Kimberly Rogers Inquest Alerts

Kimberly Rogers Inquest - Wed. Dec. 4, 2002 - Day 29
Ontario Social Safety NetWork (OSSN) Summary

Bruce Porter was called to continue his cross-examination. He had prepared two charts based on data he received from Stats’ Can’s Centre for Justice, dealing with the sentencing of fraud over and under $5000 in Ontario, for 1999-2000 and 2000-2001. In putting the data together into an easily understandable chart, Mr. Porter had forgotten to do some calculations for the final category, “unknown and other”, and had made some other minor numerical errors. The chart with errors had been entered into evidence on Monday. (Those errors don’t affect our email report from Monday, Dec 2 because we did not include the whole report). However, once even small errors are made it has a cascading effect, throwing off almost all the totals and percentages (the percentages changed by 1%).

Coroner’s counsel re-cross-examined Mr. Porter, to make the point that nothing could be learned from the chart. The problem was not only the errors, but the fact that the Centre for Justice data dealt with all types of fraud, and we had no data on specifically welfare fraud other than the figures from the Ministry web site. The data from the two sources could not really be compared, as there was a category of “fraud over and under 5000” in the Centre’s data.

Mr. Porter replied that as he had testified Monday, he had tried to get the actual welfare fraud data by sentence and gender from the Ontario Ministries of the Attorney General and Community, Family and Children’s Services, but they would not give it to him.

One of the points taken up by the Attorney General’s counsel on cross, was to contend with Mr. Porter’s suggestion that welfare fraud should be dealt with administratively, like EI, and not criminally. She suggested that if that were done, the accused person would not get legal aid, so might be worse off. Mr. Porter replied that legal representation should be provided in many non-criminal matters, such as landlord and tenant as well as social assistance, and ways could be found of providing that without having to criminalize the people in this situation.

Dr. Margaret Little, professor at Queen’s University, was called to the stand as the final witness by OSSN/SCSA. Dr. Little has spent more than ten years researching issues related to women and welfare across Canada, particularly in Ontario. She has written a book, numerous articles and papers for academic conferences, received many awards and research grants, and has been reviewed as well as evaluated others’ research and writings. The coroner found her to be qualified to give evidence for this inquest in the area of the social assistance regime and its impact on women.

The first area covered by Dr. Little was the amount of assistance. She found that all women she has spoken to in the last five years since the rate cuts, went without food so their children could eat. They find food banks to be a humiliating experience, which in no way makes up for the shortfall in their income. The inadequacy of the shelter allowances is well documented. This also makes women extremely vulnerable to landlords and substandard accommodation.

Many of the women Dr. Little has spoken to since the cuts no longer have a phone. Not only does that cause them great worry in case there is an emergency for their children, it also makes it very difficult to look for a job since they have no reliable number to leave with employers.

Women have told Dr. Little over and over that they don’t know what the rules are, and what benefits are available. For instance, few of them knew about the clothing allowance to seek employment before she told them. One woman told her how she had a job interview. Her only dress shoes had one high heel broken off, so she had to break the other heel off. She also had a missing front tooth, so she tried to fashion a tooth for herself and went to the interview wearing the broken shoes and homemade tooth.

Women are constantly afraid of breaking the rules by accepting help or support that would be counted as income. One woman told how her mother had dropped off two jugs of milk, leaving them on her front door step because she wasn’t home. She was terrified that one of the neighbors might call welfare to report undeclared support.

The system is so complex that not only do the women not know all the rules, even the workers often seem not very clear. They do not answer all the recipient’s questions because often there is not a categorical answer, and they never have enough time to spend with women. One OW worker Dr. Little interviewed was demoted because he spent too much time with his clients. He was reprimanded after spending all day arranging her husband’s funeral with a client who did not speak English.

In terms of seeking employment that might facilitate a lasting exit from social assistance, Dr. Little asserted that the current policies actually hurt that goal more than help. Women required to go community placements and take the first low paying or part time job available are unable to take courses that would actually lead to good jobs to support their families in the long term. She spoke to a woman who was only one course away from getting her health care aid certificate. She was given a workfare placement in a hospital alongside other health care aids. Not only was she unpaid for doing that work, but when a real job came up she could not apply because she did not have the certificate.

Dr. Little was stopped from going into greater depth on the issue of education and employment, by a Coroner’s ruling that this area was not relevant as Ms. Rogers was on medical deferral at the time of her death.

Dr. Little’s evidence will continue on Friday, December 06, 2002; that will conclude the testimony at the hearing. Closing submissions will be made on December 11th and 12th. December 19 has been set aside as a day the jury may give their recommendations, if they are ready by that date.

Nancy Vander Plaats, OSSN