Minister of Middle Class Prosperity, Say What?
Mona Fortier, a name most people did not know until November
20th of this year, when she was given two minister titles in
cabinet, Minister of Middle Class Prosperity, whatever that means, and
Associate Finance Minister. Mona Fortier was first elected in 2017, when she
became the first female Member of Parliament for the Ottawa-Vanier region,
according to the Government of Canada website. She claims that she has always
thought that the best way to help her community, is to get involved and take
action. The Government of Canada lists her areas of expertise as “health care,
education, job creation, and francophone affairs”. Job creation, ironic, since
Prime Minister Trudeau created a cabinet position just for her, a move many
seem to suspect is simply to make Trudeau look like he is encouraging gender
parity (according to The Star). She has, however, received a number of awards
for her community involvement mentioned earlier, including a medal from the
Queen in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
With a little background on her political career, it is
easier to see why she was given a position that one would think would involve
job creation and helping people in the middle-class to make more money, or
“prosper”. The position has caused a lot of confusion though, as no one,
including Fortier, can properly explain what this new, made up position, really
is. Minister of Middle Class Prosperity seems like a loaded position. Who
determines what middle-class is? Who actually knows what middle-class is? From
speaking to various Canadians, they all seem to have differing opinions on what
middle-class is. Hence the confusion. Middle-class, really is a very ambiguous
term, since there is no clear line of where poverty turns to middle-class. The
National Post has stated that the Liberals claim that poverty rates are at an
all-time low, yet wonder at how their official party line narrows its focus on
the middle class, who, by Liberal claims, are not actually largely at risk of
falling into poverty. Why the focus on “Middle-Class Prosperity” then? A really
good question. The reason for this, as I see it, would be due to the fact that
the East is prospering and have a growing middle-class, yet the west has been
decreasing in the number of middle-class citizens, with more and more becoming
impoverished daily. As long as the Liberals can bolster middle-class numbers
and use this new position to appear to give a crap, they can keep attracting
new eastern voters, winning further elections. The same strategy Trudeau has in
increasing our immigration numbers.
This can come with consequences though. An example of which
is how Canada appears on a global scale and at the country level. Canada has
been scoring lower and lower on rankings surrounding equality, due to the
battle of food insecurity (National Post). Looking at this though, shows that
the real problem is not for middle-class citizens to further prosper, it
appears as if the true problem lies in bringing our impoverished citizens out
of their poverty. By helping this “class” to prosper, we then do in fact grow
our middle-class. Helping our impoverished saves lives, and drives up the
morale of the country, something more advantageous than what Fortier’s new
cabinet position is designed to do.
Mona Fortier sees her position as fitting into her own
personal goals. She claims, on the Government of Canada website, to be focused
on environment, business prosperity, and “making life more affordable for
Canadians”. Sounds like a line right out of Trudeau’s playbook, no wonder he
chose her, cut from the same mold. She also claims that Canada needs “an
ambitious plan to build stronger and better communities while growing the
middle class”. What this plan is supposed to be, is yet to be determined. Which
fits in with the confusion surrounding this position. A Conservative, Melissa
Lantsman, states that this is a, “Politically-driven minister with an unclear
set of responsibilities.” She suspects that this made up position is an attempt
by the Liberal Party to do what they failed to do in their last term, which is
to be the party for the middle-class as Trudeau has claimed. With the majority
of Canadians visualizing themselves as being part of this class, it really is
murky, some stats would place up to %60 of Canadians in this category. Stats
Canada defines middle-class as making $25,000-$66,000. In 2017, Stats Canada
placed 9.5% or 3.4 million Canadians in the poverty category, which is awfully
convenient, since this is the year with the lowest stats in history. Here in
2019 these stats will be higher, since Alberta, Saskatchewan and Northern British
Columbia have all been hit hard economically. The Liberals seem to want this to
appear to be their way of presenting the issues of the middle class and show
off the ways that they are supporting them, even if it is just that, the
appearance of helping. Their whole election campaign, once again, was focused
mainly on this exact appearance which seemed to work for them, even though
their past successes in this was limited.
Mona Fortier was
interviewed by CBC in trying to help people understand what this position means
to Canadians. In the interview, Mona even seems to be confused as to what the
position actually involves. The hope would be that she will focus her attention
on affordable housing, to help those below the poverty line, and bring them into
the middle-class category, but this isn’t the feel that is given by her
interview. She does claim that her focus will be on making life more affordable
for Canadians and to develop the economy. She was asked to put her own
definition on middle-class. Which she seemed to give a Trudeau answer by really
avoiding the question, since defining it is such a difficult task. Eventually
she did come up with an answer. Fortier defines middle-class as, “where people
feel that they can afford their way of life. They have quality of life…It’s
having the cost of living where you can do what you want with your family.”
Which led her to then to re-affirm that the Liberals intend to have a strong
economy, which is hard to believe with how they have destroyed and mis-managed
the western economy. Prime Minister Trudeau did promise Canadians that the
Liberals would make a middle-class tax cut, and Fortier follows this same path,
stating that the Liberals will be making cuts for sure. This cut though comes
with doubts though, as David MacDonald, of Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives, says that the only ones to really find the cuts advantageous is
the higher middle-class citizens. Fortier counters this with saying that will
have different methods of helping the differing levels of middle-class,
including helping people with children’s bills. She states that the upper-class
Canadians need to give more money, so they will support those that drive the
economy through the middle-class. No real direction or answer came on the question
of how they are going to do this, making one wonder if they even have any clue.
The real focus, to which I agree, should be the impoverished
portion of our population, and the lower middle-class. The Star has done great
research on this, and in a previous article of my own, I also did a lot of
research. People are finding it hard to get by, building up more debt than they
are bringing in through job income, and this has been on the rise over the last
decade especially, but it really goes further back than that. Trudeau and the
Liberal Party seem like they are confused as to how to handle this, which
explains their disjointed methods of tackling the poverty issue, and explains
why Trudeau focuses on middle-class, not impoverished Canadians. Liberals have
tried and succeeded in bringing 825,000 people out of poverty. They have made
cuts to the taxes that businesses are hit with, and provided more in the form
of the Canada Child Tax Benefit. In 2016, they set up the Affordable Housing
Innovation Fund, which was supposed to help people get financing for “affordable
rental housing projects”. According to the Star the wide variety of projects
funded by this, shows a “lack of cohesion”. The fund right now is not taking in
applications. In 2017, the government followed this effort up by setting up the
National Housing Strategy. As I mentioned in my previous article, this will
cost $55 million over the course of 11 years. It is designed to reduce
homelessness rates by %50, through building 125,000 homes, renovating 300,000
homes, as well as other means of accomplishing this. In other words, they are
aiming, and promising, to “strengthen the middle-class” and create “social
housing stability” for those who are in need the most. Whether this strategy
works or not remains to be seen, but from the aforementioned lack of focus,
doubts remain.
As an attempt is being made here to explain a little about
what could potentially be behind the new cabinet position, the views of
Canadian citizens must be explored. When the position was announced, people
began asking why the Liberal Party would put in a position just for the
middle-class, when they are not the group of people in need of financial help
most. Kathy Wells tweeted, “How about a Minister of Poverty, Unaffordable
Housing and Rising Consumer Debt, Mr. Trudeau?” Another tweet by Gillian Kolla
scoffs, “Looking forward to the announcement of the Minister of Thousands of
People Homeless Every Night Across Canada.” Rabble.ca had more people
commenting in regards to Fortier’s position. Lagatta4 jokingly refers to the
position as the “Ministry of Silly Walks”, in reference to Monty Python, then
furthers it with saying that, “it is strange to have a Ministry based only on
classist bullshit.” More comments continue on talking about the middle-class
being thrown some bones, but that this seems like an effort to pit the
impoverished against those in the middle-class. An effort to separate them. One
person points out the terrible poverty rates in Fortier’s own riding, and how
little the Liberal Party has done to resolve the problem. The poster leaves it
off saying that it is, “Too bad there isn’t a Minister of Child Poverty.”
Through the article I was hoping to discover for myself what
the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity actually means. However, it would
appear that everyone, from regular citizens, reporters, up to Fortier herself,
who seems confused by the position. I guess time will reveal what the position
will entail and what it will hope to accomplish, or if it will even accomplish
anything. It may very well be what some suspect, a filler position to make
Trudeau look like he has more women on his Cabinet.
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