Deb Matthews: A Poverty Warrier

From the Wednesday, October 31, 2007, Toronto Star, Canada section, page A14, is an article about the new Children and Youth Services Minister, Deb Matthews:


A NEW WARRIOR TO FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY
Matthews heads group that will carry out election promise to introduce poverty-reduction targets

Kerry Gillespie
Queen's Park Bureau

She has her own ministry, but Deb Matthews, children and youth services minister, will be spending much of her time bending other ministries to her will to get what she needs.

There are more than a million Ontarians living in poverty and nothing less than the co-operation of a variety of government departments will be enough to cut that number, said Matthews, who heads a new anti-poverty committee.

"We do have a problem with poverty in this province," Matthews said yesterday. "We've got a challenge, there's no question about it, but we're up to it."

The first job of the cabinet committee on poverty reduction will be to carry out Premier Dalton McGuinty's election promise to introduce firm poverty-reduction targets - within a year - so the government can be measured on its progress.

Poverty reduction "involves education, it involves health, it involves community and social services, it's (children and youth services), it's housing, it's very multi-dimensional. The solutions are going to require co-operation," she said.

Matthews, former president of the Ontario Liberal Party, said she's up to the task of wrangling the various ministers needed to do the job.

Poverty and community groups that have worked with her are equally confident.

"This is what she went into politics to do," said David Pecaut, chair of the Toronto City Summit Alliance, a coalition dedicated to improving life in the city. Matthews, first elected in 2003 in London North Centre, has a Ph.D. in social demography.

She led a series of province-wide consultations on income security and social assistance, was involved in a task force studying working adults living in poverty and McGuinty has credited her for coming up with the new Ontario Child Benefit, which provides assistance to all low-income families.

"She has seen the challenges of what it's going to take to put together an interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral program because you can't tackle poverty with only one instrument," Pecaut said.

Other committee members will be announced in the coming weeks.

Matthews is one of nine women in cabinet, a decision commended by Equal Voice, the non-partisan group that wants to increase the number of women in politics.

Still, the group noted that's the same number in his expanded 28-member cabinet as there were in the previous 27-minister cabinet.

"When you run more women, as the Liberal Party did this fall, you have more women to choose from," said Equal Voice co-founder Rosemary Speirs, a former Toronto Star political reporter.

Other women appointed are: Education Minister Kathleen Wynne; Revenue Minister Monique Smith, Culture Minister Aileen Carroll; Health Promotion Minister Margaret Best; Economic Development and Trade Minister Sandra Pupatello; Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky; Community and Social Services Minister Madeline Meilleur and Natural Resources Minister Donna Cansfield.

With files from Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson