A Short History of NAPO

January 1971 saw the birth of NAPO. At the Poor People's Conference held in Toronto, delegates representing more than 250 poor people's groups across Canada, met and passed resolutions aimed at fighting poverty in Canada. One of the major resolutions, passed unanimously, was to form a national organization.

How to form such a national organization? The mechanism agreed upon was to elect two temporary representatives from the delegates attending the Conference from each province and territory. These reps would then call together a meeting or conference of delegates from all known groups within their province. At this conference, delegates would form a provincial organization and elect two people to represent their area on the national committee of the new national organization. Over the next couple of years six provinces developed provincial organizations and elected representatives.

The first task of the new organization was to seek funds to pay the deficit of the Poor People's Conference and fund the first meeting of the national committee. Funding would continue to be a major preoccupation of the organization.

The First Meeting

NAPO's first meeting was held in November 1971 in Winnipeg. At this time the name National Anti-Poverty Organization was adopted, along with four basic aims:

1.	To provide information about and to low income organizations.
2.	To present a united voice around agreed-upon issues.
3.	To assist in developing and strengthening new organizations in areas where they do not exist.
4.	To ensure that resolutions passed at the previous Poor Peoples Conference and at future conferences were acted upon.

NAPO' s first brief to Parliament followed shortly. It was on the proposed Family Income Support Plan -- a more generous forerunner of the child benefit. Surprisingly, NAPO's brief was made on videotape.

In the late spring of 1973, NAPO submitted its by-laws and was incorporated.

Late in 1973, NAPO received funds to open an office in Ottawa. At this time NAPO published the first issue of its newspaper NAPO-INFO in both languages with a program to fight poverty, information about NAPO activities and reports from across Canada. NAPO now had a home base for its ongoing efforts to encourage and help develop provincial anti-poverty federations and to link groups across the country, and for collecting a library of information and doing research.

The Early Years

Among our historical files we find an assessment of these early years for NAPO.

It was observed that anti-poverty groups were disbanding at the local level because of cuts in government funding (another perennial challenge). In turn it was difficult to maintain provincial and territorial organizations which originally had been formed by the coming together of local groups. During this time NAPO received enough funding for its operations, but never had sufficient funds to effectively assist in solving problems at the provincial and territorial level.

However, the overall assessment was that as an organization it had accomplished a great deal with its limited financial resources. Some of NAPO's activities and achievements were listed:

Before hearings of the CRTC for Bell rate increases, NAPO fought for and won retention of the 10¢ pay phone and won changes in credit collection procedures, and fought for a budget or life-line service. It helped other groups start these kinds of actions in areas served by other telephone companies.

NAPO also campaigned for and gained protective legislation to stop exploitive income tax rebate discounters.

It pressed for changes in income distribution and won some concessions from governments.

It aided thousands of people to receive money and programs to which they were entitled through information and advocacy services (e.g. veterans allowances, old age pensions, etc.)

It also acted as a watch dog, seeking inequities in the system and demanding their removal, often with success. It constructively changed programs and policies detrimental to the poor.

In the first decade NAPO entered areas of activity that would continue to be part of its work through the 80s and 90s. NAPO also described other areas of activity it had hoped to pursue if sufficient funds were available: in particular, developing and establishing enterprises across Canada to employ the poor and provide training. In the early 70s, NAPO had put forward an ambitious proposal for $50,000,000 to initiate such a Poor People's Development Corporation.

Disaster and a New Direction

But there were tough times just ahead for the organization. At the beginning of the 80s bankruptcy threatened and a flood in its office destroyed most of the mailing list and a lot of other information. The newsletter ceased. However, NAPO's Executive in 1981 reported NAPO's rescue from bankruptcy, its move to Rideau Street (as it happens, on higher ground), and announced its search for a new executive director. In December of 1983 the newsletter returned as NAPO News, and President Cora Davenport reported:

"During the past two years, we've gone through a long, hard period of reorganization. But we have survived and we are getting stronger every day."

In this difficult period, NAPO's purpose was clearly restated:

NAPO exists to be the voice of and for the poor. Its objectives are to alleviate poverty, to foster human development, and to ensure that local people will have democratic control over the economic institutions which meet their needs.

NAPO is a non-partisan association based upon local, provincial and national members, whose interests it represents.

NAPO's activities will foster greater understanding of society, self-help capability, and collaboration amongst people striving to improve their conditions of life and their environment.

NAPO will endeavour to implement social equality, mutuality and democratic control within all of Canadian society.

Also, the principles of the organization were reconfirmed:

• We believe that all people are capable, valuable and unique.
• We believe all people command respect, understanding and consideration.
• We are concerned, not only with helping people cope better with their problems, but with seeking lasting solutions to the deprivation and degradation of poverty.
• We believe that the best way to eliminate problems is for people to participate fully and democratically in finding and implementing the solutions.
• We believe that alone individuals can not do much to improve things, but that by banding and working together with others they can achieve much more.

The Success of NAPO News

To carry on our story, we can find in NAPO News a valuable record of the events and issues of the next two decades and of NAPO's activities in response.

Some issues were historic: fighting to keep family allowances and Jim Finlay's long fight in the Federal and Supreme Courts for the provisions guaranteed by CAP. In the case of other historic events, the impacts have extended far beyond the events themselves: the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement and subsequent "harmonizing" of social programs, constitutional discussions and the devolution of these programs, the cap on CAP and final repeal of CAP. Some issues returned again and again: threats to medicare, pension "reform", changes to UI, yet another federal budget and more cuts. Other issues have never left the scene: access to banking services, basic phone rates, unemployment, gap between rich and poor, need for decent and affordable housing, the rise of food banks, inadequacy of welfare rates.

NAPO responded in a variety of ways. It presented concerns to Parliamentary committees guided by its Board, worked with group members and national partners, consulted with low income communities, intervened at the CRTC and before the courts, answered questions from the press. It worked to make certain that the concerns of low income Canadians were heard, and managed, in a time of numerous legislative changes and with limited resources, to fulfil NAPO's mandate to provide a voice for low-income Canadians on a wide array of national issues that tended to affect poor people disproportionately. It also supported as much as it could local and regional organizations in bringing the voices of the poor to the discussion of similar issues at the provincial level.

There have been some small clear victories: the roll back of a telephone rate increase in the late 80s, and, more recently, gaining a commitment from the banks not to discriminate against the poor. There have also been some major set-backs, such as the loss of CAP and national standards for welfare recipients.

However, we are recognized by government, the press, at the UN, and among the general public as the one national organization directed by and representing low income Canadians. Our research is credible -- informed by the experience of the poor across Canada as reported by our Board and other activists. We have helped to link anti-poverty groups across the country. In the past few years, with the help of Board members, we've been able to pull together a comprehensive list of groups to form a country-wide anti-poverty network. Representative groups were brought together for a second nation-wide poor people's conference -- a conference proposed in '87 and finally achieved in the fall of 1993.