The intensification of poverty in Canada is disproportionately affecting its racialized communities. Child poverty rates for Aboriginals, immigrants and children in visible minority groups are more than double the average for all children (Campaign 2000, 2005). In Toronto, members of visible minority groups are far more likely to have incomes below the poverty line than those of European ancestry (Ornestein, 2001). Galabuzi (2001) points to the failure of market-based approaches to rectify racial inequality.
Racialized groups in Canada suffer disproportionately from income gaps, high levels of poverty, unemployment and underemployment, under-representation in well-paid jobs and over-representation in low income sectors of the labour market. An inclusive and integrative approach to poverty in Canada must acknowledge the “circle of poverty” for racialized groups. This “circle of poverty” highlights how multiple factors and phenomena compound and intensify the experience of poverty for these groups, including access to employment and education, racially segregated neighbourhoods, poor quality housing and health. Moreover, while teasing out the racial overtones of poverty is crucial, it is also important to not put forth essentialist notions of the racialization of poverty that obscure the specific and, often, more pronounced experience of poverty for particular racialized groups, such as Aboriginals, immigrants, women and children.
Despite a growing body of research, policy papers and (to a lesser degree) public discourse about the racialization of poverty, little concrete action has been taken to implement practical, solution-oriented poverty reduction (vs. alleviation) initiatives. Simply generating and disseminating knowledge about this issue is not enough. There is a need for policy positions which critique the power relations and the existing political economy which promote race-based marginalization. The time has come to bring stakeholders from across the different sectors together to generate solutions, and to take existing ideas and put them into practice.
SCCC has developed Praxis, an applied action-research unit that is researching and developing persuasive and tangible policy options to address the racialization of poverty. Our Praxis Unit builds on work that is currently being conducted on race and poverty. The Unit is looking at the “racialization of poverty” using a comprehensive and integrative approach – one that acknowledges the multiple factors and phenomena that reinforce poverty for low income groups, such as education, employment, housing, health, formal and informal childcare and income insecurity. It is a perspective that is also concerned with how the intersections of race, culture, gender, age and immigrant and refugee status produce diverse experiences of marginalization and poverty for racialized members, including Aboriginals, women and youth.