Social Safety News - the OSSN Newsletter
Issue 28 May 2004

Social Safety News is produced by the Coordinating Committee of the
Ontario Social Safety NetWork, which is made up of anti-poverty groups, legal
clinics, faith groups, labour organizations, community agencies and social
activists who support the Mission Statement of the NetWork.

Northumberland Meets Deb Matthews:
OW (Ontario Works) Consultation

by Deborah O'Connor, co-chair, Ontario Social Safety NetWork (OSSN)

On May 26th about twenty agency representatives met with Deb Matthews to have our brains picked on the all consuming topic of reform of Ontario Works. Billed as an opportunity to discuss employment and job supports and identification of disincentives to employment, the people in the room were quite blunt about changes that need to be made to get people back to work, including the obvious point that until rates are raised to an adequate level it's pointless to expect recipients to do anything but scramble to survive, and barely at that.

When it came my turn I told them the poor don't need more programs to "do" for them, they need enough income to do for themselves, which most are quite capable of doing. I told them I wanted them to remember that every dollar they put into another program was a dollar they could not put in recipients' pockets (and they were writing furiously on their note pads at this point).

We were all asked to tell them 2 or 3 things we would change about OW to make it easier for people to get back to work and the answers were all the ones you'd expect: better day care, transportation (a huge rural
issue here), eliminating the 3 month wait for the STEP to kick in, higher earnings exemptions, maintenance of the drug benefit even when people go off OW, financial incentives for participation in programs etc etc.

I added that they need a radical change of attitude in the OW staff; they've been welfare cops for too long and need to shift into a role as a social worker/helper. I also said they need to change the penalty driven nature of the system, and they need to recognise that some people have such severe employment barriers they will never be able to work, and need access to ODSP at a rate level where they can lead a life with some dignity.

Deb Matthews and her cohort (whose name I didn't get) seemed very sincere and were certainly listening carefully to everything. It was clear they had done their homework in terms of understanding how the system works, and all the tory inspired rules that make it so hard to accomplish anything positive.

Whether their sincerity will result in real change, and when, remains to be seen.

Walking on Eggshells Report

by Jo-Anne Boulding
Lake Country Community Legal Clinic

One of the major projects that the NetWork has been involved in for the past 4 years has published its final report entitled Walking On Eggshells: Abused Women's Experiences of Ontario's Welfare System.

The project involved interviewing 65 women across the province who had been abused by their intimate partner and been on Ontario Works or Ontario Disability Support Benefits since the major changes in 1995.

This is the first research of it kind done in Ontario and it is a potentially powerful tool for us to use in our activism. Thanks to all those women that assisted us and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for the funding.

For those of us that work in the area of welfare and woman abuse, there were no surprises in the research and final report. The main areas of research included: inadequacy of benefits, workfare and the intersection of work and abuse, pursing abusive partners for spousal or child support, definition of spouse, suspicion and surveillance by welfare authorities, information about the welfare system - its rules and programs, and lack of affordable housing.

The Report made 34 recommendations that included raising benefit levels, stop the clawback of National Child Benefit Supplement, eliminating mandatory work requirement, re-instating STEP earnings exemptions, eliminating welfare snitch lines, increasing the stock of subsidized housing and changing the atmosphere of suspicion and fraud that pervades the welfare system.

Copies of the report are available electronically and there will be paper copies at the NetWork meeting in June.

We had a press conference to release the report at Queen's Park on April 5th. There was lots of media coverage and there were many follow up articles in newspapers across the province.

The report will be a useful tool, not only for our policy meetings with the government, but within our local communities as we continue to advocate for real change to the welfare system.

ODSP Action Coalition Report

by Nancy Vander Plaats
Chair ODSP Action Coalition

The ODSP Action Coalition has worked in two general ways in the last year: Political lobbying, and consultation with officials from the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The Coalition, endorsed by at least 100 (at last count) groups of people with disabilities, social agencies, legal clinics, faith and anti-poverty groups, started in 2002 with a series of community forums documenting the problems with ODSP and developing priority recommendations for change.

POLITICAL ACTION

Politically, all the people with disabilities, their families, people on welfare and other social activists who worked both during the election and in these last few months, telling MPP's about what it is like to struggle to
survive on OW or ODSP, can be very proud of their achievement. Not that the 3% increase is anywhere close to meeting people's needs, but just getting the government to acknowledge that the rates are shamefully inadequate is a start. Minister Sorbara stated that they had heard this message "over and over" in pre-budget consultations; without that they almost certainly would have said that raising the rates would have to wait until next year.

The Coalition certainly will not give up on the rates issue now. We will continue to write letters, gather petitions, join with more allies from all sectors in society to make the point that rates must meet the real needs of people They should be based on actual costs for shelter, food, telephone, transportation and other basic necessities of life. Some of the other groups and provincial networks who have been working on this issue include the Ontario Needs a Raise Campaign, the Ontario HIV/AIDS Network, the Canadian Mental Health Association, activists from the Ontarians with Disabilities Committee in the consultations on the ODA, the March for Dignity walkers and their supporters, and many, many more. We get new people and groups joining the Coalition every month, so we should be able to mount even more effective campaigns in coming years.

WORKING GROUP CONSULTATIONS WITH MCSS

ODSP Action Coalition members have also spent countless hours in meetings with officials from the Ministry of Community and Social Services. After we met with the (then) Conservative Minister in January 2003, four Working Groups were set up so that the Ministry could listen to our ideas in certain areas that they admitted needed a lot of improvement. Those Working Groups were: The Applications Process, the Disability Adjudication Unit, Local Offices (Client Service), and the Employment Supports and Earnings area. All of these groups were only allowed to discuss operational issues, that is, how the Ministry does things, because the Conservative government was not willing to discuss changes to policies or the law.

The Working Groups were able to elaborate on many of the problems and recommendations that had been raised in our public forums and that recipients and front line workers are so familiar with. The Ministry officials say they learned a lot from those meetings and have begun to actually implement some of the recommendations. For instance, they are writing a number of brochures explaining the rules, procedures and benefits available. We had a chance to see drafts of those brochures and give suggestions on how they could be written more clearly. Those brochures should be printed in the nest few months. Another area where the Ministry asked for Coalition input was on the form letters that the computer system sends out to people when their benefits are changed or stopped. They are trying to make those letters easier to understand and less intimidating.

Many other issues were discussed in those groups, and the Ministry has promised a number of changes. There is insufficient time here to report on all those changes. However one idea we are pushing now is that all local ODSP offices should hold community meetings with agencies and recipients in their community to allow benefits and rules to be discussed.

Although we could not discuss policy or legislation changes when these working groups started, since there is a new government now it may be possible to raise at least some policy issues. One issue the Coalition has
already been successful on, has been in broadening the policy on Necessary Medical Transportation. Before, ODSP would only pay transportation costs for appointments with registered health professionals like doctors or physiotherapists. Now, they will also pay for counselling sessions or mental health programs run by social workers or other therapists who are not "health professionals." We have been doing a lot of public education on this change, and making the application form for this benefit available. At the same time, we also give out many copies of the Special Diet form and Schedule. Although this is not new we find many people do not know about it.

Many people can get needed extra money through these two benefits. This kind of consultation work with the Ministry sometimes seems a waste of time. However, when we can make life just a little less stressful for
people who are afraid to open a letter form ODSP, or when they access a little bit of extra money to be able to get foods that they need, those hours sitting in government meetings are worthwhile. We would like to hear
from recipients and workers from all around the province, on whether you have actually seen any improvements in service at the local level. Perhaps these things could be discussed at community meetings around the province this fall.

For more information or to get involved in the Coalition, contact me at vanderpn@lao.on.ca.

Ontario Needs a Raise Coalition steps up the pace

by Dana Milne, Provincial Organizer
Income Security Advocacy Centre

(article revised)

The election of a new Liberal Government in Ontario last October, brought new hope to many that there might finally be an increase to minimum wage and social assistance rates. The excellent work that the Ontario Needs a Raise (ONR) Coalition had done during the election then shifted to individual lobbying efforts and meetings with the new Minister of Community and Social Services Sandra Pupatello and Labour Minister Chris Bentley.

In February, the Liberals increased the minimum wage to $7.15 and announced that it would increase by 30 cents every Feb. 1 for the next four years until it hit a promised $8 an hour in 2007. While welcome news, the increase falls well below the $10 an hour needed just to lift low-wage workers above the poverty line.

It was an even more disappointing story for people on social assistance.

Despite the fact that ODSP rates had been frozen since 1993 and that Ontario Works (OW) recipients saw their cheques slashed by 21.6% in 1995 without an increase since, the Liberal Government refused to increase the rates, saying they simply couldn't afford it because of the deficit.

With the Liberals clearly dragging their feet, the Ontario Needs a Raise Coalition decided to step up the pace. On March 26th, under the banner of REAL change, not SPARE change, the coalition organized a province-wide Lobby Day. Legal clinics and anti-poverty activists across the province in Kenora, Red Lake, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Peterborough, Northumberland County, Windsor, Etobicoke, Scarborough and Toronto organized forums, rallies and meetings with their MPPs to demand a $10 minimum wage and increases to ODSP and OW rates that reflect the real cost of living. MPPs got the message and many
promised to raise it in caucus meetings.

But with the provincial budget due to be released May 18th, coalition members knew it was crucial to keep the rates in the political spotlight. So when Jim Youngs, an ODSP activist from London, contacted the Income Security Advocacy Centre where I work to say he was planning a 250-kilometre march from Sarnia to Toronto to demand an increase to the rates, we jumped on board.

On April 28th, Youngs and a courageous group of about 20 seniors, people with disabilities and people on social assistance arrived in Toronto, exhausted but determined. On April 29th, they marched on Queen's Park, joined by more than 300 people from as far away as Owen Sound and Peterborough. Rally speakers demanded increases to social assistance rates and a $10 minimum wage and the marchers presented NDP Leader Howard Hampton with petitions containing hundreds of names. Hampton presented the petitions in the Legislature that afternoon and pushed Premier Dalton McGuinty to raise the rates. NDP MPPs Rosario Marchese, Peter Kormos and Michael Prue, as well as Liberal MPP for Peterborough, Jeff Leal, also presented the petitions in the Legislature.

Following the rally, a small delegation including the marchers and representatives from the Income Security Advocacy Centre, Community Legal Assistance Sarnia, Ontario AIDS Network and the Canadian Auto Workers, met with Community and Social Services Minister Sandra Puppatello and once again stressed the dire poverty of people on social assistance, the importance of increasing rates immediately to reflect the real cost of living, and the need for a substantial review of social assistance legislation.

Both the march and the rally were picked up by media across Ontario, including the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, newspapers in London, Kitchener-Waterloo and Sarnia, CBC Radio, CBC Radio Canada, Broadcast News and City Pulse News. We had done what we could.

On May 18th, as part of their provincial budget, the Liberal Government announced a three percent increase to ODSP and Ontario Works rates. We are still waiting to hear when the new rates will take effect. The Liberals also announced that they will not clawback the annual increase to the National Child Benefit Supplement and committed to using this year to review the clawback. Currently, unlike low-wage workers who get to keep the federal supplement, low-income parents in Ontario on ODSP and OW don't see an extra penny. Although they receive the extra money from the federal goverenment every year, the provincial government simply deducts it from their next OW or ODSP cheque.

Clearly these changes don't come anywhere near what low-income people need simply to survive, and many of the low-income people connected with the Ontario Needs a Raise campaign see the announcement as insulting and disappointing. They're right. This is spare change, not real change. We've got more work to do.

From our experiences, it's clear that increasing the rates will be a long term campaign. On Thursday, May 27th the Ontario Needs a Raise Coalition met to plan the next year of its campaign. With 22 people participating, from as far away as Kenora, Timmins, London and Peterborough, there was a lot of energy and great ideas. In addition to its original demands for a $10 minimum wage and increases to ODSP and OW rates that reflect the real cost of living, the coalition has added a third demand - to end the provincial clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement. The coalition is also considering whether to include a demand around low-income seniors, although this still requires more discussion.

In terms of strategy, the coalition created a Steering Committee which will continue to create materials and plan one or two coordinated province-wide events in the next year which groups can plug into. However, the strength of the campaign will remain the ongoing energy of all of the groups involved, who are committed to continuing to raise the campaign's demands locally throughout the year, using whatever stategies makes sense in their own communities.

If you would like to participate on the Steering Committee or find out whose active in the campaign in your community, contact Kim Fry, with the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice, via email: ocsj@ocsj.ca or by phone: 416-441-3714.

To keep abreast of future Ontario Needs a Raise events and meetings, join our email list, again by emailing Kim Fry at ocsj@ocsj.ca. Updates, as well as campaign materials, are also available through ISAC's website at www.incomesecurity.org.

Dana Milne is the provincial organizer at ISAC, a province-wide legal clinic specializing in income security issues. ISAC is an active member of the Ontario Needs a Raise Coalition and the Ontario Social Safety Network

Income Security Project - HIV and Poverty
Canadian Aids Society (CAS)

by Barbara Anello
DAWN Ontario: DisAbed Women's Network

In March 2004, the Canadian Aids Society (CAS) held the first meeting in Ottawa of the national advisory committee for their Project on HIV and Poverty – funded through HRDC’s Office for Disability Issues to run for 27 months from January 2004 to March 31, 2004. This exciting project, the “Income Security Project”, brings together policy makers, researchers, people living with HIV/AIDS and others affected by episodic illnesses to discuss the challenges of accessing public income support programs and health benefits.

The project emerged from the concerns of the HIV community that the social “safety net” was not being reached by the people who needed it most. Bureaucratic loopholes and under funded programs have meant that many people living with HIV have been falling through the cracks and are currently living in poverty.

Members of the CAS project’s national advisory committee represent the following: benefits counseling; person living with HIV; Non-HIV, episodic illness; AIDS Service Organization, disability advocacy organizations; poverty advocacy organizations; Research; Government, Cdn HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic…

For over twenty years AIDS Service Organizations (ASOs) have attempted to support people living with HIV/AIDS seeking income assistance, however two major roadblocks hinder this work:

1. A lack of accessible information about federal and provincial programs and services in the area of income support and health benefits for people living with an episodic illness such as HIV; &
   
   
2. A lack of documented information about income & poverty levels among people living with HIV/AIDS.

In response to these roadblocks, the project has identified the following objectives:

• Increase theapacity of the AIDS Service Organizations, and people living with HIV/AIDS to participate in policy and program development.
  
• Create stronger inter-provincial ties and networks between AIDS Service Organizations.
• Empower people living with HIV/AIDS to access to the full range of benefits to which they are entitled, either within a province or when moving between provinces.
• Identify a strategy to respond to the need for information on HIV & income

This is an opportunity for many different stakeholders invested in the issue of poverty and illness to work together.

The ISAC Report

by Jacquie Chic
Income Security Advocacy Centre

ISAC has been very busy on a number of exciting fronts over the lastwhile. Here are the highlights.

Litigation

• with the Steering Committee on Social Assistance and the Ontario Social Safety Network, ISAC sought and was granted interevner status in the life-time ban challenge. The case was adjourned to allow the AG to seek new instructions from its client in the aftermath of the election;
  
  
• in collaboration with the African Canadian Legal Clinic, we began working on an application to intervene in the spouse-in-the house appeal being heard in the Supreme Court of Canada. That work continues although it too has been adjourned for the same reason;
  
  
• we continue to work on the class action/Charter challenge to the automatic deeming provisions in social assistance legislation pertaining to sponsored immigrants. The case will be heard in June;
  
  
• we are co-counseling with a clinic on the question of the test for the reasessment of disability in ODSP cases;
  
• we are co-counseling with a clinic on the issue of whether or not RESPs constitute a trust and are therefore exempt from the OW and ODSP asset rules;
  
  
• we filed two complaints with the Ontario Ombudsman, one on behalf of the SCSA and the OSSN, the other on behalf of northern clinics. The former concerns the delay in both the scheduling of SBT hearings and getting decisions out, the SBT's failure to enforce interim assistance orders and the lack of Francophone members. The other complaint centres on the particularly disdainful and discriminatory conduct of an SBT member who is well known in the North;
  
  
• we have been in discussion with CERA (Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation) regarding a challenge to the NCBS clawback. CERA began working on this prior to ISAC's existence. Their potential challenge is to the federal government. We are discussing with them the possibility of a challenge to the provincial government.

Community Development, Policy Work and Law Reform

• shortly after the election, we organized a meeting of community groups to strategize and harmonize our efforts regarding law reform. ACT-O and ARCH participated. It was decided that wherever possible, income security and housing issues would be linked and that we would seek interministerial meetings at every opportunity;
  
  
• with the OSSN and the Steering Committee on Social Assistance, ISAC initiated and participated in meetings with the ComSoc Minister and subsequently with her parliamentary assistant to push on a number of fronts regarding social assistance reform. Chief among them has been the grotesquely inadequate rates, an issue which, as you know, the jury presiding over the Kimberley Rogers inquest made a recommendation on. We have written to the Minister on many occasions about the rates. We have held numerous press conferences on this issue and have had op-ed pieces on this issue published in the Toronto Star;
  
  
• with Justice for Workers, a community based group of low-income workers, we are scheduled to meet with the Minister of Labour (he has cancelled three times!!) on the issue of the minimum wage. In particular, we want to tell him that the increase they announced is ridiculously inadequate. We also organized a meeting of low-income worker activists to consider the possibility of a legal challenge on this issue;
  
  
• with a couple of other legal clinics, we have been working on a response to the removal of the cap on electricity rates and the effect on low-income people. We met with both the Energy and ComSoc Ministers and their policy advisors in this regard;
  
  
• we have summarized the coroner's report on the Kimberley Rogers inquest and are following up with the ComSoc Minister and the coroner regarding the Minister's less than clear response on the jury recommendation regarding social assistance rates. We also co-authored an op-ed piece with one of the inquest jurors regarding the ongoing failure of governments to accept inquest recommendations regarding social assistance rates. The Hadley inquest produced a similar recommendation which also fell on deaf
  ears;
  
  
• we are participated in the development of the "alternative budget" with the range of groups that have traditionally been involved in its issuance;
  
  
• ISAC continues to play a facilitiating role in the Ontario Needs a Raise Campaign. We helped to organize the provincial lobby day in March;
  
  
• with NAPO, LEAF, NAWL and other partners, we organized and hosted a national anti-poverty consultation in May. We received Court Challenges case development money to identify litigation strategies and priorities. A report from the consultation will be made widely available shortly.
  
  
• we are working with community and labour activists during the federal election to turn public attention to the difficulties people experience in accessing EI.
  
  
• These are just the highlights. There is much work to do to get the government to stop creating and perpetuating poverty.

New book: "Lives in the Balance"

by Terry O'Connor
adapted from ISARC - Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition press release

Ontario's poorest citizens have seen their incomes plummet by 34 percent since 1995. A quarter of the children whose families use food banks and depend on social assistance go hungry at least once a week. Twice as many parents go hungry. Yet the provincial government still "claws back" the federal Child Tax Benefit supplement from them.

None of those points are surprises for members of OSSN. But new resources that effectively make the point to the general public are always needed. Lives in the Balance is a hard-hitting new book about poverty in Ontario based on consultations involving 1500 people across the province by the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC). The coalition held 15 consultations from Thunder Bay to London, to assess the impact of the Common Sense Revolution, see whether Ontario is living up to its commitments under UN human rights covenants, and to see how faith communities are coping as they try to fill the gaps in our
shredded social safety net.

"Ontario's poor have subsidized prosperity over the last decade," says London city councillor and ISARC member Susan Eagle. "They and their children have paid a terrible price. In our wealthy province, there is
enough for everyone. We could raise an additional $1.25 billion by asking average-income citizens to pay about $2.50 per week more in income tax - the price of a coffee and donut at a coffee shop."

The book combines first-hand stories from people in poverty, analysis of issues like hunger and homelessness, and articles by social policy experts such as Growing Gap author Armine Yalnizyan. Its editor is Murray MacAdam. A closing chapter lists recommendations for provincial government action.

Lives in the Balance sells for $19.95 and can be ordered from the publisher, Pandora Press, www.pandorapress.com. Parts of it will also be available on a web site:

previous issue March 28, 2003

Social Safety News is produced by the Coordinating Committee of the
Ontario Social Safety NetWork, which is made up of anti-poverty groups, legal
clinics, faith groups, labour organizations, community agencies and social
activists who support the Mission Statement of the NetWork.

The Ontario Social Safety NetWork depends on donations to send out our
newsletters and special reports, and to subsidize the cost of travel to
meetings for low income people from communities across the province.
Please contact Deborah O’Connor at 1-800-850-7882
if you would like to make a donation.