Québec Solidaire would increase social assistance payments and raise the minimum wage

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A supportive Québec government would combat poverty by increasing welfare payments by 45 percent, raising the minimum wage from $14.25 to $18 an hour, and temporarily subsidizing small businesses and community groups to help them cope with rising costs. highest payroll, according to the candidate for deputy of that party. Prime Minister.

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“Quebec is one of the richest societies in the world,” said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, at a campaign stop in Sherbrooke on Wednesday morning. “Despite all the wealth of Quebec society, there are still people here in Quebec who can’t fill their shopping cart, who can’t put a roof over their head at a reasonable price.”

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He cited the Quebec Food Banks, a provincial network of food banks, which reports that 600,000 Quebecers seek help to feed themselves every month, and a third of them are children. “I can’t accept that,” she said.

The QS plan to combat poverty includes an increase in the minimum welfare payment from $726 per month to $1,056 per month; a 45 percent increase. (Welfare payments vary based on one’s situation. An adult with full ability to work is entitled to $726 per month. An adult with a temporarily limited ability to work, due to injury or mental health condition, for example, you can receive $870 per month. month.)

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“Imagine paying rent, phone, clothes… groceries with $726 a month. It is impossible to live with dignity on $726 a month,” said Nadeau-Dubois.

He said he visited food banks during this election campaign and found more full-time workers seeking help there than during the 2018 campaign. “That means our social contract is broken. When you work full time, you should be able to feed yourself with dignity. Frankly, that’s the least you can ask for.

He said a QS government would help small businesses and community groups adjust to the higher minimum wage by creating a relief program that would cost the government $625 million over four years. That program would dole out $333 million to small businesses and community group employers in the first year of the transition program and would be phased out to $40 million in the final year. Larger companies can afford to pay workers at least $18 an hour right away, he said.

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“Our long-term goal is that welfare allows people to meet their basic needs, live with dignity, and that the minimum wage allows people to lift themselves out of poverty. This is really the bare minimum in a wealthy society like Quebec.”

The minimum wage in Quebec increased last spring from $13.50 to $14.25 an hour, the sixth lowest minimum wage in all of Canada’s provinces and territories. Quebec employees who receive tips can be paid as little as $11.40 per hour. Alberta is the only other Canadian province that allows tipped earners to earn less than the minimum hourly wage.

QS would also increase funding for community groups that help the poor by $290 million a year, he said.

Nadeau-Dubois said François Legault of the Avenir Quebec Coalition has not announced any concrete plans to combat poverty.

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“François Legault never stops talking about the wealth gap between Quebec and Ontario, but he never talks about the wealth gap between Quebecers. That doesn’t interest him and I think that reveals his true priorities.”

Nadeau-Dubois reacted with outrage to recent comments by the CAQ leader Legault on immigration and also to the CAQ leader’s comments about the Horne Foundry in Rouyn-Noranda.

The smelter, owned by the multinational Glencore, has been criticized for years for releasing arsenic into the air at a rate 33 times higher than Quebec’s permitted limit of 3 nanograms per cubic meter. Public health authorities have said that arsenic emissions in the neighborhood around the smelter are “intolerable” and that there are more lung cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, low birth weights and shorter life expectancies there than anywhere else. from Québec.

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“It depends on the people of Rouyn-Noranda,” Legault told radio host Paul Arcand on Wednesday. “It’s not up to Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and it’s not up to us to say what’s going on with the Horne Foundry. … It is a decision that must be made by the citizens of Rouyn-Noranda because before we talked about mental health. … If tomorrow morning, 650 employees, and we’re talking thousands if we add indirect jobs, lose their jobs, that will also have consequences.”

But Nadeau-Dubois said the smelter doesn’t need to close to meet safe asbestos emissions targets. QS would require the smelter to reduce its arsenic emissions to 15 ng per cubic meter within one year and to meet Quebec’s arsenic standards within four years.

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“We have made a clear commitment to put the health of the people of Rouyn-Noranda first and that does not mean closing the smelter, it just means demanding that the smelter fulfill its responsibilities. … In a democratic society, the government’s job is to make the rules and it’s up to business to follow the rules.”

He accused Legault of spreading misinformation about the air pollution risks posed by the smelter, particularly during his appearance last Sunday on the television program Tout le monde en parle.

He said Legault continually suggests that voters must choose between a healthy environment and a strong economy, calling the Horne Foundry issue “the perfect illustration of the old François Legault mentality in terms of economic development. We need a new vision of the economy where people’s health and good work in the regions are not antagonistic factors. They go together.

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QS launched a financial framework in early September, explaining how a QS government would finance his many election promises. It includes new sources of revenue for the government, such as a wealth tax and taxes on polluting industries, but the party says that no Quebecois earning less than $100,000 a year would see a tax increase.

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