CHANGE IS NOT OPTIONAL

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

 As National Director, Campaign 2000, Leila Sarangi has an overview of child poverty in Canada that few others do.

What she witnesses acts as an impetus to plug away harder to achieve Campaign 2000’s mandate.

“I’m an optimist at heart,” she says. “I’ve been in this sector for 25 years. The people I work with and our highly engaged partners give me hope. Our movement is growing.”

Campaign 2000 is a pan-Canada public education movement to build awareness and support for the 1989 all-party House of Commons resolution to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. It was launched in 1991 out of concern about the lack of progress. The coalition of 120 partners is driven by the belief that child poverty, which continues to deprive over 1.34 million children of their only childhood is not inevitable, but a result of choices.

It engages local communities, encouraging them to take action and advocate for the advance of doable public policy solutions to income security, affordable housing, childcare, pharmacare, mental health and dental benefits, etc., for families and children.

A huge part of her role, says Sarangi, who is a registered federal lobbyist, is to push forward and try and win some of those. That involves research, policy analysis and development of the national report card on child poverty that Campaign 2000 releases annually.

“My entire trajectory has been about creating processes and infrastructure that engages people – bringing different people with different experiences to the table. Policymakers, academics and people with lived experience of poverty. We’re developing a community-based research project for the federal government to help Canada achieve its UN obligation to end child poverty. ”

She is also Director of Social Action at Family Services Toronto.

“It’s an interesting dual role,” she says. “Family Services Toronto hosts Campaign 2000 – they are its backbone and over 90 per cent of our resources come from them. They are a major part of why our work continues.”

Sarangi recently completed a tour of Canada, meeting people living in poverty, listening to their stories and their vision for a poverty-free community. Not just what’s not working but also what is.

“We are very intentional in creating processes that tackle the issue. People are hopeful and that gives me hope. I feel the responsibility.”

Sarangi is frequently quoted in media on how the skyrocketing prices of basic necessities are impacting families, on how people prioritize rent when forced to choose between food and rent.

She says data for 2020, the first year of the pandemic, shows that even though huge swaths of the economy were shut down, people actually saw a reduction in poverty because the federal government stepped in with its $1.2 billion rescue plan.

“But with the payments having stopped, preliminary data is showing a real spike in poverty. While we wait for affordable housing and childcare, etc., we can address the income aspect of poverty. The bailout was designed and rolled out in two weeks – it wasn’t perfect, but it made a difference. A woman with two young girls who struggled to put food on the table after paying rent told me for the first time she was able to do both. Pay rent and feed her children. It made a material difference. It reduced stress.”

Poverty is often viewed as an individual’s poor decision, says Sarangi. If they only got an education, worked harder, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps... “That is just not true. That discounts systemic discrimination. We have to be respectful. We need to look at real causes, and come up with trauma-informed responses. There’s a very real physiological and psychological response to trauma. Children who experience poverty are more likely to experience it later. Child poverty is related to worse health, social and economic outcomes. Parents should be able to afford swimming lessons for their children. Or be able to buy a birthday gift if their child is invited to a party.”

On her wishlist is a series of measures she would like to see implemented.

• A CERB amnesty. “Stop going after people for money they don’t have. ‘Just apply, we are not leaving anyone behind,’ people were told. That they had to exhaust every other source before getting social assistance payments. Many people who applied in good faith are now being asked to pay back if they can’t prove they were eligible. Racialized and Indigenous people and women are the most affected. They are reporting receiving terrifying letters and some are entering into years’-long agreements to pay back thousands at the rate of 30 or 40 dollars a month. So now it’s not only inflation but also CERB repayment and the way it’s happening that puts them in dire straits.”

• Invest in and supplement the Canada Child Benefit program. When it was implemented, there was a dip in poverty, but again, there are lacunae. “You have to file taxes to get it. First Nations people don’t have to file taxes as part of their agreement. Women fleeing violence, the homeless, or those in shelters may be unable to. It is also tied to immigration status. People who’ve applied for immigration or refugee status and have had their application denied, may be waiting for movement on their files. They don’t receive the benefit. The last may be a small group, but it affects them deeply.”

• Enhance the benefits for disabilities. “There’s one for working-age adults, but we need one for children with disabilities.”

Campaign 2000 recently released the first disability poverty report card in Canada in partnership with Disability Without Poverty. Sarangi was the lead researcher/author. 

• Fix the Canada Social transfer. “There’s a cap on how much the federal government can transfer to provinces and territories to enhance economic and social well-being. We’d like to see an uncapping, an increase in the amount, but for it to be tied to showing how it is being spent, to build in some accountability.

• Create a parallel transfer system for the vulnerable and the marginalized. “The CRA staff do go to reserves to educate people about the benefits of filing taxes. Community organizations are doing it informally. Support these organizations, the network is already in place.”

Sarangi is driven by some of her earliest memories around feeling injustice that she was at times too young to verbalize or pinpoint. Finding the Women’s Study program at university too academic, she began volunteering at a women’s shelter and came to her current role with over 20 years of experience working with diverse homeless women and women fleeing violence in Toronto.

“While volunteering and working at the shelters, I truly felt accepted for myself. I met amazing women and nonbinary and trans folk who had been through so much violence but were so resilient. So strong. They still make it through the day. It crystallized for me the power they have and how we undermine them by seeing them only as ‘vulnerable’.

“In my current role, I use my community experience while leading a national program. Because of Family Services Toronto, my work is still rooted in community, it brings the threads together.”

Her parents, originally from Uganda, met in Toronto. Her mother came in 1968 with a friend when the British were giving out visas in Kampala. Her dad came with a job offer from Toronto Hydro in hand after graduating from the University of Glasgow.

“At the time, there was a grand total of 22 Ismailis in Toronto!” says Sarangi with a laugh. “But during the exodus that came in after Idi Amin expelled South Asians from Uganda, and with dad’s family joining us, the numbers grew. I was fortunate to grow up surrounded by a strong family network, but it was hard on the first generation. They wouldn’t call it trauma, but looking back, thinking of their experiences there was racism. Definitely.”

Gujarati being her first language, she wasn’t fluent in English when she started school in the Bruce Peninsula. Her parents began to speak to their children only in English to help them integrate.

They gained English but lost their mother tongue.

When her father was transferred to the Pickering nuclear plant, the segregation between the working-class neighbourhood and that of the educated elite was stark.

“Children are protected, but I experienced quite a lot of racism. People who’d lived there for generations didn’t like newcomers and their ways. I was beaten up, called names. That is why I believe it’s so important to create communities where we are not doing those things to one another.” 

The single mother of three wants to pass on these lessons to her daughter Aziza, 16, and sons Alvaro, 15, and Xavier, 11.

“I have always brought them into my work. They have been to shelters with me, played with and shared meals with children there. They attend protests, watch my interviews. We watch the 6 pm news together and have age-appropriate discussions. The older two have volunteered in political campaigns and my youngest just got accepted at a City of Toronto alternative school rooted in social justice. All three are engaged and aware. I tell them that no matter what path they choose professionally, they must be responsible members of society.”

To those who see in her a role model, Sarangi says, “Whether you’re new and just settling in, or want to get involved in your communities, create a network, a support system around yourself. I have a leadership role, but I have such a strong coalition. As a single mom – I’ve been raising them alone since the youngest was one-and-a-half – I couldn’t have done it without help.

“Canada has a reputation as the land of opportunities. It is, but you may find the system hard to navigate, people may not always be nice. So build your own community. The value of trusted people, the neighbour whose door you could knock on, became even more evident during the pandemic.

“I am drawn to this work, I am growing all the time. It’s a real privilege I never take for granted. One young woman said to me, ‘Our souls are vibing together. It smells so sweet.’ We have to realize their vision for healthy communities.”

• Grant’s is proud to present this series about people who are making a difference in the community. Represented by PMA Canada (www.pmacanada.com).