of temporary pilot programs conducted elsewhere.
2.Housing
Housing and homelessness are undoubtedly among the biggest concerns of community organizations and community members alike. Housing is the highest expense for households across Newfoundland and Labrador, save only for some communities where it comes second after food. Our financialized housing market has enriched property owners, but at great expense to renters. Renters must bear the additional burden of precarity and vulnerability due to an inequitable Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) that confers exceptional power onto landlords at the expense of their tenants. An RTA that allows for the No-Fault Eviction of renters and the near-limitless increase to rents, leaves tenants at a high risk of homelessness. In a housing market with limited affordable options, it is exceptionally challenging to regain housing after eviction.
While households who own their own home are generally less-likely to be living in poverty, the substantial costs of energy rank among the most common reasons for low-income households to lose their housing whether they own or rent. We will make recommendations for addressing the increasing concerns around energy poverty in the next section. This section looks specifically at interventions necessary for supporting households that rent.
Rents have risen beyond inflation, and beyond the capacity of many people’s incomes. In our first recommendation we explore interventions that would increase people’s incomes - but this is only one side of the equation of housing affordability. Income adequacy and cost controls are complementary. The provincial government should not require people living in poverty to bear the cost of market failures. Income increases must be accompanied by measures that prevent landlords from capturing the already limited incomes of folks living in poverty. Rent control policies, in particular, are an important method for maximizing the impact of Income Support and additional rent subsidies by limiting the ability of landlords to vacuum up that value. Without regulatory protections, we risk subsidizing landlord profits rather than supporting the people who need it most.
We advocate for regulations that protect tenants from increased housing precarity and homelessness by implementing rent controls, ending the practice of no-fault evictions, and strengthening enforcement of the RTA. The utility of these regulatory measures extend beyond poverty reduction and prevention - they serve households of all income-levels that must navigate a precarious rental market rife with inequities and power-imbalances. We forefront the need for rent protections because this is a key aspect to housing affordability that too often gets forgotten or sidelined by calls to increase housing supply.
While regulations are a crucial step towards preventing precariously housed tenants from sliding into homelessness, we recognize the importance of building more housing as well. However, increases in overall housing stock are insufficient to address the crises of poverty and homelessness. Investments in maintaining and building new housing must prioritize deeply affordable, non-market housing. It is clear that subsidizing private developers to add to general housing stock is both an ineffective strategy to address this crisis and an irresponsible use of public funds. We strongly advocate for investments in deeply affordable, rent controlled, non-market housing, and aggressive targets to measure against.
What we heard around the province:
Roundtable discussions across Newfoundland and Labrador underscored the extreme housing precarity many people are experiencing due high cost of housing, low vacancy rates, and precarity of rentals. Conversations regularly honed in on the financialization of housing, and how profit motives have been prioritized over people’s human right to housing.
Recommendations on Housing:
Implement a provincial housing and homelessness strategy with defined goals and timelines
Housing is a complex issue that involves multiple stakeholders across all sectors. We strongly urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to develop, in parallel to this Poverty Reduction and Prevention Strategy, a dedicated Housing and Homelessness Strategy that establishes clear targets and attaches the resources to achieve them. Newfoundland and Labrador is currently the only province in Atlantic Canada without a dedicated housing strategy,,, and that is evident in the approach to housing we see in Budget 2026.
Within that strategy, we would specifically hope to see:
An end to No-Fault Evictions
We urge the province to legislate an end to no-fault evictions with strong tenant protections that avoid harmful loopholes existing elsewhere. In Newfoundland and Labrador, landlords can evict tenants with no cause and with only 3 months notice. At the same time, landlords can only increase rent once yearly, and with 6-months notice. Rather than wait to increase rent at the schedule outlined by the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), many landlords simply serve their tenants a no-fault eviction. In our low-vacancy, high-rent housing market, tenant trajectories after no-fault evictions are often directly into homelessness.
Newfoundland and Labrador is the only province that allows the practice of no-fault evictions. However, many provinces that have prohibited no-fault evictions in law, have in practice kept open significant loopholes. For example, despite its legislation against no-fault evictions, British Colombia has the highest rate of evictions across Canada, of which 85% were due to no-fault of the tenant. These loopholes allow landlords to evict tenants without cause if they a.) wish to undergo substantive renovations, or b.) wish to occupy the unit themselves, or have a family member move in. The practice of ‘renoviction’ is notoriously used in bad faith by landlords to evict tenants in order to raise rents beyond regulation. The Federal Housing Advocate recommends all provinces close these loopholes through legislation that prevents legal eviction into homelessness and prohibits ‘renoviction’. We urge the provincial government to end the practice of no-fault eviction and take serious measures to avoid replicating the harmful loopholes that exist in other jurisdictions.
Implement rent control policies
Strong rent control policies are a key mechanism to protect tenants from income exploitation and eviction into homelessness. While increased incomes (through incomes support or higher minimum wages) do not produce general inflationary pressures, they can unfortunately provide incentive for landlords to increase rental rates. Rent control policies are a necessary complement to measures that increase incomes; it is not effective to increase Income Support or the minimum wage if landlords can appropriate those increases through higher rents. In fact, rent controls have been successfully used to curb inflation, including by our federal government in the mid-1970s.
Rent control policies include a variety of protective measures that limit when and how much rent can be increased. We urge the province to follow the three following rent control interventions recommended by the Federal Housing Advocate:
Limit annual rent increases to the cost of living
Landlords should be limited to increasing rent only once annually, and at a percentage rate that matches the increased cost of living
Vacancy Controls:
Vacancy controls are applied to the rental rate of a unit, meaning rent cannot be increased more than the annual allowance even between tenants. This discourages landlords from evicting existing tenants in order to bring in new tenants at a higher rental rate
Prohibit Above Guideline Increases (AGIs) to rent caps:
AGIs are loopholes to existing rent control policies that otherwise limit rent increases. Where AGIs exist they are often exploited by landlords to raise rent beyond the annual allowance.
Enforce the Residential Tenancies Act
None of the above recommendations will make significant improvements to rates of poverty or homelessness without strong enforcement mechanisms. In 2024 we learned that violations of the RTA were not met with consequences, despite the existence of the Residential Tenancies Board. In the absence of strong oversight and enforcement, existing power imbalances between landlords who have housing, and tenants who do not, will be exploited by bad-faith actors.
Set aggressive targets for the creation of affordable housing units
We applaud the government of Newfoundland and Labrador for its commitment to a province with the lowest rates of poverty in the country. We recommend adopting a similarly strong commitment to ensuring deeply affordable housing is created as a core component of this strategy. Targets to measure success against are a critical element of progress.
Establish a dedicated housing pathway for women and children leaving gender-based violence
We recommend that the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador establish a dedicated housing pathway for women and children leaving gender-based violence, with transition houses serving as a direct access point. Women should not be required to remain in emergency shelter for extended periods because appropriate housing is unavailable.
This housing response could include:
Priority and timely access to Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation housing for women and children fleeing violence;
Dedicated affordable and supportive housing units specifically for people transitioning from gender-based violence;
Portable rent supplements where appropriate housing is available in the private market;
Flexible financial assistance for costs associated with establishing a new household, including damage deposits, utilities, moving costs, furniture, transportation, and other essential expenses; and
Coordination between transition houses, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation, Income Support, and other government services so that women do not have to independently navigate multiple systems while leaving violence.
3. Non-Market Options for basic needs
When the NLAPC hosted consultations around this province to aid in the development of this submission, one common thread was a deep concern from the grassroots about the role played by profits and corporate concentration in how the basic needs of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are being met.
For one of those basic needs - housing - we do have a robust spectrum of options that run from fully non-market (emergency shelters) to purely market-based (home rental and purchase) with a great many options in between (e.g., subsidized housing, nonprofit cooperatives, etc). This is much less true for other basic needs such as food, energy, or child care.
This submission argues strongly for increasing people’s incomes, but we also recognize that Income policy alone cannot eliminate poverty where households have little protection from rapidly rising costs or where communities depend on private markets that do not reliably provide affordable access to essential goods and services.
What we heard around the province:
People all over the province framed this as an issue of “people before profits.” They argued that the affordability, accessibility, and continuity of essential goods and services should be treated as public-interest objectives rather than left entirely to market availability and household purchasing power.
Recommendations on Non-Market Options
Invest in public transit both between and within communities across the province
One of the most common challenges faced by the people and communities our organizations serve is lack of access to transportation. Outside of St. John’s, only a few communities in the province have access to any kind of public transit within their communities. Many also do not have any kind of transit connection between their community and neighbouring ones/larger centres. The result is “transit poverty”, when people lack access to transportation options that are affordable and accessible. Households are then forced to divert money from other uses - spending, for example, $50 from their week’s grocery budget for a taxi to and from the store.
In a province where transit poverty is a widespread problem, it is notable that the provincial government - unlike many other provinces - does not directly fund operating costs for public transit. The one exception is the provision of a low-income bus pass to Income Support clients in the Metro St. John’s area.
To more effectively address transit poverty we urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to provide ongoing operating funding to public transit operators in the province, including both intercommunity and intracommunity services. Aside from the broader social benefit, the provincial government could also realize significant savings from the reduction of taxi trips currently being paid for where transit is unavailable.
Support the development and operation of non-profit grocery stores and wholesalers
Food is one of the basic needs most lacking in non-market options. Aside from food banks, there are very few non-profit or community-driven options available for those with low incomes to access food.
This, though, is starting to change in jurisdictions around the world with the implementation of publicly supported, community-owned, co-operative, and non-profit programs that provide points of sale for food or create infrastructure for more affordable food distribution. The further development of this kind of infrastructure is envisioned (and resourced) by Canada’s National Food Security Strategy.
We urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to align with that strategy and support the development and evaluation of non-profit food retail and distribution programs in the province.
Continue to expand $10/Day Childcare and the School Meal Program
Aside from their numerous social and developmental benefits,,, both the provision of $10/day child care and pay-what-you-can school meals result in significant cost savings for households with children in a province with a high child poverty rate.
With that in mind, we urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to accelerate progress towards their stated goals of:
Universal access to pay-what-you-can school meals for all children from Pre-K to Grade 12
Achieving the 59% child care coverage rate target from Newfoundland and Labrador’s agreement with the Government of Canada Federal-Provincial agreement
Provide subsidized access to energy and retrofits for low-income households
Alongside transportation poverty, many households in this province face energy poverty. The cost of energy is a significant challenge for low-income households, and a major contributor to homelessness due to the inability of households in arrears to sign up for utility service.
We urge the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to:
Provide subsidized energy to low-income households through the creation of a means-tested differential electricity rate structure.
Provide a full subsidy to low-income households for energy-saving retrofits. Many such households would not be able to afford the up-front cost of a partial retrofit. Such subsidies should be available to renters as well (with participation of the building owner).
Provide sustainable and predictable funding to support utility arrears relief programs operated by community organizations.
4. Measurement and Accountability
The Poverty Reduction and Prevention Strategy has the potential to be a transformative initiative in the lives of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. That potential, though, does not only depend on what is in the strategy, but also on how the strategy is implemented. Targets, accountability, and structure are what will make this strategy successful and we have a number of recommendations for what that structure should look like.
Recommendations on Measurement and Accountability:
Pass a Poverty Reduction Strategy Implementation Act into law
We recommend the province bring into law an Act that can support collaboration, shared measurements and tools, and built-in accountability mechanisms towards our ultimate goal of poverty reduction and prevention in our province. We look to Prince Edward Island’s Poverty Elimination Strategy Act as a successful example of how similar legislation has supported this process.
Within that Act, include:
A target of NL having the lowest poverty rate in Canada with a date for this target to be achieved. We stand with Premier Wakeham in his commitment to bringing the poverty rate of Newfoundland and Labrador down to the lowest in Canada. Cementing this commitment into law, with set dates for accomplishing this target, will help ensure adequate resources and attention can be allocated to this task.
Interim targets on poverty, child poverty, food insecurity, childhood food insecurity and chronic homelessness with specific dates of achievement. These interim targets will be opportunities to assess ongoing interventions and make changes where necessary.
Agreed-upon measurements of poverty (including child poverty), food insecurity (including childhood food insecurity) and chronic homelessness. Shared and clearly-articulated measurement standards will support coordinated action to address poverty, and ensure we’re all ‘speaking the same language’ when collectively striving towards poverty reduction and prevention.
A commitment to collecting disaggregated sociodemographic data to measure the different ways that poverty and food insecurity affect racialized, gendered and rural communities in our province. Disaggregated data is a key tool to understand how poverty intersects with other systemic inequities and design effective interventions. At the same time, the very same data can further perpetuate stigma or harm if not collected or used in a good way. It is important that data is collected with a commitment to addressing the structural injustices it may expose. Data must be collected and used in full collaboration with community, especially BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) communities. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) includes data sovereignty as a key dimension of self-determination. It is the right of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples to assert their own identity, membership, and political status, and maintain ownership, control, access, and possession (OCAP®) of the data collected about their communities.
Creation of a multi-sector guidance council to support implementation and coordination across the community sector to support progress on this file. Community organizations in our province share a deep commitment to poverty reduction and prevention, and bring unique on-the-ground perspectives and capacity to provide support towards this shared goal. A guidance council can provide the structure and support for ongoing collaboration.
Mandatory annual reporting to the House of Assembly. Annual progress updates will be an opportunity for regular community engagement and ongoing assessment of interventions.
Redefine the relationship between government and the community sector by:
Establishing meaningful joint governance of key priorities. Organizations that directly serve community can provide meaningful insights and opportunities for collaboration that may not be otherwise available to government.
Providing secure multi-year funding indexed to inflation that allows community partners to plan for and address a growing crisis of poverty, while ensuring that the folks working to address this crisis are not also struggling to live on incomes below the poverty line. Community organizations need to spend their time and resources in direct support of the people living in poverty. Too often, our time is instead spent searching, applying and reporting for short-term grants. Secure, multi-year funding would free up significant organizational capacity and support the sustainability of front-line workers.
Establishing a shared data standard for community organizations to report impact data to government, with funding and resources available to support implementation. This would support ongoing measurement and analysis of progress towards poverty reduction and prevention, and other key indicators.
Conclusion
Newfoundland and Labrador has led the way on poverty reduction in the past. We can do so again. A robust Poverty Reduction and Prevention Strategy would lay the foundations for a more prosperous future full of opportunities for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and help mitigate the impacts of the many geopolitical and climate crises we will face in the coming decade.
As organizations doing work on the ground, we have seen Newfoundland and Labrador at its best and at its worst. At its best, our small size and our political culture can allow for quick and deep collaborations that solve real problems for people. At its worst, we turn our heads away from deep structural challenges and accountability for them. We hope that this upcoming strategy reflects this province at its best. If it does, all of our organizations will be there to step up and help make the change happen.
Signatories
Forthcoming