About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

38 U.B.C. L. Rev. 539 (2005)
Section 7 and the Politics of Social Justice

handle is hein.journals/ubclr38 and id is 547 raw text is: SECTION 7 AND THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL JUSTICEt MARGOT YOUNGt I. INTRODUCTION The concern that animates this paper is recognition of the tremendous social and economic injustice that forms a central fault line of Canadian society. While it is often tempting to feel complaisant about our country's reputation as a kinder and gentler nation, this inclination is wisely resisted. The statistics on poverty in Canada,' the tight mapping of the demographics of this poverty on to groups targeted in our society by racism, sexism, colonialism, and class exploitation, are profoundly troubling. Indeed, the National Council of Welfare describes this situation as ... a serious problem ... that affects the t I was honoured to present a version of this paper at the Symposium Honouring the Late Mr. Justice Kenneth Lysyk, held at the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, November 5 & 6, 2004. Particular thanks are owed to Professors Phil Bryden and Robin Elliot for inviting me to participate in this event. Comments from Hester Lessard were much appreciated and I wish also to thank Kathy Grant and Lisa Phillips for their very able research assistance on this paper. Acknowledgments for funding assistance with this paper are owed to the Law Foundation of British Columbia and to the Community and University Research Alliance programme of the Social Sciences and Humanity Research Council. t Margot Young (B.A. U.B.C., 1983; LL.B. U of T, 1986; M.A. U of T, 1987, M.A. UC Berkeley, 1992) is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia. I In a report issued November 2004, the National Council of Welfare reported that the overall poverty rate in Canada was 14.4 percent in 2001. In absolute numbers that is an estimated 4,393,000 people classified as poor, out of a total population of 30,467,000. More specific poverty rates are as follows: 15.6 percent for children, 13.6 percent for adults under 65, and 16.8 percent for seniors. Families led by single-parent mothers had a poverty rate of 42.4 percent in 2001. Unattached women 65 and older had a poverty rate of 45.6 percent. Among the provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest poverty rate for all persons in 2001 at 17.6 percent. Ontario had the lowest rate at 11.7 percent. In terms of depth of poverty, hundreds of thousands of poor Canadians lived on incomes of less than half the poverty line in 2001. This figure includes 466,000 unattached individuals under 65 and 153,000 families with members under 65. Indeed, Canada's total poverty gap-the amount of money needed to bring all poor people up to the poverty line-was $18.6 billion in 2001. By contrast, Canada's gross domestic product in 2001 was $1.1 trillion. In terms of income gap or the distribution of income in Canada, even after the impact of government transfer payments and income taxes are taken into account, the poorest 20 percent of the population had only five percent of the income in 2001 while the richest 20 percent had 43 percent of the income. (Canada, National Council of Welfare, Poverty Profile 2001, (Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2004) at 3-5.)

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most