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Overview
Canada arrives at this federal budget needing to become a stronger country against greater global threats of economic instability, heightened security risks and the climate crisis.
Domestically, however, Canada already has significant inequities in the social determinants of health. These play a large role in creating and exacerbating health disparities, and disproportionately impact those who are from Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities, low-income groups, people with disabilities and 2SLGBTQ+ communities.
Wellesley Institute research has repeatedly demonstrated that these social determinants of health must be urgently and adequately addressed in this and in future federal budgets to reduce health disparities and advance health equity across the country.
We cannot ignore these challenges. We cannot sacrifice those in Canada who need our help the most in the service of other goals.
But these challenges are an opportunity to build a stronger, more resilient Canada – a Canada that is healthier and has an economy that can better weather international storms.
To that end, we would welcome the following included in the November federal budget.
We cannot sacrifice those in Canada who need our help the most in the service of other goals. But these challenges are an opportunity to build a stronger, more resilient Canada.
Thriving
While the government has warned that Canadians should be prepared for a difficult budget, people living in Canada want the opportunity to live long, healthy lives. Their aspiration is for more than just surviving and sacrificing. They want to thrive – to live a healthy, engaged life. They deserve a government that shows them that Canada will first eliminate poverty and then come together to create a society in which everyone can thrive.
The budget should:
- Take the first two steps of a plan to build a thriving Canada by:
- Bringing together the provinces and territories to design a 10-year strategy to eliminate poverty.
- Ensuring budget and other measures are designed and reviewed to ensure they will help give all Canadians the chance to thrive.
- Address food affordability by introducing measures that bring food supply partners together to ensure everyone can afford healthy food, recognizing that food insecurity has grown year after year in Canada.
- Improve support for at least the lowest-income families receiving the Canada Child Benefit, as part of a plan to move every child out of poverty as soon as possible.
- Continue to advance the government’s national pharmacare work, which improves affordability while saving costs across our economy. To do so, the government should launch a public consultation to determine what new additions to national pharmacare would best advance health equity and affordability.
- Expand access to the Canada Disability Benefit (CDB). To expand enrollment and reduce red tape, persons living with a disability who have already been approved for other disability programs should be considered eligible for the program. The budget should also commit to a plan to increase the CDB over time to ensure everyone living with a disability is, first, lifted out of poverty, and then given the resources they need (in combination with other programs and levels of government) to thrive.
Housing
The federal government has announced the formation of Build Canada Homes (BCH), showing that they intend to take a supply-side focus to Canada’s housing crisis. While ambitious building targets and innovative partnerships with industry can be productive, more is required for this intervention to truly ameliorate housing insecurity, end homelessness and ensure Canada’s housing stock is fit for its people. Its primary goal must be to eliminate homelessness, and it must consider what is needed for everyone in Canada to have a home that is affordable, adequate and healthy.
The budget should:
- Include a renewed commitment and investment to end current homelessness.
- Lead all levels of government to deliver housing affordability, including by utilizing existing data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation and StatsCan to publish an “affordability benchmark” for every region in the country.
- Commit to supporting healthy housing through renovating existing housing. BCH could transition in the longer term to focus on housing quality and climate resilience in existing housing stock.
Inequality
The least wealthy households have been experiencing rising debt levels and declining net worth over the last several years. Wealth inequality has major implications for shaping opportunities to improve life circumstances through access to the social determinants, which are key for enabling good health and well-being over one’s lifetime.
To that end, this budget should include:
- Building on the Prime Minister’s commitment to “ensure households are immediately better off, following the removal of the [carbon] rebate,” a clear explanation of how all households are better off since that change, particularly lower income households who benefited the most from that inequality reducing measure.
- A commitment to help the public track, and all levels of government reduce, wealth and income inequality by creating an interactive and accessible household economy dashboard. This dashboard should include household income (including at least deciles), the regional “affordability benchmark” on housing mentioned above, the latest Market Basket Measure data from the Canadian Income Survey, and additional income and cost information as needed.
- A commitment to collect data on household financial status that goes beyond income and examines wealth and debts to inform more equitable future tax and fiscal policy.
Action to address the impact of disparities in social determinants of health, including poverty and thriving, housing and inequality, are desperately needed.
In these challenging times, we look to our national government for true leadership that can deliver a stronger Canada where health is a birthright for all and not a privilege for some.