Non-Governmental and
Municipal Government Sites in Ontario
D-W

Daily Bread Food Bank (Toronto)
"The Daily Bread Food Bank is a non-profit, non-denominational charitable organization working to eliminate hunger in the Greater Toronto Area. It is Canada's largest food bank, serving 170 food programs. In addition, we work together to try to end the root causes of hunger through public education and research."

Publications

Selected site content:

Ontarians need a housing benefit (PDF - 156K, 1 page)
June 15, 2011
Media release
TORONTO – Despite an improving economy, people visiting food banks in the Greater Toronto Area are still struggling. The Hunger Snapshot report, released today, shows that food bank clients spend 72 per cent of their income on housing costs. When families are struggling to make ends meet and have to make a choice between paying the rent and putting food on the table, it is usually food that is sacrificed.

Housing Benefit --- find out more about the proposed Ontario Housing Benefit and how you can help make it a reality.

---

Hunger Snapshot:
Fighting Hunger (PDF - 1.3MB, 6 pages)
2011 Profile of Hunger in the Greater Toronto Area
June 15, 2011
This snapshot here is just that – some statistical highlights from the 2011 survey to provide you with a brief picture of poverty and hunger in the GTA. This year, we will be releasing the full report on the results of the survey on September 21, 2011 at the launch of Daily Bread’s Fall Drive.
[ Publications - links to earlier Toronto hunger reports back to 2005 ]

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Voice Of The Vulnerable (Audio podcast, duration 6:20)
Life on social assistance in Ontario
April 4, 2011
Matt Galloway of CBC Toronto spoke with Michael Oliphant. He is the director of research at the Daily Bread Food Bank. He will be at the People's Blueprint Conference today along with various other stakeholders to discuss issues of social assistance. The People's Blueprint is a joint project between Voices From the Street and the Daily Bread Food Bank.
Source:
CBC Metro Morning

The People's Blueprint Project
- series of videos presenting first-person testimonials on a number of topics related to social assistance, including:
* Stigma * Food & Health * Social Participation * Housing * Employment & Education * Caseworkers * Suggested Changes * Hopes & What Works
NOTE: Navigate by clicking either the topics near the top of the page or the right and left arrows in the video box.
Be sure to scroll down past the videos for the complementary text.

[ About the Project ]

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Fall Drive launches with release of
new report on hunger in the Greater Toronto Area (PDF - 24K, 1 page)
Media Release
September 23, 2010
TORONTO — Daily Bread Food Bank launched its annual Fall Drive today with a new report on hunger in the GTA showing the largest increase in food bank use in fifteen years. With food bank use at an all time high, the need to give is stronger than ever. While donors and supporters dug deep last year, donations have also flat lined, meaning Daily Bread Food Bank is trying to do more with less. (...) The report, Who's Hungry: 2010 Profile of Hunger in the GTA, shows an overall increase of 15 per cent in client visits. For Daily Bread’s member agencies, there were an extra 123,000 visits last year. The average person coming to a food bank spends 68 per cent of their income on rent and utilities. With an average monthly income of $1000, that leaves just over $300 for everything else: school supplies for the kids, clothes for winter, medications and food. The research shows most people are going into debt to make up the shortfall: 59 per cent have borrowed from family or friends and 28 per cent have used credit cards recently in order to pay the bills. The issue with hunger isn’t about food security, it’s about income security. There is enough food for everyone, but people on low incomes do not have enough money to purchase the food that is available.

The report:

Who's Hungry: 2010 Profile of Hunger in the GTA (PDF - 7.4MB, 32 pages)
This past year, food banks experienced the largest increase in client visits since social assistance rates were cut by 21.6 per cent in 1995. The percentage of children 18 years of age and under requiring food banks remains the same, while the percentage of people 45 years of age or older using food banks is getting larger.

Key Findings (60K, 1 page)

Picturing poverty: Ontario's new Material Deprivation Index
By Chandra Pasma
July 9, 2009
"(...) Canada has no official definition of poverty. There are a number of definitions and measures that are commonly but unofficially used for social policy discussions, but no formal agreement as to what we are seeking to eliminate in Canada. For this reason, provincial poverty reduction strategies have had to choose their own definition and measurement of poverty. Measuring is essential to tracking movement and providing accountability.

Ontario chose to develop a new measure, the Ontario Material Deprivation Index. Ontario’s strategy will use this measure in conjunction with two other measures: 40% of median income as a measurement of the depth of poverty, and 50% of median income to measure low income. (Although both of these are relative measures, Ontario chose to fix its target of 25% reduction of poverty in 5 years according to the 50% low income measure fixed at its 2008 level and adjusted by inflation only). The Deprivation Index fits in the context of these other two measures as a way of understanding standard of living. It is not considered to be a complete description of poverty, but a way of recognizing common symptoms of poverty. It includes multiple elements of poverty, including deprivation that leads to social isolation, issues of economic security, and the ability to make changes in your life.
[ more... ]

The Ontario Material Deprivation Index
was developed by the Daily Bread Food Bank
in conjunction with people living in poverty.
Source:
Chandra's Blog
[ Citizens for Public Justice ]

---

Fighting Hunger : Who’s Hungry
2009 Profile of Hunger in the Greater Toronto Area
June 18
Complete report:
Fighting Hunger : Who’s Hungry
2009 Profile of Hunger in the GTA (PDF - 798K, 28 pages)
June 2009

Report illustrates food bank use spike to over 1 million visits
Food bank clients going into debt and selling assets to pay for food and rent
June 18, 2009
TORONTO - Government programs are failing to support people ravaged by the recession, according to Daily Bread Food Bank's latest Who's Hungry: Profile of Hunger in the GTA. Client visits to GTA food banks over the past year exceeded 1 million for the first time ever. Total client visits were 1,030,568, a rise of 8% over last year. More disturbingly, the increase in client visits in the first three months of 2009 averaged 17%. The spike in food bank use is directly related to the current recession. Over half of new clients surveyed accessed a food bank for economic reasons due to job loss (35%), reduced hours at work (6%), or had no current source of income and were living on savings (11%).
Source:
Canada Newswire

Key findings
[there's more info on each finding below in the PDF file.]
* Food bank use in the GTA has rapidly increased in the past year due to the recession.
* The largest portion of new clients is people who have lost their jobs or have had their hours cut. A substantial number are not accessing welfare because of their savings.
* The majority of people using food banks do so for a relatively short period of time.
* Over one third of food bank clients are children. However, single adults remain the largest household type using a food bank.
* The majority of respondents are Canadian citizens, and many are immigrants who have been in Canada for 10 years or more.
* A significant percentage of respondents are highly educated, and include newcomers who cannot get work in their field.
* The cost of housing is the largest expense for most people.
* Hunger in the GTA is the result of lack of money, not lack of food.
* Being employed is not always a ticket out of poverty.
* People living in poverty have a high level of vulnerability to costly forms of debt in order to pay for their basic needs

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Coalition releases innovative plan to address housing poverty
[missing link]
News Release
November 17, 2008
TORONTO – A coalition of private, public and non-profit housing associations, community organizations, academics, and foundations released a proposal today for a new housing benefit for low-income Ontarians. The proposal, outlined in A Housing Benefit for Ontario: One Housing Solution for a Poverty Reduction Strategy, recommends a new income benefit that will help low-income, working age renters with high shelter costs in communities across Ontario. The proposal would add a necessary affordable housing component to Ontario’s highly anticipated Poverty Reduction Strategy, expected in December.

A Housing Benefit for Ontario
One Housing Solution for a Poverty Reduction Strategy (PDF - 255K, 30 pages)
November 2008
"(...)The proposed benefit pays an average of $103 per month to an estimated 66,000 families and 129,000 individual and couple households. The amount of the benefit is based on a formula that pays 75% of shelter costs between a floor and a ceiling that varies by community size. The housing benefit is reduced as income rises."

Housing Benefit Summary (PDF - 57K, 2 pages)

Housing Benefit Q & A (PDF - 44K, 5 pages)

Source:
Proposal submitted to the Province of Ontario by a coalition of industry and community organizations:
Federation of Rental Housing Providers of Ontario
Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association
Greater Toronto Apartments Association (no website found)
Metcalf Charitable Foundation
Atkinson Charitable Foundation
Daily Bread Food Bank

--------------------------------------
NOTE: Links to the older Daily Bread site content below were broken so I lremoved the hyperlinks, but I left the text for info --- try doing a Google search on the title of an article or report...

Research shows food bank clients spend 77% of income on rent
TORONTO, June 24, 2008
People accessing food banks in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are unable to get ahead because of the high cost of housing, according to a report released today by Daily Bread Food Bank. Who's Hungry: 2008 Profile of Hunger in the GTA found that food bank clients pays an average of 77% of their income on housing alone, which crowds out money available for other basic necessities such as food.

Complete report:

Who’s Hungry:
2008 Profile of Hunger in the Greater Toronto Area (PDF - 672K, 32 pages)
June 2008

Hungry City> Make Your Mark!
Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank Blog
Launched in June 2007
"(...) It is time to take the next steps in the fight against hunger and that is where Hungry City> Make Your Mark comes in. It is also where you come in. We are armed with information and we have realistic policy solutions outlined in A New Deal to Fight Hunger. Now, we need to come together for real political change. You are invited to post your concerns about hunger and poverty in your community on this blog. Keep visiting hungrycity.ca to see where people stand on this important issue. Daily Bread Food Bank is committed to ending the need for food banks and we are excited to work with our community and start mobilizing to have our voices heard. No one should go hungry in our great city, province or country. I’ve made my mark…have you?" [Excerpt from the Hungry City Blog Welcome Message, June 5/07)

Who's Hungry: 2007 Profile of Hunger in the GTA (PDF file - 1.8MB, 32 pages)
June 5, 2007
Read a detailed report about the current hunger crisis in the GTA. It features Daily Bread's A New Deal to Fight Hunger, a significant next step toward solving the hunger crisis.

Who's Hungry 2007 : Key Statistics (PDF file - 63K, 1 page)
June 5, 2007
Check out the key statistics drawn from the survey over 1,800 food bank clients from across the GTA.

A New Deal to Fight Hunger (PDF file - 60K, 2 pages)
June 1, 2007
Daily Bread's call for a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy

Related link:

Hungry City - A Daily Bread Food Bank Initiative
There is no excuse for hunger and poverty in a country as wealthy as Canada, the Hungry City initiative is your chance to take action. Join with thousands of others to make your voice heard for real political change, to elect a provincial government committed to ending hunger and poverty on October 10th, 2007. Hungry City is about you. Find out how you can participate, make your mark here...

Daily Bread’s Who’s Hungry report illustrates depth of hunger crisis
Survey examines hunger in the GTA and Daily Bread advances solutions
(PDF file - 96K, 1 page)
News Release
June 6, 2006
TORONTO, ON ? Food bank use across the GTA has risen a dramatic 79% since 1995, according to the report Who’s Hungry: 2006 Profile of Hunger in the GTA released today at BCE Place. The results of Daily Bread’s annual survey paint a picture that cannot be ignored of the struggles and financial plight of the diverse population relying on food banks. The 894,017 people who accessed emergency food services last year through GTA food banks, 38% of whom were children, would not go hungry if the issue of poverty were addressed. So, in conjunction with the report, Daily Bread advances the Blueprint to Fight Hunger.

Complete report:

Who's Hungry:
2006 Profile of Hunger in the Greater Toronto Area
(PDF file - 1.9MB, 13 pages)

Blueprint to Fight Hunger (PDF file - 214K, 1 page)
June 2006

Working people go hungry
Low pay, no health benefits drive families to welfare, says Sue Cox
Jun. 28, 2005
"Food banks are on a treadmill; we have to run faster just to stay in the same place. After 16 years of working at the Daily Bread Food Bank, I have never seen the food bank network as strained as it is now. We can't keep running more and more food drives to keep up to demand. So the time is right for fair and sensible welfare policies that make work pay and eliminate hunger. As Bob Geldof said this week, 'charity is always worth it, but it can never deal with the structure of poverty. That's politics.'"
[Sue Cox is the former executive director of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto.]
Source:
The Toronto Star

Who's Hungry: 2005 Profile of Hunger in the Greater Toronto Area (PDF file - 393K, 28 pages)
June 07, 2005
"Daily Bread Food Bank insists that charitable food relief programs are only a temporary solution to hunger. Food banks have consistently advocated that government programs ensure a decent standard of living for everyone. Despite this work, food banks are still entrenched as a necessary social service for low-income people, compensating for the government cutbacks of the 1990s and the increasingly tenuous labour market."

Survey results indicate drastic overhaul of social assistance required (PDF file - 60K, 2 pages)
Report looks at who’s hungry in Toronto in 2005 and how to help them
News Release
June 7, 2005
"TORONTO, ON – Thirty-four per cent of people on Ontario Works are discouraged from working because of the deduction of employment income from their social assistance, according to the results of Daily Bread’s 2005 survey of people relying upon food banks. As a result, just thirteen per cent of this group reports work income (virtually identical to the 14% who do so across the province). The loss of dental and drug benefits is another major barrier to getting back to work as shown by the experience of people relying upon food banks who are working full-time—46 per cent of them have no dental coverage and only 43 per cent have an employer drug plan."

Rebuilding Lives:
Taking children off welfare and encouraging their parents to work (PDF file - 390K, 18 pages)
March 15, 2005
"Daily Bread's detailed proposal on the best way for the provincial government to keep its promise to end the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement from social assistance cheques. To do so, it recommends changing how social assistance benefits are calculated so that adults have a greater incentive to work their way off welfare and their children receive the NCBS whether their parents are on or off welfare."

Governments Failing Newcomers:
Highly Skilled Immigrants Being Forced to Use Food Banks (PDF file - 26K, 4 pages)
March 26, 2005
"Preliminary results from the 2005 Annual Survey on skilled immigrants being forced to rely upon foodbanks to survive in Toronto. This report builds a strong and compelling case for greater financial support from the federal government to help the province of Ontario aid immigrant settlement to quicken the pace of their integration into the Canadian economy--benefitting both the immigrants and the long-term health of the Canadian economy."

Housing Report Update: Rising Food Bank Use Linked to Tenant Protection Act (PDF file - 142K, 3 pages)
November 02, 2004
"Daily Bread has taken a closer look at our research statistics to determine the correlation between rent increases and food bank use. The results are included in the attached an update to our August report on housing. The data shows that there is a strong link between rising food bank use and the Tenant Protection Act. "

How much difference would the NCBS make for food bank families? (PDF file - 138K, 2 pages)
A review of the impact of the "clawback" of the National Child Benefit Supplement is affecting children whose families are on social assistance
Research Bulletin #4
August 31, 2004
"...it is possible to extrapolate that approximately 13,500 children in the Greater Toronto Area alone would no longer need to use a food bank if their families received the National Child Benefit Supplement."

Somewhere to Live or Something to Eat: Housing Issues of Food Bank Clients in the GTA
August 2, 2004
- based on housing statistics from the Daily Bread Food Bank's Annual Survey of Food Bank Clients.
"This 22-page paper looks at the key housing issues affecting food bank clients. Set against the context of the Welfare Rates cut in 1995 and the Tenant Protection Act in 1998, the paper focuses on rent and income problems many food bank clients are facing now. (...) It is particularly timely given that the Ontario government has just completed its consultation process for new landlord-tenant legislation and is currently engaged in writing a new act in which new rent control guidelines will be established. This paper should be viewed as a contribution to that process."

Complete Report (PDF file - 766K, 22 pages)
Summary of Housing Report (PDF file - 24K, 2 pages)

Who's Who? (PDF file - 56K, 1 page)
July 20, 2004
"This profile of food bank clients looks specifically at family groups, sources of income, immigration and gender by age. This information is collected from our 2004 Annual Survey."

Who’s Hungry? (PDF file - 39K, 1 page)
June 21, 2004"This updated fact sheet answers the question Who’s hungry? by examining data provided by Daily Bread’s annual survey of food recipients. The report provides statistics on the issues impacting low-income people in the GTA."

Ontario Works? (PDF file - 84K, 8 pages)
June 16, 2004
A submission on the work-for-welfare programs in Ontario to the Provincial Government.

DAWN DisAbled Women's Network - Ontario
"DisAbled Women's Network (DAWN) Ontario is a cross-disability, feminist organization working towards access, equity, and full participation of Women with disAbilities through public education, coalition-building, self-advocacy, resource development, and information & communication technology."
- incl. links to : Text version - What's New - Resources - Publications - Justice Issues - Health Issues - Inclusion Award - Access Checklist - Online Community - Research Posts - Who We Are - What We Do - Our Vision - Herstory - Fact Sheet - Action Alert - Membership - Join E-List - Guestbook - Feedback - Contact Us - Credits
Links - Links to hundreds of websites about women and disability - excellent resource!

NOTE: This site hasn't been updated since December 2007, but all links to older material are functional.

Selected site content:

Outcry against Bill 107 grows: more than 50 organizations call on Premier for change
June 15, 2006
Former Human Rights Commissioner and member of 1992 Cornish Task Force Advisory Committee Tom Warner joined community leaders at a press conference this morning to release an open letter to Premier McGuinty. The letter was signed by more than 50 organizations representing racialized communities, seniors, gays and lesbians and people with disabilities. It sets out growing concerns over Bill 107, the government's human rights reform legislation, and condemns the Premier's plan to hold public hearings on the legislation in the summer when people are less able to attend and boards are unable to meet to approve submissions. The groups are calling on the Premier to hold the hearings in the fall and be prepared to make the necessary changes.

Background info on Bill 107

Source:
DisAbled Women's Network (DAWN) Ontario

Related Links:

Ontario Human Rights Reform - A Call to Action
FIX THE FLAWED BILL 107 ACTION KIT
May 18, 2006
"(...) summarizes what Bill 107 does, explains what’s wrong with Bill 107, and explains the three changes to Bill 107 we seek."
Source:
Ontario Human Rights Reform - A Call to Action ===> incl. 18 related links
[ Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODA)]

Related Links:

Strengthening Ontario's Human Rights System - from the Ontario Human Rights Commission
- includes links to the August 2005 System Review Discussion Paper, the October 2005 Consultation Report and news release, the Ministry of the Attorney General's February 2006 news release, the Commission's preliminary comments on proposed reforms to Ontario’s human rights system and the letter from Chief Commissioner to the Attorney General, March 7th, 2006

More info on the history of human rights legislation
and proposed changes in Ontario
- links to a dozen presentations given at a January 2005 Faculty of Law (University of Toronto) workshop on administrative design and the human rights process in Ontario

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance (AODA)
(successor of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee since August 2005)

Legislature Gives Controversial Bill 107 Approval on Second Reading
& Refers the Bill to the Standing Committee for Public Hearings
June 24, 2006
[Bill 107 is the Ontario government's human rights reform legislation.]
Put in your Request Now to Make a Presentation to the Standing Committee Hearings
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
- incl. What's New? - What's Next? - An Important Partial Victory - What Should You Do? - Sample Request to Make a Presentation at the Standing Committee

Related Link:

Ontario Human Rights Commission Fact Sheet - June 13

R.E.A.L. Women of Canada's lobby efforts to disband
Status of Women and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women (FEWO)
June 24
REAL Women of Canada has obtained an additional Access to Information request on feminist groups for 2004 - 2005 through Status of Women Canada. In their latest newsletter (May-June 2006), they've posted budgets to organizations such as LEAF, NAWL and NAC on their website as a part of their Letter Writing Campaign to MPs.

Version française:
Bulletin : Le lobby R.E.A.L. Women of Canada tente de faire démanteler Condition
féminine Canada et le Comité permanent de la condition féminine (CPCF)

Senate Committee on Autism
Funding for the Treatment of Autism referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology for Study and Report
"After all this hard work by so many, it appears that we finally got funding for autism treatment on the agenda! It is on the radar screen..."

National Child Benefit / National Child Benefit Supplement
Rate Increase July 2006
"The provincial government stopped taking the 2% NCBS increases, as part of the Clawback, a couple of years ago. Thus, as of July, you get to keep 6% of the increases, which are included in the amounts above. If you receive income assistance in Ontario, the provincial government reduces your assistance cheque by 84% of the NCBS you receive, regardless of whether you are working..."

Related Link:

Legal Challenge to the NCBS Clawback
from Families on social assistance
- includes a link to a detailed NCBS Backgrounder
Source:
Income Security Advocacy Centre

Ontario Budget Reaction 2006 - The People Have Their Say
March 24, 2006
Thanks to Barbara Anello of DisAbled Women's Network-Ontario for compiling (probably into the wee hours, if I know my friend Barbara...) and posting this selection of almost two dozen reactions to the 2006 Ontario budget by non-governmental organizations and individuals.
All on one page (with links at the top), you'll find:
The People have Spoken Loud and Clear - Dalton McGuinty's Budget is another Liberal Letdown:
* Health Care
* Education
* Energy
* New Deal for Cities
* Jobs
* Help for the Vulnerable
* Media Release: Dalton's leaky budget - missed opportunities for people
* Media Release: Dalton McGuinty's Pay More Get Less Budget - Tory says McGuinty should have focused on balanced budget, not reckless spending
* Social assistance payments rise again, but it's not enough, advocate says
Source:
DAWN Ontario (Disabled Women's Network - Ontario)

NOTE: for more info on the 2006 Ontario Budget, go to the Canadian Government Budgets Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/budgets.htm

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) Alliance Update
Major Tide of Opposition Rises in Opposition to McGuinty Government's Plans to Weaken the Ontario Human Rights Commission -- but McGuinty Government Has Not Answered Our Important Questions, and Signals it is Not Listening to Us
March 24, 2006

Related Links:

DAWN Ontario's Open Letter to Premier McGuinty
Re: Proposed Reforms to the Ontario Human Rights Code
March 19, 2006
"We, DAWN Ontario: the Disabled Women's Network Ontario, are writing to voice our strong opposition to your Government's plans to weaken the Ontario Human Rights Code, announced on February 20, 2006." [see the link below to the Feb. 20 govt. announcement].

Human Rights Reform Action Kit (DAWN-Ontario)
Help Prevent the Gov't from Weakening
Enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code
"On Feb. 20, 2006, the Ontario Gov't said it will introduce a law (likely late March or April) to change enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code. That system needs reform. It's too slow, frustrating, and hard for many to use. Yet, the Government's proposal will make things worse, not better. It will create new barriers that make it harder for people to get their human rights respected."

-----
From the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General:

Ontario Government to Modernize Human Rights System:
Better Serving The Public The Aim Of Proposed Changes
February 20, 2006
News Release
"A stronger, faster, more effective human rights system that better serves the public is the aim of changes being proposed by the McGuinty government, Attorney General Michael Bryant announced today."
-----

Changes to the Ontario Disability Supports Program (ODSP) Earnings and Employment Supports
"On February 8th [2006], the Province of Ontario announced changes to the earnings and employment support rules for recipients under the Ontario Disability Supports Program. "
- includes the two links below PLUS links to the government press release, backgrounders and the actual text of the regulatory amendments that changed the rules

Preliminary summary of changes (analysis by the Income Security Advocacy Centre)

Chart - Comparison of the treatment of income from work before and after the ODSP changes.

Source:
Income Security Advocacy Centre
[found on the website of
DisAbled Women's Network Ontario]

Government fails Kimberly Rogers again:
Three years after her death while under house arrest, Queen's Park is still ignoring the bulk of the jury recommendations
August 3, 2004
Article by Jane Smith (a juror in the Kimberly Rogers inquest) and Jacquie Chic (Director of Advocacy and Legal Services at the Income Security Advocacy Centre, which represented two groups at the inquest).
Source:
The Toronto Star

Related Link:

Justice with Dignity : Remember Kimberly Rogers
A coroner's inquest was held, starting in October 2002 in Sudbury into the death of Kimberly Rogers on August 11 (2001), after being convicted of welfare fraud in the spring of that year for not declaring student loans she received while collecting social assistance. The Justice with Dignity website is where you'll find the most complete and current collection of information about this inquiry.
Source:
DisAbled Women's Network - Ontario

See Case Law / Court Decisions / Inquests (a Canadian Social Research Links page where you'll find links to information about the inquest into the death of Kimberly Rogers and more.)

United Ways of Ontario's Government Relations Bulletin*
April 30, 2004

Consultation Launched on Rental Housing
" Ontario's Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has begun consultations aimed at reforming the Province's laws and regulations governing the relationship between landlords and tenants. A consultation paper has been published to help guide the process and frame some of the key issues.(...) Input to the consultation will be accepted until June 15th."

Legislation to Curb Sixty-Hour Work Week
"In late April, the provincial government introduced amendments to the Employment Standards Act to reduce the legal workweek from 60 hours to 48 hours. If passed, the legislation will require employers to apply to the Ministry of Labour and obtain the employee's written consent to work more than 48 hours per week. To make the process as simple as possible, employers will be able to apply without fee and on-line."

New Provincial Rent Bank and Energy Emergency Fund
"The Province has announced one-time funding of $10 million to establish rent banks that will provide low-income tenants with short-term assistance to deal with rent arrears. In recent years, rent banks have been created in a number of Ontario communities, and have proven successful in reducing evictions."

Legislation to Allow Family Medical Leave
"The McGuinty government has introduced legislation that will allow workers unpaid leave to care for ill or dying family members.Under the proposed legislation, employees would be entitled to up to eight weeks leave, provided a qualified health care professional has issued a certificate stating that an immediate family member has a serious medical condition and there is significant risk of death within the next 6 months. "

Report Finds Domestic Homicides Predictable and Preventable
"In its first annual report, the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC) found common risk factors were often present that could have led professionals experienced in domestic violence to predict a domestic homicide. (...) The Committee examined 11 of the 25 cases of domestic violence fatalities occurring in 2002. In many cases family, friends, healthcare professionals, counselors or the police were aware of problems, but failed to identify or appreciate the significance of obvious warning signs."

Additional Funding for Autism
" In late March the Province announced it will double the funding for autism initiatives in the 2004-2005 fiscal year. But the funds will continue to be focused primarily on meeting the needs of children under six years of age."

Minimum Wage Workers and Low-paid Worker Mobility
"Recent data released by Statistics Canada sheds new light on people who work for minimum wages. More that half a million Canadians, or 4% of the workforce, earn a minimum wage. Almost all work in the service or retail sectors, two-thirds are women, and most are under 25, a large number of whom are students. But 10% were heads of their households, with half of those being single parents, and the other half being people with spouses who were not working."

*United Ways of Ontario doesn't appear to have its own website...
- the above links point to the website of DisAbled Women's Network-Ontario
--- thanks to Barbara Anello of DAWN-Ontario for coding and posting this info on her site!

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Federal Election 2004:
DAWN Ontario's Voter Education & Awareness Campaign for Women's Equality Rights in Canada
- incl links to : Political Parties in Canada - Federal Ridings & Candidates - Tools & Resources
Equality Issues
--- Aboriginal Women --- Anti-Discrimination, Anti-Racism --- Childcare --- Democracy --- DisAbility --- Employment Insurance / Maternity & Parental Leave --- 2004 Federal Budget --- Housing and Homelessness --- Human Rights --- Immigration --- Income Security --- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, & Transexual Rights --- Poverty --- Student Debt --- Violence against Women --- Women's Equality Rights --- Women & ICTs --- Women & Politics --- Women in Prison

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Canadians for Equal Marriage to respond to opponents' big bucks campaign
April 28, 2004
"Canadians for Equal Marriage today launched its "Vote Equality 04" campaign at press conferences in Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver. 'Canadians for Equal Marriage will urge Canadians to vote for equality and against discrimination when they cast their ballots in the upcoming federal election,' said Alison Kemper, spokesperson for Canadians for Equal Marriage (CEM). 'Our Vote Equality 04 campaign is designed to draw supportive voters to our website, which will make it easy for people to get involved in the campaign of supportive candidates.'"
Source:
Election 2004 Issues
[ DisAbled Women's Network - Ontario ]

Related Links:

Canadians for Equal Marriage (CEM)
Egale Canada
Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto
PFLAG Canada (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)
Samesexmarriage.ca
Free Vote on Same-sex Marriage
Foundation for Equal Families

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Report calls on Ontario to reform welfare system to better protect abused women
Media Release
"TORONTO, April 5, 2004 -- A report released today calls on the Ontario government to make substantial changes to Ontario’s welfare system to better protect abused women. The report, Walking on Eggshells: Abused Women’s Experiences of Ontario’s Welfare System, outlines 34 recommendations. The report stems from the Woman and Abuse Welfare Research Project launched in 2000. It was written by York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Janet Mosher (Principal Investigator) and researchers from Carleton and Queen’s Universities in conjunction with the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses and the Ontario Social Safety Network. Funding was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)."
- incl. brief summary and key recommendations

Complete report:

Walking on Eggshells: Abused Women's Experiences of Ontario's Welfare System
Final Report of Research Findings from the Woman and Abuse Welfare Research Project (PDF file - 806K, 129 pages)
Report calls on Ontario to reform welfare system to better protect abused women
April 5, 2004
Source:
York University (Toronto)

Related Links (from DisAbled Women's Network - Ontario ):
HTML version of the complete report
Key Findings and Recommendations from Walking on Eggshells
Earlier report:
Women and children more at risk in province
November 2003 (by the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses)
- HTML file (22 pages if printed)
(Posted on the DAWN-Ontario website)

Welfare rates must rise: Study
Abused women at risk, study finds
April 5, 2004
Source:
Toronto Star

Welfare maze needs fixing
City Editorial
April 6, 2004
"Finding realistic ways to solve major social problems is far more useful than merely identifying them, but too few social scientists seem to realize that. The latest example is a report from three professors, including one at Carleton University, on how poorly Ontario's welfare system treats women fleeing abusive relationships.
Source:
The Ottawa Citizen

The Ottawa Citizen editorial supports the study authors' recommendations concerning increasing welfare benefits, improving earnings exemptions and not penalizing recipients for 'unproven fraud'. But, the editorial goes on, "there's little in the report to prove that some of their recommendations are based on anything other than ideology." Dismissed as "overreaching" are recommendations concerning welfare rates that are adequate enough to allow for 'equitable participation in society', elimination of the mandatory work requirement, and an increase in subsidized housing units.
The editorial's bottom line?
"These are multibillion-dollar ideas, sung out from an ideological hymnal with no direct evidence that they'd work, or even that they'd be needed if unjust rules were fixed."
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[Gee, I wonder how many abused women sit on the Ottawa Citizen's editorial board?]

Google Web Search Results: "Ontario welfare, abused women"
Google News Search Results: "Ontario welfare, abused women"

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Coalition Work in Ontario:
Organizations doing work on the Income Support front
December 15, 2003
List (19 groups) compiled by Loreen Barbour of Daily Bread Food Bank with amendments by Barbara Anello of DAWN Ontario.

Organizing Information & Resources for Ontario Social Justice Activists
Extensive collection of tools and resources for individuals and groups working in the field of social justice, including:
- Ontario MPP Contact Info - Links to info about the Ontario Disability Support Program (employment & income supports for Ontarians with disabilities) - Ontario Works (Ontario government's welfare-to-work program providing financial and employment assistance to single people, couples with and without children, and sole-support parents - Ministry of Community, Family & Children's Services [now called the Ministry of Community and Social Services] - DAWN Media Kit (Letters to Editor - Op-Eds - Airwaves - How to work the media - Ontario Media Directory - Access to ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program - Action Coalition) - Poverty (Feed the Kids AND Pay the Rent Campaign, Pay the Rent Lobby Blitz Action to raise social assistance's shelter allowance to average rent levels, Pay the Rent (Toronto) Campaign, Implement Rogers Inquest Jury Recommendations, Ban the Welfare Bans,Ontario Needs a Raise Campaign, Leaving Welfare for Work? Questions & Answers, Child Benefits in Ontario, Minimum Wage - Questions & Answers, Housing & Homelessness,Housing Ontario Means Everyone Campaign, Housing & Homelessness Network in Ontario - Fair Wage for Workers - Stats Comparing Social Assistance Rates Across Canada - more....

Ontario Media Directory
"In preparation for the upcoming Ontario election, we have worked hard to develop the following resources with updated contact information of Media in Ontario. Use your voice - write letters to the editor!"
- incl. e-mail addresses for letters to the editor and detailed contact information for all major media outlets in Ontario

Statement of Principles: New Landlord/Tenant and Rent Control Legislation
Released by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO) and the Legal Clinics' Housing
June 5, 2003
"Issues Committee (composed of representatives from legal clinics in each region of Ontario) have jointly released this paper. Topics include: fair eviction application process, security of tenure against forfeiture, what a new tribunal would look like ... This platform will be distributed to the government and both opposition parties, and LCHIC/ACTO will request a meeting with all three parties."

Justice with Dignity : Remember Kimberly Rogers
A coroner's inquest started on October 15 (2002) in Sudbury into the death of Kimberly Rogers on August 11 (2001), after being convicted of welfare fraud in the spring of that year for not declaring student loans she received while collecting social assistance. The Justice with Dignity website is where you'll find the most complete and current collection of information about this inquiry.

A Critical Analysis of the Ontario Disability Support Program Act and Social Citizenship Rights in Ontario
By Tanya Hyland, B.A. Hons.
A research paper submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
(Reprinted on the DAWN Ontario website)
Read the abstract (9 pages) at the above link, or...
Complete report (PDF file - 217K, 97 pages)
[Also available as a Word file]

Related DAWN Link:

Access to ODSP Campaign
"In the fall of 2001, the Steering Committee on Social Assistance [SCSA], a provincial organization representing social assistance advocates in Ontario community legal clinics, launched a concerted public law reform campaign to work for changes in the Ontario Disability Support Program [ODSP] disability determination process."
Sixteen forums and focus group meetings were held around the province from March to November 2002.
"These forums and the reports that were generated from them served as the practical underpinning for the ODSP Action Coalition's ultimate recommendations for reform of the ODSP disability determination process."

Federal-Ontario housing update - September 2002
Housing and Homelessness Network in Ontario

Housing and Homelessness Network in Ontario - Update
PM and Martin agree: housing a top priority - August 20, 2002
Housing announcement postponed - August 19, 2002
Money? Rents? Units? - Ontario set to unveil new "affordable" housing plan - August 19, 2002
Average rents are NOT affordable rents: Comparing average rents of tenant households in Toronto
Backgrounder from HHNO on new Ontario housing program - July 31, 2002
Housing in Ontario - July 15, 2002

Sharing our Stories
"A Place in the Sun : Where audacious Women with disAbilities meet to Share Our Stories.
What it was like, what happened, and what it's like today: that's what we intend to share"
Project Listserv - A Yahoo Groups community where women with disabilities can register to share their stories of "the grand expedition from exclusion to inclusion: to shine a light on those doors, open those windows wider, and disassemble those walls."

Action Alert - BILL 118
Voice your disappointment that the Conservative gov't Voted Against NDP MPP Tony Martin's Bill 118 to raise ODSP
June 13 , 2002
[This private members bill would index Ontario Disability Support Program benefits to the annual cost of living]

Jennifer Keck - In Memory site
"Jennifer Keck, age 48, passed away Wed. June 12, 2002 in Sudbury, Ontario. Jennifer was a mother, partner, writer, professor, advocate and activist living with metastatic breast cancer who gave the Committee to Remember Kimberly Rogers & the Justice with Dignity campaign her intelligence, brilliance, knowledge, principles and driving force."

End Abuse Now
End Abuse Now is the website of the Grey Bruce Domestic Violence Coordinating Committee.
It provides information, resources and links for all members of the community on abuse and how we can work together to end it.

Counting Women In:
A Toolkit for Rural Action on Poverty
Counting Women In: A Toolkit for Rural Action on Poverty is the culmination of eight years of research and community development by the Rural Women Take Action on Poverty Committee. The strategies and tools in the toolkit were developed and piloted in Grey, Bruce, Huron and Perth counties (Ontario) to make the issue of poverty more visible and to build hope for change. The toolkit is a resource to change attitudes and beliefs about rural women and poverty and to support action and change.

Counting Women In:
A Toolkit for Rural Action on Poverty (PDF - 1.8MB, 109 pages)
By Colleen Purdon et al.
June 2009

Counting Women In Additional Online Resources (PDF - 2MB, 43 pages)

Family Net
[version française : Entraide-Familles ]
The Family Net web site is committed to providing information and support to those families in Ontario who have a child or children with any kind of special need. Join us here, to find answers to your questions, share stories of your triumphs and to gain support from others who have 'walked a mile in your shoes'. Join us to improve your advocacy skills - individually and as a collective of families. Let's help each other."
- incl. links to : Today's News - About Family Net - Contact Family Net - Education - Parent to Parent - Community Resources - Our Sponsors - Letters and Opinions - News Archives - Rate Our Website - Send a news tip - Ask Lindsay Moir - How to use this site - Search this site - Search for resources - Disability Links - Ministry Links - Advocacy Information - About OACRS

Related Link:

Ontario Association of Children's Rehabilitation Services (OACRS)
"The Ontario Association of Children's Rehabilitation Services (OACRS) promotes a province-wide, co-ordinated, community-based service system for children and youth with special needs and their families, and supports its member centres to achieve responsive, family-centred care.
OACRS, the Ontario Association of Children's Rehabilitation Services, is a non-profit independent organization representing, with a collective voice, the 19 children's treatment centres in Ontario.

Family Service Association of Toronto - "Building a Better Toronto"
- incl. links to : Our Programs & Services - Help Us Make A Difference - What’s New - Employment & Volunteer Opportunities - Media Centre - Policy & Research - Resources - Email Newsletter

Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM)
FCM is a national organization of 1000 plus cities in Canada. Comprised of locally elected politicians, FCM endeavours to support local governments through conferences, research and information and acts as a lobby for the interests of cities with the Federal Government. Over the past 15 years besides issues of local infrastructure, FCM has advocated for a better quality of life in our local communities. To achieve our goals, FCM liaises and works with numerous other Canadian groups and organizations.

Reports provide wake-up call on future of Canada’s cities
Media Release
March 23, 2005
"‘Social inclusion’ reports were released today in five cities -- Saint John, Toronto, Burlington, Edmonton and Vancouver. They are the work of Inclusive Cities Canada, a unique, participatory research initiative that uses a social inclusion framework to build people-friendly cities, promote good urban governance and develop strategies for supporting urban diversity. The federally-funded initiative set up Civic Panels made of community and municipal leaders to conduct social inclusion ‘audits’. Over 1,000 participants contributed to the findings. The research examined important dimensions of social inclusion, such as how cities respond to diversity, levels of civic engagement, living conditions, opportunities for human development and community services."

Download the report for Toronto:
* Complete report (PDF file - 287K, 64 pages)
* Executive Summary (74K, 11 pages)
The Community Social Planning Council of Toronto (CSPC-T) is a not-for-profit community organization. The CSPC aims to promote equitable, effective and inclusive policies for improving the quality of life in Toronto. Collectively, the predecessor organizations have over 100 years of experience in social planning, community development, policy analysis and research, advocacy, and service coordination. The work of CSPC-T is fuelled by the efforts and commitment of highly qualified staff and dedicated volunteers from the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. The Community Social Planning Council of Toronto also serves as project sponsor (as an incorporated charitable organization) and provides administrative support for the ICC initiative.

Download the report for Burlington:
* Full Report (1.1MB, 138 pages)
* Executive Summary (138K, 16 pages)
Community Development Halton (CDH) is an intermediary organization that through social research, needs identification, volunteerism and education serves the voluntary sector, municipal and regional government and local grass roots organization. Our purpose is to build the capacity of our community to improve the quality of life for all residents of Halton.

Source:
Inclusive Cities Canada
"Inclusive Cities Canada: A Cross-Canada Civic Initiative is a unique partnership of community leaders and elected municipal politicians working collaboratively to enhance social inclusion across Canada. The goals of Inclusive Cities Canada (ICC) are to strengthen the capacity of cities to create and sustain inclusive communities for the mutual benefit of all people, and to ensure that community voices of diversity are recognized as core Canadian ones."
- Inclusive Cities Canada works in collaboration with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

- Go to the Municipalities Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/municipal.htm

The Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations
The Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations (FMTA) is a non-profit Organization which advocates for better rights for Tenants. Founded in 1974, we are the oldest and largest Tenant Federation in Canada. The FMTA is comprised of affiliated Tenant Associations and of individual Members. We have over 3,000 members and continue to grow.
- incl. links to : * Tenant Hotline * Tenant Hotline * Outreach & Organizing * Tenant Activism * Get Involved * Literature & Links * Recent News & Events * Contact Us

Foster Care Council of Canada
The Foster Care Council of Canada is a non-profit organization made up of people who have lived in foster care and their supporters. (...) The Council's mission is to involve current and former child-welfare service clients and their supporters in the process of improving the quality and accountability of child-welfare services through a strong and united voice.
- includes links to :
* NEWS * About Us * Campaigns * Enforcement * Message Board * Resources * Contact Us

Foster Care News (blog)
The Foster Care Council of Canada, keeping you informed of child-welfare related matters in Canada including enforcement issues, legislative updates, public campaigns and more.

Message Board - discussion forum on a variety of issues related to child welfare

Related link:

Canada Court Watch Program - Family Justice Review Committee
A program of the National Association for Public and Private Accountability
"Protecting the public's interest in the administration of Justice"
Canada's only independent media source dedicated exclusively to news and information related to the Canadian Justice System and Canada's system of child protection

Fraser Institute

New Study Warns Against Expansive Welfare Policies in Ontario
News Release
December 7, 2004
"Toronto, ON - A new study, Welfare Reform in Ontario: A Report Card released today by The Fraser Institute, gives Ontario praise for its previous welfare reforms but warns that these policies may be under threat. 'Ontario has been a leader in Canadian welfare reform by focusing on employment and diverting potential welfare recipients to alternatives,'said Sylvia LeRoy, policy analyst at the Institute and co-author of the study. 'However, last week, the Ontario Government received a report by Liberal MPP Deb Matthews [see below] which recommended abandoning many of those reforms and returning to policies that were in place pre-1995. Such policies had disastrous effects, including the doubling of welfare use between 1985 and 1995, increasing from 5.2 percent of the population in 1985 to 12.4 percent in 1995 and a substantial increase in welfare spending', she continued."

Complete Fraser Institute report:

Welfare Reform in Ontario: A Report Card (PDF file - 524K, 53 pages)
December 2004
- examination of welfare policies in Ontario since 1985, "evaluating the welfare reforms initiated under the newly elected provincial government in June 1995. These will be compared with reforms of welfare policies in the United States, which have proven abundantly successful in reducing dependency, increasing employment and earnings of welfare leavers, and lowering poverty rates, as well as with reforms of welfare policies undertaken by other Canadian jurisdictions.
- the evaluation of Ontario's welfare reforms is based upon "six principles that research has found to play a prominent role in effective welfare reform" - these principles are: Ending the entitlement to welfare - Diversion - Immediate work requirements and sanctions - Employment focus - “Making work pay” - Competition for the administration of welfare and for program delivery.

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Counterpoint:
----------------------

It's important to expose oneself to opposing views on issues as delicate as welfare reform and social justice --- it makes for healthy debate and broader perspectives. That's why, from time to time, I link to reports from organizations that have a different interpretation than mine of society's ills and how to cure them. The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver conservative think tank / lobby group, is one such organization whose site I visit occasionally.
Sometimes, though, the left-leaner in me finds it difficult to post links on my site to reports such as this one (the Ontario welfare reform report card) as if it were the Gospel Truth, without including a rebuttal or a counterpoint.

Welfare Reform in Ontario: A Report Card rates Ontario's reforms against the Fraser Institute's five "principles of effective welfare reform", all of which are focused on ending or severely curtailing welfare entitlement, on ensuring that work is always more attractive than welfare, and on putting both the administration and delivery of welfare up for competitive bidding from the non-profit and private sectors. All of these principles are consistent with the Fraser Institute's view that American welfare reforms are a model for Canada. Not surprisingly, there is not one principle that refers to adequacy of income and employment supports, nor to health or social indicators.

Two observations and a few recommended readings for folks who read the Fraser report (and perhaps even for those who wrote it):

1. Canadian and American welfare systems are different from one another, a fact that Fraser wilfully and consistently ignores in its reports. Unlike the Canadian welfare system, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program excludes both single people and childless couples, who must apply to the national Food Stamp program and to residual programs where they live (if there are any such programs, which is not always the case), as well as people with disabilities (who must apply under the separate American Social Security program. In Canada, singles and childless couples make up close to 60% of the total welfare caseload and households headed people with disabilities account for about a third of the total caseload. These are just a few of the more significant reasons why Canadian welfare shouldn't be compared with American programs under TANF.

A Short Review of the Fraser Institute Report Card: Welfare Reform in Ontario
December 2004
By John Stapleton

2. Welfare time limits are successful? - one of the Fraser Institute's principles of effective welfare reform is "Ending the entitlement to welfare". The Fraser report speaks of the success of the American welfare time limits and, to a lesser extent, the BC welfare time limits. In the case of the American time limit policy, it's still too early to determine the long-term impact of the time limits on welfare recidivism and labour market attachment (see the link to the Welfare information Network studies below), and in the case of British Columbia, perhaps someone should tell the Fraser Institute that the two-years-out-of-five welfare entitlement policy was effectively disabled back in February of 2004. On second thought, perhaps the authors should check this editorial from the Fraser Institute:

BC’s U-Turn on Welfare Reform Spells Disaster
Editorial (Vancouver Sun, February 16, 2004)
By Jason Clemens, Sylvia LeRoy and Niels Veldhuis
"In a disastrous U-turn on welfare reform, the BC Government de-legitimized what was one of Canada’s most important social welfare reforms to date; a limit that capped the amount of time employable adults could collect welfare to 2 out of every 5 years. Late on Friday afternoon, February 6th, the BC Liberals announced a series of new exemptions to the time limits, including one that exempts anyone abiding by their work plan. The policy change effectively nullifies the time limit rule and speaks more to the government’s immediate political concerns than any genuine concern for those still struggling to make the transition from a life of welfare dependence to one of self-sufficiency."
Source:
The Fraser Institute

Welfare Time Limits in British Columbia - a Canadian Social Research Links page
80+ links to welfare time limit info from BC and the U.S

Welfare Time Limits
- 60+ links from the Welfare Information Network (U.S.)

Globe and Mail

Selected content:

New Statscan survey aims to pinpoint where the jobs are
By Tavia Grant
June 20, 2011
Details on Canadian job-seekers are abundant, ranging from where they live to their age and gender to how long they’ve been out of work. But relatively little is known about the demand side of the equation – the employers with current job openings. That’s about to change. Statistics Canada plans to launch a new monthly job-vacancy survey this fall, a move that will shed light on a key aspect of the labour market that has long puzzled economists and policy makers: where the jobs are.

[ 7 comments ]
Source:
Globe and Mail

Related G&M articles:
* Unemployment rates in Canada
* Gaping holes in our knowledge of the labour market
* Five key trends likely to shape the world of work in coming years

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Big cities attracting poverty, Statscan data show
By Heather Scoffield
June 21, 2011
Canada’s biggest urban areas are stuck in a rut of persistent poverty, while mid-sized cities are gaining ground despite the recent recession, new data from Statistics Canada show. The metropolitan areas of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal have poverty rates far above the national average, details of a report on income in Canada in 2009 show.

[ 18 comments ]

Related G&M articles:
* One in 10 Canadians is a low-income earner, Statscan says
* Residents of Toronto public housing four times more likely to be murder victims

With temporary workers, flexibility’s the name of the game
ByTavia Grant
June 2, 2011
The modern temp industry began in a simple office in Detroit in 1946, where a businessman named William Kelly hit upon the idea to loan one of his typists for a day, billing a local company $6.75. Today, Kelly Services has grown into a staffing giant that arranges employment for about 530,000 people a year. The industry, meanwhile, generates global revenue of $269-billion and hires out a range of workers that now includes nurses and accountants, oil workers and chief executive officers.
(...)
Temporary workers tend to earn less than permanent staff, they get little or no benefits and many can be fired without notice. The earnings gap between a permanent and a contract worker is about 13 per cent, while between a permanent and casual worker the gap is about 34 per cent, Statscan figures. The disparity persists even after the agency adjusts for demographic differences like education levels, immigrant status and gender.

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Ontario politician believed society had an obligation to help those in need
The first Ukrainian to win election in Ontario, Yaremko championed ethnic communities and presided over social services expansion
September 2, 2010
COMMENT: I don't generally highlight obituaries or eulogies in my site and newsletter, but news of the passing of John Yaremko on August 12 reminded me of Lawrence Martin's column of August 26 in The Globe, Is there an old-style Tory in the House? [Spoiler : "... the old Tories of Robert Stanfield and Dalton Camp and Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark have been vanquished."]
John Yaremko was one of those red Tories whose social views were non-partisan and progressive, and his devotion to helping those in need was truly inspirational.

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Is there an old-style Tory in the House?
Murray and Mulroney: Is there an old-style Tory in the House?
The Canada we know was a blend of the centre and the centre-left. Now it’s a hybrid of the centre and the hard right
By Lawrence Martin
August 26, 2010
(...)
But the [Tory] party’s hard right now appears, with a few policy exceptions, to have assumed control of the agenda. And that agenda is about keeping out boat people, letting in Fox News, building new jails, reviewing affirmative action, killing the gun registry, playing down climate change, revamping the census and giving more voice to social conservatives.

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Ontario seeks Ottawa's help as welfare cases spike
Province calling for national standard for accessing
Employment Insurance payments as laid-off workers exhaust their federal benefits
March 15, 2009
By Bill Curry
"(...) Ontario in particular is calling on Ottawa to step in with a further expansion of federal EI so that provinces and workers are treated the same no matter where they live in Canada. Because EI is easier to get in regions of historically high unemployment, the province says many Ontarians who lost their jobs during the recession were left out."

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How to make recovery quicker and less painful for those hurting most
By Roy Romanow (in the Globe and Mail)
August 3, 2009
The Bank of Canada recently declared an end to the recession. There’s a world of difference, however, between an end to economic decline as measured by GDP and a real recovery as felt by Canadians. And when we look behind the numbers, we can’t avoid the fact that the costs of the recession are profoundly unequally shared, as those who suffer most will be those who can bear it least – unemployed and poor Canadians. History has a lot to tell us about the difference between the technical end of a recession and real economic recovery, and about the economic consequences for lower-and middle-income Canadians.

Greater Toronto Summit 2011
On February 10 and 11, the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance will host its next Toronto Summit. This major regional gathering of leaders from business, labour, the academic, non-profit and voluntary sectors, and all three levels of government, will consider current challenges and opportunities facing the Greater Toronto Area and inspire ground-breaking thinking about how to respond to them. Summit 2011’s recommendations will be aimed at all levels of government and civil society, in particular the role that CivicAction and its partners can play.

Leading up to the Summit 2011, we have embarked on a broad-based consultation process involving many hundreds of people in Working Groups, topic-specific Roundtables and one-on-one and small group consultations. This process is informing our thinking and developing the content for the Summit and the civic actions that may constitute the outcomes of the Summit process and has been focused on the following themes:
* Game Changing: Reinventing our Economic Base
* Advancing the “Big Move” & Other Infrastructure Plans
* Realizing the Value of Neighbourhoods & Social Capital; Affordable Housing
* Creativity 3.0: Cultural Policy, Marketing & Accessibility
* Labour Market/Force Readiness
* Income Security in a Post-Recession Age

Sample backgrounder:

Income Security:
Collective Responses for a Prosperous Toronto Region
[Short Version (PDF - 88K, 3 pages)
[Long version (PDF - 186K, 17 pages) ]
February 7, 2011
Greater Toronto Summit 2011 Backgrounder
By Andrea Baldwin, Stephanie Procyk and John Stapleton
and informed by discussions of CivicAction’s Income Security Working Group.
Table of contents:
* Current Situation
* Promising New Developments
* Chief Barriers to Progress
* Opportunities for Action
* Questions for Discussion
Source:
Greater Toronto Summit 2011 Publications
- incl. links to over a dozen more Summit 2011 backgrounders, plus another dozen reports from earlier initiatives of the City of Toronto, including the Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults, Toronto Summit 2007, and more...

CivicAction: The Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance
The Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance is a place for collaboration, collective leadership and real action on the issues that matter for the Toronto region. Formerly called the “Toronto City Summit Alliance,” our new identity speaks to our mission to catalyze change by engaging action-oriented leaders from all sectors to advance the Toronto region.

Community Development Halton
(formerly the Halton Social Planning Council & Volunteer Centre)
- Use the site map to see everything on this large site...
Some sample content:

The Quality of Life in Halton - Snapshot of a Decade
Summer 2003
Full Report (PDF file - 1.9MB, 33 pages)

Memo : National Children's Agenda
Joey Edwardh, PhD
October 12, 2000
 The National Children's agenda is an opportunity to develop a policy framework and plan of action to implement a set of services to children,    youth and their families across Canada. The purpose of this memo is to outline the developments associated with the National Children's Agenda, and to identify a role for Halton in supporting an agenda that meets the needs of children and their families.

The Social Assistance Reform Act: An Information Package- December 1998
Updated to February 2000
- incl. : New Rules - Ontario Works as Workfare - Appeals Process - The Consequences and Effects of Welfare Reform - Ontario Works and Families - Ontario Works and Persons 60-64 Years of Age - Ontario Disability Support Program Act - References

The Cost of Living in Halton 2000
The cost of living increases and concern for families meeting their "basic needs" also increases
September 18, 2000 -- The cost of living in Halton has risen, according to the latest figures from the Cost of Living in Halton 2000 published by the Halton Social Planning Council and Volunteer Centre. Despite appearances of an upturned economy, the Council worries that more families and individuals cannot afford to live in Halton and purchase the basic necessities of life.

Cost of Living 2000 Report (PDF file, 2 pages, 230K)

Related Link:

Volunteer Halton - incl. an online database of volunteer opportunities in Halton

Hamilton Community Foundation
Gift by gift and donor by donor, Hamilton Community Foundation has been quietly and effectively building a permanent legacy for the people of Hamilton for more than 50 years. Hamilton Community Foundation was the first of its kind in Ontario when it was established in 1954. There are now 148 community foundations in Canada. The Foundation's total assets have grown to more than $100 million, thanks to the many hundreds of donors from all walks of life who have made contributions - large and small - during their lifetimes or through their estate plans, to ensure that this community has a brighter future.

Tackling Poverty in Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario, is a vibrant community with a proud history of achievement. It’s a city located in an outstanding natural environment, and one that is rich in arts and culture. Hamilton has business, health and educational organizations that are famous world-over. But poverty is Hamilton’s biggest challenge, with 20 per cent of its citizens living at or below the poverty line. As a community, Hamilton is saying this is unacceptable. In spring 2005, a multi-sector Roundtable for Poverty Reduction was formed and the Tackling Poverty in Hamilton initiative began. This web site provides information about Tackling Poverty in Hamilton.February 10, 2006
- incl. links to : Who's Involved - News - Poverty Facts - Process Plan - Links - Contact Us

Community Update (PDF file - 38K, 2 pages)
February 10, 2006
- first issue of a newsletter by the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction to report on the progress of Tackling Poverty in Hamilton, and to rally support for it.

Project Update (PDF file - 99K, 2 pages)
February 2006

Anti-Poverty Initiative to Focus on Prevention in Children and Youth (PDF file - 96K, 1 page)
February 10, 2006

The Hamilton Spectator

Facing facts about poverty
Editorial
March 7, 2011
Poverty is not a choice. In fact, a deeply-ingrained sense of hopelessness, of a continuing lack of choices, is both a result and a cause of the continuing cycle that traps about three million Canadians – about one of every nine of us. Being poor is miserable. It is demoralizing, unhealthy, stigmatizing and stressful. It is frustrating and it is discouraging. No one in poverty – or, crucially, the professionals who work to combat poverty – see being poor as a “holiday” from personal responsibility or from work. And yet a survey commissioned by the Salvation Army, as part of its new Dignity Project initiative, shows that half or nearly half of Canadians believe that if people really want to work, they can always find a job; that a family of four can “get by” on $10,000 to $30,000 a year; that people who live in poverty in Canada “still have it pretty good.” One out of every four Canadians blames poverty on laziness and low moral values.
(...)
Reducing poverty is not going to happen by trying to change the people who are poor. It is going to happen when we all fully understand the benefits not just to society but to our economy by removing roadblocks, shattering the stereotypes, allowing people to build on assistance without penalizing them immediately for it. There are success stories in Hamilton’s poorest neighbourhoods, where innovative programs are focusing not just on employment skills but on self-confidence, self-education, physical and mental health. What the Salvation Army initiative does is try to make Canadians recognize the realities of poverty; that clarity could lead to better understanding of what is needed to reduce it.

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Time to transform social assistance
As this recession wanes, let's ensure we give Ontario's poor a better life
December 18, 2009
By Jennefer Laidley and Deirdre Pike
Whether he meant to or not, the auditor general's analysis of social assistance lets a dysfunctional welfare system off the hook and erroneously lays blame with the people who have nowhere else to turn for basic support. It's not the people who are the problem. The real problem is the patchwork of more than 800 rules that trap people in poverty, limit their options, and compromise their health with punishingly low levels of income support. While some have seized on the report to renew a round of poor-bashing reminiscent of the mid-1990s, what Ontario really needs is swift movement on its promised social assistance review.
[Jennefer Laidley, of the Income Security Advocacy Centre,
and Deirdre Pike, of the Social Planning and Research Council
of Hamilton, are members of the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction.]

Related link:

Governments must work to lift people out of poverty
December 15, 2009
By John Stapleton and Greg deGroot-Maggetti
Following the sharpest and deepest recession since the 1930s, Ontario now faces a major debate over how governments should respond.
Source:
The Record (Kitchener)

Homes First Society - Supportive Housing Solutions (Toronto)
"The Mission of Homes First Society is to provide affordable, permanent housing and transitional supports for people who are homeless and/or have the fewest options in society.
To achieve its Mission, Homes First Society uses its financial and human resources within an anti-oppression and anti-racist framework to work with the strengths of tenants and community partners..."
- incl. links to : Home | Mission Statement | Donate Now | Contact Us | History & Awards | Board of Directors | Management Staff | The Foundation | Housing Sites | Facts | Faces | Tenant Support | Events | Useful Links

honeybadgerpress.ca
The Honeybadgerpress challenges the tired thinking common in the mainstream corporate media concerning politics, economics and war.

The Treatment of Welfare Fraud
by the Ontario Government: 1995-2003 (11 pages)
2004
By Morgan Duchesney
Everything you wanted to know about Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution, and more.
[The author is a Canadian writer and martial arts instructor with an interest in social justice and international affairs.]

Housing Again - "...a site dedicated to putting affordable housing back on the public agenda"
Putting Housing Back on the Public Agenda is a community group which brings together senior housing government officials, (past and present, elected and nonelected, from all levels of government), community housing proponents, housing developers, and others interested in affordable housing.

Sample reports:

HOUSING AGAIN • Bulletin Number 108 February 2008
"...a monthly electronic bulletin highlighting what people are doing to put housing back on the public agenda in Ontario, across Canada and around the world."
The Housing Again Bulletin is sponsored by Raising the Roof as a partner in Housing Again.

Selected content from Issue Number 108:

* Building Momentum: Affordable Housing Agenda Gets Boost
Ken Dryden's 16-city anti-poverty tour across Canada - the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) recommendations for a National Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness - Community Spotlight on Operation Go Home - What's New on Raising the Roof’s Shared Learnings on Homelessness Web site, etc.

* Nurturing the Next Wave of Housing Professionals
The theme of this year’s Tri-Country Conference, to be held in Toronto , October 14-17, is Creating a Modern Housing Policy: A Legacy for Tomorrow’s Leaders, which includes a sub-theme of tomorrow’s leadership and youth.

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Housing Again
http://www.housingagain.web.net

Shared Learnings on Homelessness
http://www.sharedlearnings.org

Raising the Roof
http://www.raisingtheroof.org/

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Where's Home? Update Released [dead link]
Study shows Ontario losing much more rental housing than is being built; 21 Municipalities Studied: London, Ottawa, Peel and Hamilton lose the most
"A housing study released today provides the first Ontario estimate of the loss of private rental housing units over the last decade (1991-2001). 24,298 existing private rental housing units were lost, at a rate almost 50% greater than the number of new rental housing units built, leaving Ontario tenants with less available housing in 2001 than existed in 1991."
Where's Home? Update 2002 (PDF file - 138K, 13 pages)
Earlier versions of Where's Home?
Source: Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA)
Housing Again - "a site dedicated to putting affordable housing back on the public agenda"

Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC)
ISAC was established in 2001 by Legal Aid Ontario to serve low income Ontarians by conducting test case and Charter litigation relating to provincial and federal income security programs. These programs include Ontario Works, the Ontario Disability Support Program, (un)Employment Insurance, and the Canada Pension Plan. ISAC's legal work takes place in the broader context of law reform, public legal education and community development.

Selected site content:

NOTE: ISAC is a key stakeholder in the current social assistance review in Ontario. In the interest of coherence and continuity, all links to Ontario social assistance review have moved

---

Ontario Election 2007
Join ISAC in pressuring candidates in the upcoming Ontario election on October 10th, 2007. Use ISAC's election kit to lobby candidates in your community to reduce poverty and improve the lives of low-income people in Ontario.
ISAC Election Demands [ version française ]
ISAC Election Materials [version française ]

Referendum on Electoral Reform
Ontario is holding a referendum on electoral reform on election day on October 10th, 2007. Voters will be asked to vote "for" or "against" a new way of holding elections that has been recommended by a citizen's assembly.

--- The Hands Off! Campaign has ended [ version française ]
ISAC's Hands off! Campaign against the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS) from families on social assistance has ended, although the struggle will continue in other ways. ISAC will focus on getting increases to social assistance rates for everyone on OW and ODSP and getting improvements to the new Ontario Child Benefit.
ISAC evaluation of the Hands off! Campaign and our current focus - May 2007 - PDF file - 82K, 10 pages
[version française ]
"(...) The Hands off! Campaign made a difference. The provincial government was pressured to: 1) allow all new increases to the NCBS to flow through to families on social assistance; 2) let families keep the new Universal Child Care Benefit that was announced by the federal government in July 2006; and 3) ensure families on OW and ODSP will benefit from the new Ontario Child Benefit that will be implemented in July 2008.
- More information about the Hands Off Campaign

...but ISAC's NCBS Clawback legal challenge continues
The implementation of the Ontario Child Benefit, and the resulting restructuring of social assistance that will happen in July, 2008, reduces the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS) but doesn't end it. So ISAC's NCBS clawback legal challenge against the provincial and federal governments continues.

Put poverty on political agenda
Asking why reveals we can do better, says Sarah Blackstock
October 3, 2006
"Ask why 4.8 million people in Canada are poor — and insist on better. We should all be outraged and ashamed reading the Star's campaign on the working poor, but we shouldn't be surprised. We have chosen to allow poverty to flourish by permitting wages to stagnate, setting welfare rates at dangerously low levels, failing to regulate the growing temporary work industry, failing to provide adequate training for those who do not have marketable skills and refusing to recognize foreign credentials. It doesn't have to be this way..."
Source:
Toronto Star

NOTE: This is one in a series of commentaries in the Toronto Star following a series on working poor families that started with the story of Maheswary Puvaneswaran, "one of 650,000 Canadians struggling to make ends meet." If you click the link near the beginning of this paragraph, you'll see that the next page includes both the article and links to six related articles. In my website and newsletter, I rarely provide links to articles in most mainstream media (e.g., The Star, The Globe and Mail) because, for the most part, the links expire after a predetermined period and the article is moved to a pay-per-hit archive. However, I encourage you to explore the media websites and to use their on-site search tools - you'll be able to retrieve and read all articles that are still in the "public" domain.
For example, I did the following sample searches in the Toronto Star's 7-day free search feature:
"working poor" ===> 10 results (+ a link to "Search our paid archives")
But...
"working poor" ===> 20 results using "Search our paid archives" - and all results are free in this case...
And...
"Maheswary Puvaneswaran" ===> 6 results
<go figure.>

Hands Off! Stop Taking Our Baby Bonus!
A campaign to stop the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS) [dead link]
"The Hands off! Campaign asks the Provincial and the Federal government to do 2 things:
* End the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement from families on social assistance, now!
* Fund the reinvestment programs that work for low-income families out of other provincial and federal revenues.
- includes links to : Take Action | Send an e-Card | Lobby MPP / MP | Endorse Campaign | Links | Income Security Advocacy Centre | Contact Us

NCBS Clawback Court Challenge
In December 2004, a legal challenge to the clawback was filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by the Income Security Advocacy Centre, the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA)and the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues.
NOTE: for more info on the NCBS Clawback challenge, go to the Case Law / Court Decisions / Inquests page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/caselaw.htm

Related Links:

Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA)
Charter Committee on Poverty Issues

Activists fighting welfare cheque clawback
Call on McGuinty to end deduction of benefit
Threaten Ontario with constitutional challenge
November 18, 2004
"When the rent is $775 and total income is $1,334, an extra $226 would make a huge difference.That's the extra benefit the federal government pays each month to Toronto's Dave Lance, 24 and the father of 2 1/2-year-old twin boys. And that's the amount the Ontario government deducts each month from his welfare payment. The clawback has been controversial since the national child benefit program was introduced by the federal government in 1997 with the stated objective of preventing and reducing child poverty. While all Ontario families with an income of less than $22,615 receive the national child benefit supplement of $126 a month for the first child and decreasing amounts for subsequent children, only working families are allowed to keep it. Parents on social assistance or a disability pension are out of luck Municipalities across Ontario have called for an end to the clawback and Premier Dalton McGuinty, while in opposition, promised he'd get rid of it. Now, a year after McGuinty was elected, anti-poverty advocates say it's time he kept his word.And if he doesn't, they warn, they'll take legal action.
Source:
The Toronto Star

McGuinty Government Falls Short in Overhauling Social Assistance (Word document - 88K, 1 page)
ISAC News Release
Dec. 15 2004
On December 15, 2004 the government introduced changes to the Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program regulations. The changes took effect immediately, and will have an important effect on people applying for assistance after December 15, 2004 and on those already on assistance.

Kimberly Rogers Inquest: a year later - Ontario
Press Release
December 16, 2003
"Tis the season of food drives, toy drives and charity dinners. Every year at this time thousands of people make donations to assist those in their community who are too poor to be able eat properly or purchase a small gift for their child. 'While such donations are welcome, what’s really needed are hard questions about why more than 1.6 million people in Ontario are living in poverty and why our governments are not doing anything about this harsh reality,' says Jacquie Chic, Director of Advocacy and Legal Services at the Income Security Advocacy Centre."

Call for ACTION
To Implement ALL the Recommendations from the Rogers Inquest Jury
December 18, 2003

Pupatello vows to act on welfare : Says she'll abolish Tory lifetime ban after fraud
Action demanded on Rogers inquest recommendations
December 17, 2003
Source:
The Toronto Star

Social Assistance exchange between MPP Shelley Martel, NDP Nickel Belt, and Minister of Community and Social Services, Sandra Pupatello
Hansard - Legislative Assembly - Oral Questions
December 17, 2003

Welfare activists baffled by Grits' inaction
December 15, 2003

Related Links:

Justice with Dignity : Remembering Kimberly Rogers
[ Disabled Women's Network Ontario ]

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Plain Talk - Summer 2003 Issue
Newsletter of the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC)
Contents:
1. Looking for justice in all the wrong places (ref. to the Kelly Lesiuk case)
2. Low Income People Hit Hardest By Blackout
3. ISAC Persuades Premier To Declare ODSP Offices An Essential Service
4. Ontario Needs a Raise!
5. An Ontario Child Benefit?
6. Regional Updates
7. The "Lifetime Ban" Goes to Court
8. ISAC AGM Notice

Denial by Design ... The Ontario Disability Support Program
John Fraser, Cynthia Wilkey, and JoAnne Frenschkowksi
Released January 28, 2003
35 pages
HTML version - on the DAWN Ontario website
Related DAWN Ontario link:
Email campaign re: ODSP Reform

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Selected media links to recent social policy news:

Walkom: Expect provincial spending cuts to make matters worse Image
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/715615--walkom-expect-provincial-spending-cuts-to-make-matters-worse

Adam Radwanski says McGuinty’s government will die the death of a thousand cuts:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/mcguinty-faces-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/article1334802/

A comparison of provinces’ deficits:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-the-provinces-compare/article1334276/

In Manitoba , the poor sell their meds to get by:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/10/21/man-prescriptions-cbc-investigation.html

Rising dollar could garner action:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/crash-and-recovery/bank-of-canada-talks-tough-on-rising-dollar/article1334608/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bank-of-canada-sees-96-cent-dollar/article1333735/

Jack Layton pushes for pension insurance:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/10/22/layton-pensions.html

Canada’s sub-prime mortgage bomb:
http://rabble.ca/news/2009/10/canadas-sub-prime-mortgage-time-bomb

Tax fairness, not the HST:
http://rabble.ca/news/2009/10/canada-needs-tax-fairness-not-hst

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the federal deficit is ballooning:
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/10/23/federal-deficit.html

From Finance – the Fiscal Update and Economic Outlook:
http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/budget/fallstatement/2009/

Note the information about the pre-budget consultations:
http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/consultations/prebud/

Coverage:

Deficit is huge – difficult choices ahead:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/714276--ontario-deficit-billions-more-than-expected

Nearly two thousand dollars for each person:
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/714791--deficit-slaps-1-891-for-each-ontarian

Ontario falls deep into the red:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-falls-deep-into-the-red/article1334227/

No exit plan:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-deficit-hits-24-billion-but-no-exit-plan/article1335097/

Fiscal report:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/22/toronto-fiscal-report-091022.html

Eliminate the weak program and properly fund the strong program, and don’t sell assets:
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/714677--deficit-numbers-in-perspective

Consultation OK, says OPSEU, but not at expense of people and programs:
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/October2009/22/c9771.html

In the meantime, Second Career gets capped because of too much demand:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/22/ottawa-ontario-second-career.html

Don’t relax stimulus spending, say professors:
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/October2009/22/c9741.html

Criminal lawyers boost legal aid boycott:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/21/ont-legalaid-boycott.html

Restraint looms in Ontario:
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/714053--as-ontario-s-deficit-soars-restraint-looms

And big deficit news expected in Ontario:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/21/ont-economic-update.html

But Thomas Walkom says the deficit is a non-issue:
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/710956--how-to-spend-your-way-out-of-a-deficit

The Conference Board of Canada says we’re moving into recovery:
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/October2009/22/c9486.html

And Stephen Harper is looking at signs of recovery:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/crash-and-recovery/stephen-harper-sees-budding-recovery/article1332815/

Self employed have no pension safety net:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/retirement/no-pension-safety-net-for-self-employed/article1322009/

Tim Hudak and the PCs on the debt and deficit:
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/October2009/21/c9189.html

An astonishing 1/3 of all people who are homeless in Toronto are immigrants:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/712762--one-third-of-homeless-in-city-are-immigrants

Self-employed EI benefits a “tricky task”:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/bringing-ei-to-self-employed-tricky-task/article1321305/

TD report on looming huge deficits:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/ottawa-provinces-set-for-huge-deficits-td/article1330747/

Ignatieff releases the Pink Book – includes commitment to a federal Poverty Reduction Strategy:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/bureau-blog/changing-his-tune/article1332711/
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/713660--ignatieff-commits-to-women-s-issues

-------

Thanks to Jennefer Laidley of the
Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) in Toronto for these link suggestions.

---

Also from Jennefer Laidley:

* Nate Laurie’s fantastic piece August 19 on Ontario's broken social assistance system:
http://www.thestar.com/article/682686

*Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario
says full-day learning is not full-day kindergarten:
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/August2009/20/c6470.html

* Don Drummond (Chief Economist, TD Economics) reminds us that the recession is not over:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2009/08/17/ottawa-association-of-municipalities-of-ontario-conference-watson-drummond.html

* Canadian Medical Association report linking recession to health problems:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/17/cma-health017.html

* CIBC says unemployment duration only 15 weeks – means no jobless recovery if they’re right:
http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2009/08/19/unemployment-cibc.html

* Toronto’s economy in a deep slump:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/08/20/toronto-economy-in-deep-slump-city-report-shows-really-scary.aspx

* Kingston Whig-Standard reports on one of the presentations given at the Queen's International Institute on Social Policy this week:
http://www.kingstonwhigstandard.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1705704

* Hidden homelessness in the Sault:
http://saultstar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1706169

* Backpack program in Kingston :
http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1707489

* Backpacks and other efforts to help kids in need in St. Catherines:
http://www.scstandard.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1706225

* Backpacks also being sought in Edmonton :
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090819/national/school_food_banks_1

* A very short piece on harmonizing GST and PST – from Manitoba , but discusses other provinces:
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/~ASSETS/DOCUMENT/Manitoba_Pubs/2009/FF_HST_081309.pdf

* The problem of deepening deflation:
http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/08/19/deflation-deepens/

* Feds say stimulus cash is to flow this week:
http://www.thestar.com/article/682426

* Info on Feds’ new northern development strategy:
http://portagedailygraphic.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1706813

* Inequality in US growing, and worse than in the Great Depression:
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/media-consortium-blog/2009/08/weekly-audit-depression-era-inequality

* And, a new research report says that, should a zombie attack occur, civilization will likely collapse:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/08/18/zombie-attack-infection-model-research.html

***

Thanks to Jennefer Laidley of the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) for sharing these media links. Visit the ISAC website for a large collection of Ontario resources.
The Income Security Advocacy Centre works with and on behalf of low income communities in Ontario to address issues of income security and poverty.

---

Social Assistance Rate Restructuring and the Ontario Child Benefit (MS Word file - 118K, 4 pages)
Fact sheet
June 2009
If you are a parent with dependent children under 18 and are on Ontario Works (OW) or the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), there are changes to your benefits coming soon. Starting in July 2009, the Ontario Child Benefit will increase to $92 per month per child. However, social assistance rates for families with dependent children are being further restructured.
- includes a description of the changes coming into effect on July 1 along and maximum monthly
Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program rates before and after July 2009 for different family sizes.

---

ISAC UPDATE - June 2009 issue (PDF - 264K, 4 pages)
- Newsletter
Table of contents:
* ISAC’s upcoming Forum: “Time For a Bold Review of Social Assistance”;
* Final arguments in the lead Special Diet Allowance case at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario;
* LIEN’s work on the new Low-Income Energy Affordability Program from the Ontario Energy Board;
* Advocacy around the start of another round of ODSP disability reviews;
* Unanimous support in the Legislature for poverty reduction legislation; and,
* The Ontario Child Benefit goes up to $92, but OW and ODSP take another hit.

ISAC UPDATE - April 2009 (PDF - 295K, 4 pages)
Income Security Advocacy Centre
(Volume 1, Issue 1)
This edition of ISAC UPDATE includes information on: the lead Special Diet Allowance case at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario; our community-based Ending Poverty Project; Bill 152, the new Poverty Reduction legislation; the Poverty Reduction Results Committee; the upcoming Social Assistance Review; new case-selection criteria recently confirmed by ISAC’s Board of Directors; and, ISAC’s analysis of decision-making at the Ministry’s Disability Adjudication Unit.

Transition Child Benefit Fact Sheet (Word file - 95K, 4 pages)
June 2008
The Transition Child Benefit was created to ensure that no family would receive less under the new Ontario Child Benefit starting in July 2008.
For eligible families, the Transitional Child Benefit will make up the difference between current social assistance rates and the new rates that start in July 2008.

Ontario Child Benefit
In July 2008, the provincial government will launch the Ontario Child Benefit (OCB). This will be a monthly payment to eligible low-income families who have dependent children under 18. Parents who get social assistance (Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program) as well as those who are employed are eligible for the OCB.

Related link:

Ontario Child Benefit - from the Ministry of Children and Youth Services

Ending Poverty in Ontario:
Building Capacity and Organizing for Change
A Workshop for Engaging Low Income People (PDF - 980K, 116 pages)
Spring 2008
This manual has been developed to assist facilitators to hold community-based workshops with low income people and other community members active in ending poverty. The workshop is designed to encourage discussion about what is needed to end poverty in Ontario, and to identify actions that can be taken within your community. (...) Campaign 2000 and ISAC will be working with community partners to deliver these workshops in Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, Owen Sound, Windsor, and Toronto, and will be producing a “Call to Action” report at the end of 2008 for government and the community.
NOTE : On the ISAC Resources page, you'll find links to the Word version of individual sections of the manual, along with over three dozen more Public Education Materials, Policy Papers and Legal Documents
Source:
A joint project of the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) and
Campaign 2000 (a cross-Canada public education movement to build Canadian awareness and support for the 1989 all-party House of Commons resolution to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000.)

Make your voice heard on Social Assistance (PDF - 36K, 2 pages)
- May 2008

Action Alert: Poverty Reduction Consultations (Word file - 60K, 3 pages)
- May 2008

Action Alert:
Back-to-school and Winter Clothing allowances end in 2008 (Word file - 49K, 2 pages)
- May 2008

OW and ODSP Recipients Should File 2007 Tax Returns (PDF - 32K, 1 page)
- April 2008

Related links:

25-in-5: Network for Poverty Reduction
25-in-5: Network for Poverty Reduction is a multi-sectoral network comprised of more than 100 provincial and Toronto-based organizations and individuals working on eliminating poverty. We have organized ourselves around the call for a Poverty Reduction Plan with a goal to reduce poverty in Ontario by 25% in 5 years and 50% in 10 years.
Source:
Community Social Planning Council of Toronto

Related links:
- Go to the Anti-poverty Strategies and Campaigns page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/antipoverty.htm

Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity
The Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity is an independent, not-for-profit organization that deepens public understanding of macro and microeconomic factors behind Ontario’s economic progress. We are funded by the Government of Ontario and are mandated to share our research findings directly with the public. The Institute serves as the research arm of the Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress. The mandate of the Task Force, announced in the April 2001 Speech from the Throne, is to measure and monitor Ontario’s competitiveness, productivity, and economic progress compared to other provinces and US states and to report to the public on a regular basis.

Selected site content:

The poor still pay more:
Challenges low income families face in consuming a nutritious diet
Press Release
December 21, 2010
The Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity, in collaboration with Open Policy Ontario’s John Stapleton and research consultant from Toronto Public Health, Brian Cook, releases its report recommending initiatives to help low income families overcome challenges in consuming a nutritious diet.

The report:

The poor still pay more: Challenges
low income families face in consuming a nutritious diet (PDF - 941K, 20 pages)
December 2010
Report recommendations:
* A new housing benefit geared to income and rental costs to free up constrained finances to purchase food
* Improved incentives for retailers and community groups to increase accessibility by low income communities to lower priced and healthier food options, particularly in urban “food deserts”
* The eventual elimination of the price influence of dairy marketing boards

Related links:

* Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity
The Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity is an independent, not-for-profit organization that deepens public understanding of macro and microeconomic factors behind Ontario’s economic progress. We are funded by the Government of Ontario and are mandated to share our research findings directly with the public.
The Institute serves as the research arm of the Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress.

* Toronto Public Health

* Open Policy - personal website of John Stapleton, co-author of The Poor Still Pay More
--- Check out John's Publications - Media Commentaries - Presentations

---

CTV News coverage:

Poor are hit hardest by rising food prices: study
December 21, 2010
Although social assistance in Canada has more or less kept pace with inflation in recent years, it has not kept up with the speed at which food prices have increased, making it more and more expensive for poor Canadians to eat healthy.A study from the Toronto-based Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity released a report Tuesday looking at some of the major issues low-income Canadians face when grocery shopping.
[ Comments (75) ]
Source:
CTV News

Institute for Social Research - York University (Toronto)

Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC)
The Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition was born out of the hope that together a coalition of faith groups could contribute to new public policies based upon greater justice and dignity for Ontarians marginalized by poverty. The central message shared by religious communities throughout the world, inspires people of faith to respond to our neighbours in need.

Ontario-Wide 2010 Community Social Audit
"An exciting new project to assess social conditions in Ontario"

Persistent Poverty:
Voices from the Margins
By Jamie Swift, Brice Balmer and Mira Dineen
$19.95 CAD - Paperback, 184 pages
December 2010
(...) In early 2010 over two hundred civic and faith leaders fanned out into thirty Ontario communities. Their goal? To explore how the least fortunate people in one of the world’s richest places are faring. The Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition’s latest social audit exposed a tattered social assistance system run by volunteers desperately struggling to fill the gaps. There can be no papering over the savage inequalities and suffering exposed in this compelling look at life from the margins.

Related links:

2010 Social Audit:
A Faith Community Assessment of the Status of Poverty in Ontario
May 2010

Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC)
The Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition was born out of the hope that together a coalition of faith groups could contribute to new public policies based upon greater justice and dignity for Ontarians marginalized by poverty. The central message shared by religious communities throughout the world, inspires people of faith to respond to our neighbours in need.

[Ottawa]
New book launched at city hall
sheds light on trials and hardships of poverty
February 3, 2011
By Andrew Sztein
The impoverished were given a voice at city hall on Jan. 26 during the launch of the new book, Persistent Poverty: Voices from the Margins. The book compiles true-life stories of extreme poverty in a process that the authors called a social audit. The social audit process involved talking to many who live or have lived in extreme poverty about their experiences.
Source:
Ottawa East EMC News

Isthatlegal.ca (Ontario)
Legal Guides to Ontario and Canadian Law
The purpose of the Isthatlegal.ca website is to provide, in one convenient and generally accessible on-line location, detailed and thorough legal guides to areas of Ontario and Canadian law of general importance to the economically
vulnerable in our society, and to their advocates. All users should ensure that they meet the Terms of Use of the site.
[ Terms of Use ]

Isthatlegal.ca
Click the above link to access the following guides:
* Constitutional, Human Rights and Related (Human Rights Law in Ontario - Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - Immigration Law - Canadian Law of International Crimes [War Crimes])
* Animal Law (Animals and the Criminal Law in Canada - Dog and Cat Control Law in Ontario)
* Employment Law (Employment Law in Ontario - Employment Insurance [Canada] - Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board - Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Law
* Property Law (Ontario Residential Landlord and Tenant - Line Fences in Ontario)
* Civil and Administrative Litigation (Small Claims Court in Ontario - BC Tort Law - BC Contract Law - Limitation Periods in Ontario - Charts and Explanations - Ontario Family Law and Family Court Procedures - Administrative Tribunal Procedures - Criminal Injuries Compensation in Ontario)
* Freedom of Information and Privacy Law (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Law in Ontario and Municipal FIPPA - Access to Information Law Annotated [Canada] - Privacy Act Guide [Canada] - PIPEDA [Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canada)] Guide
* Income Maintenance and Related (Welfare [Ontario Works] - Ontario Disability Support Program [ODSP] - Auto Insurance in Ontario
* Legislative Process (Ontario Legislative Process - Canadian Federal Legislative Process)
* Miscellaneous Law (Canadian Maritime Law - Charity and Not-for-Profit Law - Church Law)

Recently updated/posted:

Legal Guide : Welfare (Ontario Works) Law
Updated to November 2009
Table of contents:
* Overview * Claimants * Basic Assistance*. Benefits * Information Eligibility * Income Rules * Asset Rules * Applications and Procedures * Administrator Decisions * Appeals and Other Remedies * Workfare * Fraud and Prosecutions * Advocacy

Legal Guide : Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) Law
Updated to November 2009
Table of contents:
* Overview * Claimants * Income Support * Benefits * Severely Handicapped Children * Information Eligibility * Income Rules * Asset Rules * "Person With a Disability" * Applications and Procedures * Director Decisions * Appeals and Other Remedies * Workfare * Fraud and Prosecutions * Advocacy

Legal Guide to Ontario Human Rights Law
30 September 2009
- includes recent amendments to the Ontario Human Rights Code
Table of contents:
* Overview
SUBSTANTIVE LAW - Protected Activities - Prohibited Grounds - Discrimination - Forms of Discrimination - General Exceptions
PROCEDURAL LAW - The Tribunal and its Powers - Private Applications - Commission Applications - Parties - Motions - Summary Proceedings - Pre-Hearing Procedures - Service - Evidence - Hearings - Remedies and Offences - Commission Role - Reconsiderations
MISCELLANEOUS - Judicial Review - Transition
[ Related link : Ontario Human Rights Commission ]

Case Law (Court Decisions)
- direct links to the Decisions page of each of the following:
* Ontario Court of Justice (most family and criminal cases in Ontario)
* Ontario Superior Court (main civil court in Ontario, some family and criminal)
* Ontario Divisional Court (administrative appeals, judicial reviews and smaller civil appeals)
* Ontario Court of Appeal (highest Ontario Court)
* Federal Court - Trial Division (first level court for matters under federal jurisdiction such as telecommunications, intellectual property, rail/air/shipping, maritime, immigration etc)
* Federal Court of Appeal (appeals from Federal Court - Trial Division)
* Supreme Court of Canada
* UK and Ireland Cases (British cases are often relevant to the interpretation of Canadian law)
* Australia and NZ Cases (also useful in interpretation)

Source:
Isthatlegal.ca

The John Howard Society of Toronto

Selected site content:

Cost-benefit analysis shows that providing transitional housing for ex-prisoners could
save millions of dollars in tax-payer’s money while increasing community safety (PDF - 67K, 1 page)
News Release
TORONTO- A study funded by The Toronto Community Foundation and Commissioned by The John Howard Society of Toronto entitled, “Making Toronto Safer: A Cost Benefit Analysis” examined two specific groups of ex-prisoners; the homeless and those at high risk of re-offending sexually or violently against a minor.

Complete study:

Making Toronto Safer
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Transitional Housing Supports
for Men Leaving Incarceration
April 2011
By Open Policy and Chronicle Analytics
(John Stapleton, Brendon Pooran, René Doucet)
Commissioned by:
The John Howard Society Toronto
& Toronto Community Foundation
(...) The cost benefit analysis clearly demonstrates that with transitional housing and supports in place, better outcomes can be achieved at lower costs. Such benefits are enjoyed by the public first and foremost. The likelihood of re-offending decreases thereby creating safer communities. At the same time, the tax dollars spent on prisoners throughout the criminal justice process and beyond is far less than the alternative of continued reincarceration.
The per-person estimated savings provided by Transitional Housing and support is estimated to be:
° $350,000 for a homeless person; and
° $109,000 for a Section 810 prisoner (sexual offender).

Related links:

Toronto Community Foundation
The Toronto Community Foundation connects philanthropy with community needs and opportunities in order to make Toronto the best place to live, work, learn, and grow. We are one of the largest of Canada's 165 community foundations. Established in 1981, we have grown to hold over $225 million in assets and to work with hundreds of concerned Torontonians and high-impact community organizations.

John Howard Society of Ontario

John Howard Society of Canada

---

Another related link:

Housing for ex-cons: Spend a little, save a lot
By Jim Rankin
June 15, 2011
(...) The John Howard Society of Toronto is hoping a transitional housing program already successful in Ottawa will stop the cycle (cycling in and out of jail) earlier for other released inmates and, in turn, save taxpayers’ money — and make Toronto safer. In an effort to persuade governments to invest, the society commissioned a cost-benefit analysis of the program, which provides just-released inmates a room in a controlled facility where they can live up to a year before permanent housing is found. The study, funded by the Toronto Community Foundation, looked at existing research and applied it to what could be saved if two ex-prisoner groups in Toronto — the homeless and serious offenders subject to certain conditions — had access to the program.
Source:
Toronto Star

Laidlaw Foundation (Toronto)
The Laidlaw Foundation is a public interest foundation that uses its human and financial resources in innovative ways to strengthen civic engagement and social cohesion. The Foundation uses its capital to better the environments and fulfil the capacities of children and youth, to enhance the opportunities for human development and creativity and to sustain healthy communities and ecosystems.

Selected reports:

Laidlaw Foundation 2010 Annual Report (PDF - 543K, 21 pages)
June 2011
Excerpt, page 3:
"In 2010, The Foundation published Not So Easy to Navigate (PDF - 511K, 40 pages), the result of a commissioned policy research and advocacy project. John Stapleton and Anne Tweddle produced three related papers that identify ways to link and leverage various federal and provincial income security entitlements to maximize RESP benefits for children and youth in care. The Government of BC is exploring the introduction of new legislation and the Child Welfare League of Canada has received federal funding support to work with the provinces to explore implementation. Copies of the guidebook have been circulated through the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies and the Toronto Children’s Aid Society."

Source:
Laidlaw Foundation
The Laidlaw Foundation promotes positive youth development through inclusive youth engagement in the arts, environment and in the community.
[ More about the Laidlaw Foundation ]

[Proactive disclosure : I've known and collaborated with John Stapleton since the mid-1970s, and I've been married to Anne Tweddle for over 20 years. They make an excellent research team, and I'm pleased to highlight not only their work but the accolades they receive and so richly deserve.]

---------------------------------------

Benefits for Children in Ontario Incomplete and Unfair
News Release
May 17, 2010
A new report says children not living with their parents are denied financial benefits that other children get. Not so Easy to Navigate, a report written by social policy experts John Stapleton and Anne Tweddle for the Laidlaw Foundation, reveals that the most vulnerable children in Ontario - those living in state care - don’t benefit from federal programs like the Canada Learning Bond and Canada Education Savings Grant the same way that children living with their families do.

Complete report:

‘Not so Easy to Navigate’:
A Report on the Complex Array of Income
Security Programs and Educational Planning for
Children in Care in Ontario (PDF - 511K, 40 pages)
By John Stapleton & Anne Tweddle
Toronto
May 2010
Young people who have been taken into state care report that the most difficult issue they faced when leaving care was the lack of emotional, financial, and educational support. This paper describes the major financial supports currently available in Ontario and proposes ways to improve the financial and educational well-being of youth once they leave care.

Two pamphlets by the same authors
released with the above report:

* 7 Things you Should Know (PDF - 291K, 14 pages)
May 2010
Do you know a child who is in the care of a Children’s Aid Society?
Are you concerned about their financial and educational future?
This fact sheet tells you about financial benefits from the government for children in Ontario, with special emphasis on programs that build savings for a child in care. It also explains some of the changes that happen to benefits when a child goes into care.

* A message to all mothers in Ontario:
March 2010
Collect child benefits of up to $8,400 and more every year!

There are four things you should do when you give birth
in order to obtain the benefits that you are entitled to:

1. Go to Service Ontario to get a birth certificate and a Social Insurance Number for your child.
2. Apply for Canada Child Tax Benefits (CCTB).
3. Fill out a tax return and send it in.
4. Go to any bank and setup a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP)
- includes links to online resources

Source:
The Laidlaw Foundation
The Laidlaw Foundation promotes positive youth development through inclusive youth engagement in the arts, environment and in community.

Related earlier report
from The Laidlaw Foundation:

Youth Leaving Care – How Do They Fare?
Briefing Paper (PDF file - 242K, 31 pages)
September 2005
By Anne Tweddle
Source:
Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults (they produced the report)
Laidlaw Foundation (they funded the report)

[ More reports from The Laidlaw Foundation - click "Resources" in the left margin for links to all Laidlaw Foundation reports by theme.]

Related links from
Human Resources and Social Development Canada:

* Canada Learning Bond
The Canada Learning Bond (CLB) is a grant offered by the Government of Canada to help parents, friends, and family members save early for the post-secondary education of children in modest-income families. (...) The Government of Canada will make a one-time payment of $500 into the RESP of children who qualify for the Canada Learning Bond and a $100 deposit each subsequent year the child’s primary caregiver receives the National Child Benefit Supplement, to a maximum of $2,000. Canlearn.ca offers more information regarding the amount of CLB the child could receive.

* Canada Education Savings Grant
When you, as a parent, friend or family member, open a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) on behalf of a child and apply for the Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG), the Government of Canada will deposit a percentage of your own contribution directly into the RESP. To date, more than three million children have benefited from the Canada Education Savings Grant.

Related link:

Open Policy - John Stapleton's website

---------------------------------------

From CBC Toronto:

Ont. youth in state care need RESPs: foundation
May 17, 2010
An Ontario youth foundation is calling on Ottawa to set up education savings accounts for the 18,000 Ontario children in state care. The Laidlaw Foundation has released a new report that suggests Ontario children living in foster care don't benefit from federal programs like the Canada Learning Bond and the Canada Education Savings Grant the same way that children living with their families do.

---

From The Toronto Star:

Youth in state care need RESPs
By Laurie Monsebraaten
May 17, 2010
Ontario should press Ottawa to give children in foster care the same educational support as children who live with their families. A report being released Monday says it would cost the federal government about $8 million a year to set up educational savings accounts for the approximately 18,000 Ontario children in state care. “Parents with children living at home often use their federal child benefits to open Registered Education Savings Plans for their children,” said social policy expert John Stapleton, co-author of report by the Laidlaw Foundation. The investments trigger the $2,000 federal learning bond and the education savings grant, which matches parental contributions to a maximum of $7,200. (...) Ontario should press for a change in federal policy so that all children in care can have access to the federal money to use toward a post-secondary education, says the report. The province should also extend financial support to youth in care to age 25 says the report entitled Not So Easy to Navigate.
Source:
The Toronto Star

Hazardous passage for at-risk youth
Foster children should be allowed to stay at home until they are 21
Virginia Rowden
May 21, 2010
This is a story told in numbers. There are nearly 4,700 young people — aged 16 to 20 — in the care of Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario. Fewer than 600 are enrolled in college, trade schools or university — less than 13 per cent compared with 60 per cent of young people who have grown up with their own families
[ Virginia Rowden is director, social policy, and mentor for the YouthCAN program, Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies. ]

A better idea for foster kids
May 23, 2010
Editorial
(...) By [Ontario] provincial law, children in the care of the state must move out of their foster or group homes before their 18th birthday, whether they have finished high school or not. They are given financial assistance to live on their own, but that is cut off at 21, regardless of their circumstances. (...) Last week, a report by the Laidlaw Foundation urged Ottawa to establish registered education savings plans (RESPs) for children in foster care, similar to those that parents set up for their own children. The report rightly identifies the transforming effect that making college financially possible could have on Crown wards. (...) Children's aid agencies have long urged the province to let children stay in their foster or group homes until they are 21. The Laidlaw Foundation's report argues that financial assistance should be extended to 25. Both measures would provide a more supportive and gradual transition into adulthood – similar to what most children get from their parents.

Source:
The Toronto Star

--------------------------------------------

The U.S. Perspective
_________________________

Recent release from
Human Rights Watch:

California: From Foster Children to Homeless Adults
State Fails to Prepare Foster Youth for Adulthood
News Release
May 12, 2010
(LosAngeles) - California is creating homeless adults by failing to ensure that youth in foster care are given the support to live independently as adults and by ending state support abruptly, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. Human Rights Watch said that the state should provide financial support, connections with adults, shelter, and other safety nets for young people as they make the transition towards independence.

The 70-page report, My So-Called Emancipation: From Foster Care to Homelessness for California Youth (PDF - 1.3MB), documents the struggles of foster care youth who become homeless after turning 18, or "aging out" of the state's care, without sufficient preparation or support for adulthood. California's foster care system serves 65,000 children and youth, far more than any other single state. Of the 4,000 who age out of the system each year, research suggests, 20 per cent or more become homeless.

Source:
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes.

Law Foundation of Ontario
Established in 1974, the Law Foundation of Otario is a grant-making organization that promotes and enhances justice for all Ontarians.

Multi-million dollar fund will open doors to justice wider across Canada
May 31, 2010
The Law Foundation of Ontario (LFO) invites applications from across Canada to its just-launched, $14.6-million Access to Justice Fund. The Fund was established as part of a groundbreaking arrangement relating to the settlement of a major class action lawsuit. The Fund will be used to improve access to justice nationally, with a focus on five specific themes:
* linguistic minorities and people living in rural and remote areas
* Aboriginal people
* individuals without legal representation
* family violence
* consumer rights
The ATJ Fund will be open for applications for a one-year period, and non-profit organizations from across Canada are invited to apply

The Lawyers Weekly

The shame of Legal Aid Ontario
By Clayton Ruby*
February 25, 2011 (date of the issue of The Lawyers Weekly)
Ontario is providing third rate legal services to the poor, and it is time it stopped. Chris Bentley is the Attorney General of Ontario. He should be ashamed. John McCamus is chair of Legal Aid Ontario (LAO). He should be ashamed. They are not ashamed, of course. They have status, position and power. They don’t value access to justice. (...) The attorney general and the chair of LAO cannot invoke justice to justify the inadequate services we allow to the poorest of us. Indeed, many of the clients are mentally ill, disturbed, isolated, or so thoroughly beaten down that they cannot take on yet another fight. They cannot organize effectively. This province ignores their cries for justice?—? because it can.
(...)
Legal aid has become a scheme so tattered that it is held together by family, criminal and immigration lawyers who effectively donate their services. This is charity. As José Saramago, writer of Blindness, who won the Nobel Prize for literature, said: “Charity is what is left when there is neither kindness nor justice.”

[ * Clayton Ruby holds an honourary Doctor of Laws degree awarded by the Law Society of Upper Canada. He is a bencher of the law society and a Member of the Order of Canada. ]

Source:
The Lawyers Weekly

Related link:

Legal Aid Ontario
The 1998 (Ontario) Legal Aid Services Act establishes Legal Aid Ontario (LAO), an independent but publicly funded and publicly accountable non-profit corporation, to administer the province's legal aid program.

Legal Aid Ontario
The Legal Aid Ontario Vision :
- To promote access to justice throughout Ontario for low-income individuals by providing high quality legal aid services
- To encourage and facilitate flexibility and innovation in the provision of legal aid services
- To recognize the diverse legal needs of low-income individuals and disadvantaged communities
- To operate within a framework of accountability for the expenditure of public funds
Site Map
Includes links to : About Legal Aid Ontario - Business Plan - Historical Overview - Board and Committees - Provincial Directory - Job Opportunities - Newsroom - Fact Sheets - News Releases and Announcements - Speeches - Media Contacts - Getting Legal Help - Family Law Services - Criminal Law Services - Immigration & Refugee Law Services - Housing and Income Services - Getting Help in the Courtroom - Financial Eligibility - Other Services - FAQ - Publications & Resources - Newsletter - Reports - Resources - Information for Lawyers - Updates - Resources - Research Facility - Forms - Links - Community Legal Clinics - Government Resources - Lawyer Services - Other Links

Legal Aid Ontario: The first five years, 1999-2004 - Highlights of Legal Aid Ontario's Achievements
February 2004

Related Link:

Legal aid $10 million over budget - Ontario
By Helen Burnett & Gail J. Cohen
23 October 2006
Legal Aid Ontario has announced that its certificate program is $10 million over its targeted expenditures, after a mid-year review of its financial situation. (...) LAO says the problem is partially due to "the additional costs associated with megatrials and large criminal prosecutions and to the very quick account payment timelines that have evolved through the Legal Aid Online billing system." (...) William Trudell, chairman of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, says he knows lawyers who are working on megatrials who are being forced to shut down their practices because they are not being paid for all the work they do. As a result, he says, many lawyers won't take legal aid cases anymore. (...) The Association of Legal Aid Plans of Canada, of which Legal Aid Ontario is a member, (...) is calling on the federal government to commit long-term funding to legal aid "in order to avoid stripping away the legal rights of the poor," specifically through long-term funding for the Federal Investment Fund and by providing funding for civil legal aid, particularly for services that are federally mandated or legislated. It is also looking for an increase in funding to cover the additional demand for legal aid services and costs resulting from the federal government's proposed criminal justice system changes and from increases in federal prosecutions and policing resources.
But so far the Harper government is not coming forward with any cash.
"The problem is there's no commitment from the government to fund the system," says Trudell. "It's the erosion of a wonderful system because politicians won't embrace it."
Source:
Law Times (Canada)

LIFE*SPIN (Low-Income Family Empowerment * Sole-Support Parents Information Network)
"...a London grass-roots, non-profit, charitable organization started by sole-support mothers surviving on Family Benefits to share information and help low income people become self sufficient"

- includes links to :  who we are | what we do | our programs | contact us | spincycle | CED | freestore | food security | links | mediation/advocacy | publications | margaret's housing | peer lending circles | women's resource centre

Lifetime Networks Ottawa
LNO uses a unique future planning process(developed by PLAN,our Parent organization) for people with disabilities. It is a seven step process that families can follow to create a safe and secure future for their loved one. Each future plan is tailor- made to meet your family’s needs

New resource for Ontario parents
of children with physical or developmental disabilities

Ontario parents who are getting on in years and who are caring at home for a child with a developmental or physical disability have a new resource, just released by Reena, a Thornhill, Ontario social services agency established by parents of children with developmental disabilities, as a practical alternative to institutions. The new 34-page brochure, entitled What you can do to enhance the quality of life for a family member with a disability - Consider a Henson Trust, will help those parents who have some savings in setting up a trust fund to cover their child's special or emergency needs without affecting his/her eligibility for government financial assistance.

What you can do to enhance the quality of life
for a family member with a disability - Consider a Henson Trust*(PDF - 972K, 34 pages)
By Harry Beatty, Mary Louise Dickson and John Stapleton
"Caring for a family member with a disability, and planning for their support for a whole lifetime, is a big responsibility. It poses special problems and challenges. A trust can be an ideal solution if you want to provide some money for a relative. With a trust, your loved one can continue to receive Ontario Disability Support (ODSP) benefits [Ontario's needs-tested social assistance program for people with disabilities]. The trust money can help with extra expenses such as items and services they need, and holidays. (...) This booklet is written specifically for families who want to help support a relative who receives ODSP benefits. It explains how you can help your family member without affecting their ODSP benefits."

[* A "Henson Trust" is a trust which gives the trustee or trustees absolute discretion to make decisions on behalf of the beneficiary, following the precedent established by the Henson case decided by the Ontario Courts in the 1980s [from the report's glossary]. Aging parents who are no longer able to care for their disabled child at home may apply on behalf of the child for benefits in his/her own right under the Ontario Disability Support Program. If those parents have some savings that they wish to pass along to cover some of the needs their disabled child, they have to be careful to avoid disqualifying their child from ODSP by exceeding the asset limit exemption levels.]

This brochure will also interest (1) organizations for groups of parents in similar situations in other Canadian jurisdictions, and (2) anyone who wants to learn more about needs-tested social assistance for people with disabilities in Ontario
- incl. links to related resources online

Source:
Reena
"...a non-profit social service agency dedicated to integrating individuals who have a developmental disability into the mainstream of society. Reena was established in 1973 by parents of children with developmental disabilities, as a practical alternative to institutions."

Related links:

Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN)
PLAN is a BC-based non-profit organization, established in 1989 by and for families committed to future planning and securing a good life for their relative with a disability./

Linda McQuaig

Selected site content:

Ontario Special Diet Allowance:
Restraint hits poor the hardest : Ontario's
austerity program literally takes food out of the mouths of the hungry.
By Linda McQuaig
May 3, 2010
After inflation, welfare benefits today only have 55 percent of the buying power they had in 1993.
(...) The elimination of the special diet allowance in the recent provincial budget is really just the continuation of the assault on the incomes of the very poorest citizens that began with former premier Mike Harris's 22 percent cut in provincial welfare rates in 1995.

Other columns by Linda McQuaig - links to 100+ columns (from the Toronto Star) going back to 2005.
Recommended for your Summer reading list!!

Books by Linda McQuaig - simple list (incl. publisher details) of Linda McQuaig's nine books, from The Wealthy Banker's Wife (1993) and Shooting the Hippo (1995) to her latest, Holding the Bully's Coat (2007). No links except for short summaries of the three latest books.
[ Amazon.ca online bookstore --- Books by Linda McQuaig ]

Links - 30+ links to progressive websites in Canada and the U.S.
Source:
LindaMcQuaig.com

Linda McQuaig - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

London Free Press

Closing food banks dumb idea
By Glen Pearson
July 30, 2011
The food bank world was suddenly hit with a broadside this week with the Elaine Power's Toronto Globe and Mail article headlined "It's time to close Canada's food banks." Nothing comes closer to irrelevance than her opening statement that food banks represent a serious obstacle in the fight against poverty in Canada. As the London Food Bank's co-director for the last 25 years, and a past chair of the Ontario Association of Food Banks, I have never encountered one food bank director who believed they were ending hunger or that they were the ultimate solution.
Source:
London Free Press

Low Income Energy Network (LIEN)
LIEN was formed in 2004 by anti-poverty, affordable housing and environmental groups in response to the impact of rising energy prices on low-income Ontarians. Over 70 organizations from across Ontario are members of LIEN, representing a broad range of sectors including: energy, public health, legal, tenant / housing, education and social and community organizations.
LIEN is directed by a Steering Committee made up of representatives from:
* Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO),
* Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA),
* Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC),
* Share the Warmth (STW),
* Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA) and
* Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC).

Ontario Tenants Rights
- incl. links to:
* Landlord and Tenant Law * Housing and Tenant Information * Current Renters News and Issues * Apartment Living * Government * Miscellaneous

Low Income Families Together (LIFT)
LIFT commits to strengthen the foundation of our community, to enable members to develop, share and increase resources, embrace diversity and create enduring, people centered initiatives.

Macleans Magazine

Fact Check:
Does anybody really know how many Torontonians rely on food banks?
October 17, 2007
The plight of the urban poor is one of the Toronto Star's most cherished issues—so much so, apparently, that of late they've taken to cloning them.

Maytree Foundation
Principal funder of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, the Maytree Foundation is a Canadian charitable foundation established in 1982. Maytree believes that there are three fundamental sets of issues which threaten political and social stability: wealth disparities between and within nations; mass migration of people because of war, oppression and environmental disasters; and the degradation of the environment.

Selected site content from Maytree:
(formerly known as the Maytree Foundation)

Charting Prosperity: Practical Ideas for a Stronger Canada - Policy Insights 2011
April 2011
HTML version
PDF version (1.1MB, 96 pages)
This new Maytree publication lists more than 50 actionable policy ideas intended to contribute to Canada’s prosperity while protecting the country's most vulnerable. Policy Insights 2011 breaks down the recommendations into the following categories:
- Income support and social security* (see excerpt below)
- Inclusion and protection**(see excerpt below)
- Democracy and participation
- Immigrant and refugee selection
- Diversity and integration

---

* Excerpt from the Income support and social security section:

Improve Income Security for Working-age Adults (PDF - 34K, 3 pages)
- Reform EI by raising benefits to 70 percent of insurable earnings, creating uniform requirements across the country and setting premiums counter-cyclically.
- Create a new temporary income program for unemployed Canadians who do not qualify for EI.
- Make improvements to the Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB) over time so that it extends higher up the income ladder and becomes a major income support for Canadians who work at minimum and low wages.

---

** Excerpt from the Inclusion and protection section:

Fight Poverty from the Ground Up (PDF - 34K, 2 pages)
By Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement
- Create a Community Fund of $25 million run by an arm’s-length body to help communities operate local decision-making tables.
- Designate and fund a nonprofit organization to provide coaching and other technical assistance to local communities fighting poverty.
- Create a $2 million learning fund (over five years) to promote cross community exchange for poverty reduction

Source:
Maytree
Maytree works with many partners to fight poverty. We listen to the voices of community to understand their needs and issues. We work with government, the central player in creating equity and prosperity. We work with civil society organizations, with employers, and with institutions to make them more effective in building strong and prosperous communities.

Mental Health Commission of Canada
The Mental Health Commission of Canada is a catalyst for transformative change. Our mission is to promote mental health in Canada, and work with stakeholders to change the attitudes of Canadians toward mental health problems, and to improve services and support.

Selected site content:

At Home/Chez Soi
[ Version française du site ]
The At Home/Chez Soi research demonstration project is investigating mental health and homelessness in five Canadian cities: Moncton, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. A total of 2285 homeless people living with a mental illness will participate. 1,325 people from that group will be given a place to live, and will be offered services to assist them over the course of the initiative. The remaining participants will receive the regular services that are currently available in their cities. As of February, 2011 - over 1,600 people have become project participants, and over 700 now have homes. The overall goal is to provide evidence about what services and systems could best help people who are living with a mental illness and are homeless. At the same time, the project will provide meaningful and practical support for hundreds of vulnerable people.

What's happening in each of the five participating cities?

Moncton: one of Canada’s fastest growing cities, with a shortage of services for Anglophones and Francophones.

Montreal: different mental health services provided to homeless people in Quebec.

Toronto: ethno-cultural diversity including new immigrants who are non-English speaking.

Winnipeg: urban Aboriginal population.

Vancouver: people who struggle with substance abuse and addictions.

Source:
Mental Health Commission of Canada

---

Related links:

What? Another study?
Study on homeless unlikely to tell us anything we don't know
By Kelly Egan
March 11, 2011
(...) OK. See if we get this straight. One group of homeless will be given permanent homes, help with social and health problems, support with daily living. The other group will not be given homes and will have to navigate the patchwork of services available, which are obviously inadequate or they wouldn't be sleeping in shelters or cardboard hotels. For $110 million, we want to know "which approach works best." Well, call me Einstein, but I'm going with Door No. 1...
Source:
Ottawa Citizen

Metcalf Foundation
The Metcalf Foundation helps Canadians imagine and build a just, healthy, and creative society by supporting dynamic leaders who are strengthening their communities, nurturing innovative approaches to persistent problems, and
encouraging dialogue and learning to inform action.

Selected site content:

Metcalf Releases 'Working Better' by Tom Zizys
Ontario labour market works for no one
New report says: “It’s ours to fix”
News Release
May 10, 2011
TORONTO– A new report released today presents a fresh accounting of the state of Ontario’s labour market and calls for a strategic overhaul. “Working Better: Creating a High-Performing Labour Market in Ontario” was written by Tom Zizys, a Fellow at the Metcalf Foundation, a private family foundation invested in building a just, healthy and creative society. The report takes a look back over the past thirty years, describing a profound alteration in our labour market system. A thorough historical review and present day analysis underline a significant change in the thinking and practices that define how work is organized and managed. Zizys’ research indicates that the current system is not serving anyone.

Working Better: Creating a
High-Performing Labour Market in Ontario (PDF - 468K, 76 pages)
By Tom Zizys
May 2011

Source:
Metcalf Foundation
The  Metcalf  Foundation  helps  Canadians  imagine  and  build  a  just,  healthy, and  creative  society  by  supporting  dynamic  leaders  who  are  strengthening  their communities,  nurturing  innovative  approaches  to  persistent  problems,  and encouraging  dialogue  and  learning  to  inform action.

Related link, also by Tom Zizys:

An Economy Out of Shape: Changing the Hourglass (PDF - 731K, 53 pages)
By Tom Zizys
April 1, 2010
This Toronto Workforce Innovation Group report examines changes in the occupational structure of the labour force in the City of Toronto and the rest of Ontario using Statistics Canada census data. The purpose of this report is to highlight trends, isolate the impact of these trends on different population groups, and offer recommendations that can contribute to economic growth and productivity as well as promote equitable outcomes for all workers
Source:
Toronto Workforce Innovation Group

---

Zero Dollar Linda and Million Dollar Murray
Metcalf Innovation Fellow John Stapleton releases a new report that explores the weaknesses in the design of North American social welfare institutions through the stories of two individuals.

Complete report:

“Zero Dollar Linda“ : A Meditation on Malcolm Gladwell’s “Million Dollar Murray,“
the Linda Chamberlain Rule, and the Auditor General of Ontario (PDF - 225K, 28 pages)
By John Stapleton
November 2010
(...) I believe we need to create a space in the public conversation to talk about building social assistance policies based on trust in the majority, not suspicion of a minority of outliers. We need intelligent rules, administered with positive discretion, by public servants who are educated and supported in this approach.

Related links:

Million-Dollar Murray:
Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage
February 13, 2006
"(...) Murray Barr used more health-care dollars than almost anyone in the state of Nevada. It would probably have been cheaper to give him a full-time nurse and his own apartment."
The cost of chronic homelessness in America, and Philip Mangano's solution.
Source:
Gladwell.com

Open Policy - John Stapleton's website
TIP: Check out John's Publications - Media Commentaries - Presentations

Lies, damn lies and...
Poverty statistics?

If your eyes glaze over at the mere mention of poverty lines and/or unemployment statistics, I think you'll appreciate this short discussion/reflexion paper by Canadian social policy experts Richard Shillington and John Stapleton. It's an overview of, and observations about, Canada's poverty measurement tools; it includes discussion (or reflexion) points for further study or group discussions. Did YOU know that there are four different ways to measure Employment Insurance coverage of the Canadian workforce? And what the heck is a B/U ratio, anyway? Click below to find out.

Cutting Through the Fog:
Why is it so hard to make sense of poverty measures? (PDF - 186K, 22 pages)
Richard Shillington and John Stapleton
May 2010
(...) This paper is intended to open up some room for thoughtful discussion about poverty issues among interested Canadians. The goal is not to tell anyone what to think, but to encourage all of us to question.
(...) Data can be presented in many different ways, depending on the goals of the person or group providing the data. It is important to question what is being measured, how it is measured, and when it was measured.
(...) Being critical of the statistics used as “evidence” for a point of view involves finding out what assumptions underlie the numbers.
For example, you might hear that:
• the percentage of Canadians living in poverty is around 15%...or only 5%, or
• Canada’s Employment Insurance (EI) program covers approximately 85% of the unemployed…or only 45%.
(...) The gap between these statistics is so large because they measure different things.

Source:
Metcalf Foundation
The goal of the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation is to enhance the effectiveness of people and organizations working together to help Canadians imagine and build a just, healthy, and creative society.

Related links:

Open Policy - John Stapleton's website
Tristat Resources - Richard Shillington's website

- Go to the Poverty Measures - Canadian Resources page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/poverty.htm
- Go to the Non-Governmental Organizations Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/ngobkmrk.htm

More links to John Stapleton's recent published work
- this link takes you further down on the page you're now reading

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Report: Why don't we want the poor to own anything?
News Release
October 21, 2009
Overly strict welfare eligibility rules are forcing Ontario’s newly unemployed to divest themselves of all their assets, crippling their chances for an economic recovery. Why Don’t We Want the Poor to Own Anything?, by John Stapleton, Metcalf Foundation Fellow and a leading social policy expert, reveals weaknesses in Ontario’s asset limits for those seeking social assistance, disability support, subsidized housing and legal aid.
Source:
Metcalf Foundation

Complete report:
Why don't we want the poor to own anything?
Our relentless social policy journey toward destitution for the 900,000 poorest people in Ontario (PDF - 983K, 30 pages)
By John Stapleton
(...) 475,000 families receive social assistance in Ontario. They have stripped themselves of their liquid assets. They must wait until they no longer require legal aid, and leave public housing, before they can resume saving for anything, let alone save for retirement. In a society that promotes saving and cherishes self-reliance, there is no good rationale for public policy that almost guarantees people will grow old in poverty.

Related links:

Open Policy - John Stapleton's website

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The welfare asset trap
October 21 2009
It is well known that when the Conservatives came to power in 1995 Mike Harris gutted welfare rates – leaving needy Ontarians living far below the poverty line. Less well known is that changes were also made to force Ontarians to divest themselves of almost every cent of savings, including cashable RRSPs, before they could qualify for a welfare cheque. In a report to be released Oct. 21, Metcalf Foundation fellow John Stapleton presents a compelling case for allowing welfare recipients to keep some savings. (...) Asset-stripping is just one of the failings of our outdated and mean-spirited social assistance system. The government's promised social assistance review – still waiting to be launched – will find many other hurdles in the path of those in need of a helping hand.
Source:
The Toronto Star

- Go to the Asset-Based Social Policies Links page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/assets.htm

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Public Policy 201: A Primer for Non-Profit Organizations
The Role of Legislation in Reducing Poverty in Ontario (workshop)
March 23, 2009 (Toronto)
"(...) This workshop is designed to strengthen the understanding of people working in the non-profit sector of public policy, and how non-profits can work with government to influence change. It is part of an ongoing series for those in organizations who want to understand the policy process and would benefit from a forum for candid exchange of ideas. This session will use as a case study the poverty reduction bill that was introduced into Ontario’s legislature on February 25, 2009."

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Income Security for Working-Age Adults in Canada:
Let’s consider the model under our nose (PDF - 220K, 18 pages)
John Stapleton
November 2008
- incl.: * A Short History of Income Security Programs in Canada * The Evolution of Income Security for Seniors * The Evolution of Child Benefits * What Do Seniors' and Children's Programs Have in Common * Do We Have Similar Programs for Working-Age Adults? * A Note About CPP and EI * A New Model for Income Security for Working-Age Adults * Building a Strategy to Reduce Poverty Among Working-Age Adults * How Would the Account-Based Model Work? * Making the New System Transparent for Canadians * What If We Took Poor Working-Age Adults Off Welfare?

"The paper builds upon the recommendations outlined in John’s 2007 Metcalf report, Why is it so tough to get ahead? How our tangled social programs pathologize the transition to self-reliance [PDF file - 1MB, 62 pages]. It also expands upon a framework for income security reform put forward to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology Subcommittee on Cities investigating urban poverty (see June 2008 Senate report entitled Poverty, Housing and Homelessness: Issues and Options [PDF - 696K, 96 pages])."

Obama puts poor back on agenda
Social policy expert John Stapleton believes new federal tax programs for working-age adults may one day be as important as today's pensions and child tax benefits.
New U.S. leader has vowed to cut poverty. Now it's time to see what Canada can do.
November 8, 2008
Laurie Monsebraaten
As part of his compelling "Yes We Can" campaign to make meaningful change in the lives of average Americans, President-elect Barack Obama promised to cut poverty in half within a decade. Canada has no plan to fight poverty. And Stephen Harper's Conservatives didn't offer one during our recent federal election. But with Obama's historic win this week, many anti-poverty activists here believe new pressure is on Ottawa to address social and economic inequality. However, social policy expert John Stapleton argues in a new report that the foundation of a Canadian plan is already in place.
Source:
The Toronto Star

Metro Network for Social Justice - non-profit network of 230 organizations committed to promoting social and economic justice for everyone in the City of Toronto (formerly Metro Toronto)

Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults ("MISWAA")
- this link will take you further down on the page you're now reading to "TASK FORCE on Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults"

Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation
The Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation is an independent, non-partisan public policy think tank. We were established in 2009 with seed money from the Ontario government. We undertake applied public policy research and engage in public dialogue on federal issues important to the prosperity and quality of life of Ontario and Canada. The Mowat Centre has a mandate to propose innovative, research-driven public policy recommendations that work on behalf of Canadians in all regions of the country, including Ontario

The Mowat Centre has seven research streams:

* Employment Insurance and income support
* Immigration
* Economic transformation
* Cities
* Federal fiscal transfers
* Democratic Institutions and Processes
* The Environment
Our early research will focus on approaches to providing income and training support to the unemployed, options for improving federal-provincial cooperation on immigration policy, supporting innovation and economic transformation through effective economic development strategies, and improving representation in the Canadian Parliament.

Young men the face of poverty in post-recession Canada: study
By Heather Scoffield
November 23, 2010
OTTAWA - The recession has left a lingering bruise on an increasingly vulnerable sector of Canadian society: young, single men.(...) John Stapleton, a social policy researcher [who] has just completed an exhaustive study of social assistance during the recession, for the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation. Stapleton has sifted through welfare data from five provinces representing 79 per cent of the country's population, and found that the recession has revealed two key trends. The good news, he writes in his draft paper, is that federal and provincial programs for families have helped single mothers deal with poverty. (...) The opposite is true for young, single men. In Ontario, the number in this group on welfare has risen 61 per cent in nine years, to 148,000 from 92,000.Similar increases were found in British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, Stapleton writes. "Single, young men are the new face of poverty in Canadian cities," he says.
(...) For Stapleton, the solution lies partly in the success governments have had in helping single moms.
If provincial, federal and municipal governments can target young single people with a variety of supports — the way they've done with lone parents — then impoverished young men will find it easier to make ends meet, he says.
Source:
Winnipeg Free Press

Related links:

Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation
Applied public policy research informed by Ontario's reality

Open Policy - John Stapleton's website

From the
National Council of Welfare:

Welfare Incomes 2010
September 2011
The Welfare Incomes report reflects the estimated incomes (in constant and current dollars) for 2010 of four typical welfare households in each province and territory:
- a single employable person
- a single person with a disability
- a lone parent with a 2-year-old child
- a two-parent family with two children aged 10 and 15
Click the link above, then move your cursor over each province or territory to view welfare incomes by household type for 2010 .
Click on a province or territory to see a chart of welfare incomes over time for that jurisdiction. This feature requires Macromedia Flash; if you don't have Flash or if you've disabled it, click the link below the map of Canada to access the same information in HTML.

Adequacy of Welfare Incomes
Compare welfare benefit levels for all jurisdictions and all household categories for all years from 1986 (1989 for a person with a disability) to 2010 using any one of five measures of adequacy: After-tax average income - After-tax LICO - After-tax median income - Before-tax LICO - Market basket measure (MBM).

Earlier editions of Welfare Incomes (annual)

Source:
National Council of Welfare
[ Conseil national du bien-être social ]
Since the Government Organization Act of 1969, the National Council of Welfare serves as advisory group to the federal Minister responsible for the welfare of Canadians - in 2010, that's the Hon. Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada - regarding "any matter relating to social development that the Minister may refer to the Council for its consideration or that the Council considers appropriate."

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National Post

Toronto welfare caseload stabilizing
December 14, 2009
By Rebecca Ryall
Toronto's welfare caseload is stabilizing as unemployment dips, but there are warnings the city's struggling economy isn't out of the woods yet.

Nellie's
"Nellie's is a non-profit women's organization (in Toronto) helping women and children in crisis locate safe affordable housing, support services and a bridge to a better future. We operate a 36 bed emergency shelter for women and children who are homeless and women and children leaving violence. The Community Support Program provides aftercare and follow-up support and service to women and children who have left the shelter and are now living in the community."
- excellent collection of online resources --- incl. links to : Women's Shelters (Toronto and surrounding area | Ontario | Canada) - Issues (Poverty | Housing/Homelessness | Violence against women | Health | First Nations women | Consumer/Survivor) - Projects | Feminist | Children | Immigrant women | Lesbians | Women and the law |Transgendered women
Research (Reports | Statistics) - Action (Useful e-mail addresses | Marches and vigils)

New York Times

The View From Inside a Depression
By Joe Nocera
October 16, 2009
- review of a new book dealing with the 1930s Depression, and a cautionary note about assuming that the worst of the current financial crisis in the U.S. is over...

No Excuse - The poverty blog
"No Excuse is a blog managed and mostly written by Hamilton Spectator poverty beat reporter, Bill Dunphy, and is part of the paper's larger Poverty Project. Look here daily for news items, events, resources, and a chance to engage in discussions with the paper, Dunphy and each other."

Related Link:
Hamilton Spectator

NOW Magazine (Toronto)

Anti-poverty flame-out
Movement will get burned if it doesn't start hooking up with other social causes
August 2, 2007
By Wayne Roberts
The broken promise seems long ago, but Campaign 2000 is on the case, calling two weeks ago for all parties in the October Ontario election to update the commitment they made in the 80s to end child poverty by the new millennium the last one, that is. The Campaign's proposal has merit, ethics and logic on its side. But something in the strategy feels stale-dated. It's easy to imagine the project will be stuck on the remainder self with other single-interest group campaigns that made headway during the 20th century but are sputtering and stalling today.

NOTE: In the July 15/07 issue of the Canadian Social Research Newsletter, you'll find links to two Toronto Star articles about the Campaign 2000 initiative calling for all three provincial political parties to commit to developing a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy: the first article offers contextual information about the initiative, and the second contains reactions of each of the provincial parties. In the same section of the July 15 newsletter, you'll find links to the July 2007 Campaign 2000 Poverty Reduction Strategy Discussion Paper, along with links to 50+ Toronto Star articles in their recent War on Poverty series.

ONESTEP
The Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects (ONESTEP) is a province-wide umbrella organization for organizations that sponsor community-based training projects. Our member agencies provide over 450 programs throughout Ontario to help people prepare for, return to and/or maintain employment. More than 100,000 people use our members' programs each year. Services include career and personal counselling; literacy, ESL and numeracy programs; lifeskills courses; job-finding clubs; labour market adjustment activities; computer courses; and job placement.

Ontarians with Disabilities Act Committee
"...a voluntary coalition of individuals and community organizations who have united to secure the passage in Ontario of a new law which would achieve a barrier-free society for persons with disabilities."
- Ontario Government's New ODA Bill 125 Index page - updated to September 30, 2002
- O.D.A. Major Documents in Chronological Order - links to almost a hundred documents related to the ODA...

Ontario Association of Food Banks
All activities of the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB) are guided by a clear vision : to help food banks relieve hunger in Ontario.

All OAFB reports: OAFB Research Studies OAFB releases a number of key research studies throughout the year, including their annual Ontario Hunger Report. OAFB Government Submissions OAFB provides the provincial government with thoughtful research and policy solutions on a regular basis related to issues important to food banks and those they serve across the province.

Selected reports:

A Gathering Storm: The Price of Food, Gasoline, and Energy,
and Changing Economic Conditions in Ontario, 2008 (PDF - 1.2MB, 24 pages)
We can end hunger. Think about it.
Source:
Ontario Association of Food Banks

Related links:

The OSAP diet and the student lifestyle
Just how well should students expect to live while in school?
By Jeff Rybak
March 8, 2010
Okay, I’ll be the one to say it. I have no problem at all with the “OSAP Diet” as exposed by the Toronto Star. Apparently students funding their studies entirely on government loans are expected to survive on $7.50/day for food. And my reaction, mainly, is a big “so what?”
(...)
Source:
Macleans OnCampus

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$7.50 a day is all you get on the student OSAP diet
By Louise Brown
March 7, 2009
Source:
Toronto Star
NOTE: Don't forget to click the "Comments" link at the top of the article to access 100+ reactions.
The most pathetic comments are the well-intentioned food shopping suggestions from frugal shoppers (Tsubouchi Tuna, anyone?).
The commenter who said "My family of 5 lives on about $4 per day for food" should be summarily dispatched to the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB) to help them re-draft their food cost reports. Case studies in a 2008 OAFB study (see the link below) show that the cost of healthy food purchased from the grocery store was almost $40 per week for a single person and, for a family of two adults and a 7-year-old child, $85 weekly. Maybe the commenter's "family of five" consisted of one adult and four cats. Curiously, though, the $40/wk. amount for a healthy diet for a single person would actually leave $12.50 in the OSAP student's pocket at the end of each week.

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In the Midst of the Storm:
The Impact of the Economic Downturn for Ontario's Food Banks (PDF - 2.9MB, 16 pages)
October 2009
(...) There can be no doubt that Ontario’s food banks are struggling to respond to the collateral damage caused by the global economic downturn. The challenge of hunger was already staggering before we were hit by the Great Recession: hundreds of thousands of our neighbours were turning to food banks. We are now faced with an even greater challenge: tens of thousands more Ontarians are turning to us for support, and many food banks are faced with a decline in donations.

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Recession budget needs to fight poverty : report
Press Release
March 12, 2009
Toronto - Recession could push Ontario’s poverty rate up by four per cent in 2010 if the provincial government does not make key investments in this month’s stimulus budget, says a report released by the Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB). Fighting Poverty: The Best Way to Beat the Recession proves that the provincial government must make strategic investments in social infrastructure, such as affordable housing and income supports, for the poorest Ontarians in order to stimulate the economy and contain poverty rates.

Complete report:

Fighting Poverty: The Best Way to Beat the Recession (PDF - 587K, 20 pages)
March 2009

Ontario Hunger Report 2008: The Leading Edge of the Storm (PDF - 2MB, 24 pages)
December 2008

The Cost of Poverty: An Analysis of
the Economic Cost of Poverty in Ontario (PDF - 1.3MB, 36 pages)
November 2008

Related link:

'Paycheque to paycheque,' five kids to feed
500,000 in Ontario facing poverty without budget help, report finds
March 12, 2009
By Laurie Monsebraaten
Toronto construction worker Mark Merner has been struggling to support his young family since his hours were slashed in half last fall. And he's worried it could get worse. "The construction industry is really slowing down and I've been told there might not be much work this summer," says the father of five children age 5 and younger, including a baby and a set of twins. The Merners are among about 500,000 Ontarians who will be driven into poverty by the recession unless this month's provincial budget boosts incomes and expands programs that support low-income families, says a report by the Ontario Association of Food Banks.
Source:
The Toronto Star

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The Cost of Poverty: An Analysis of
the Economic Cost of Poverty in Ontario (PDF - 1.3MB, 36 pages)
November 2008
By Nathan Laurie
Key Facts:
* Poverty disproportionately affects certain populations, and has a complex mix of institutional and individual causes.
* Poverty has a price tag for all Ontarians.
* The cost of poverty is reflected in remedial, intergenerational, and opportunity costs.
* Reducing poverty with targeted policies and investments over the life course generates an economic return. This return is equal to a proportion of the assessed cost of poverty.

Related link:

Everyone pays the province's $38 billion cost
Toll of health care, crime, social assistance $2,900 per household, economic analysis finds
November 20, 2008
By Laurie Monsebraaten
Poverty costs Ontario a staggering $38 billion a year – and we all pay the price, says a new report that offers the first-ever analysis of the problem's economic impact on everyone. Although the province's 905,000 poorest households bear the brunt of the cost, everyone feels the pinch, says the report written by a group of leading economic and public policy experts to be released at Queen's Park today.
Source:
Toronto Star

Ontario's Food Banks present plan to cut poverty in half by 2020
News Release
August 19, 2008
The Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB) released a new report today, entitled Our Choice for a Better Ontario, in response to a call for submissions from the provincial government's Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction. The report sets a goal of cutting poverty in half by 2020 through a renewed investment by the federal and provincial governments.

Complete report:

Our Choice for a Better Ontario:
A Plan to Cut Poverty in Half by 2020 (PDF - 1.4MB, 64 pages)
August 2008 (PDF file date)
"(...) Our challenge is great. Hunger and poverty disproportionately affects certain populations and places in Ontario. Ontario’s economy is also in a period of significant transition. Hundreds of thousands of Ontarians lack the basics of life, including food, shelter, and education. We believe that our universal goal must be to cut poverty in half by 2020, with a focus on reducing the deepest poverty. In order to meet this goal, we have established twelve supportive goals focusing on key sectors, people, and places. "
- goals cover the following areas:
* Housing * Education * Financial Inclusion * Employment & Enterprise * Energy * Health * Neighbourhoods and communities * New Canadians * Single parents * First Nations * Ontarians with Disabilities * Children

Related link:

We must spend to fight poverty: report
Low-fee credit unions for the poor and a plan to help low-income households pay for heat and hydro are among a broad series of initiatives needed to fight poverty in Ontario, say the province's food banks in a report released recently. Cutting poverty in half by 2020 would lift more than half a million Ontarians out of poverty and should be the McGuinty government's "commitment of a generation," says the report by the Ontario Association of Food Banks.
Source:
Sudbury Star
September 2, 2008

Food banks warn of `growing storm'
Government must act as prices rise, report says
June 26, 2008
By Laurie Monsebraaten
Ontario's weakening economy coupled with the rising cost of food, fuel and energy should be a "wake-up call" to action on poverty reduction in both Ottawa and at Queen's Park, say the province's food banks. The federal government must increase employment insurance benefits and expand eligibility for Ontarians, where currently just 27 per cent of unemployed workers qualify, says the report to be released today by the Ontario Association of Food Banks.

Complete report:

A Gathering Storm: The Price of Food, Gasoline, and Energy,
and Changing Economic Conditions in Ontario, 2008 (PDF - 1.2MB, 24 pages)

Source:
Ontario Association of Food Banks (OAFB)
We unite over 100 communities across Ontario in a network of food banks from Windsor to Ottawa and Thunder Bay to Niagara Falls to relieve hunger.

Ontario Association for Community Living (OACL)- includes a plethora of position papers and briefs to the Ontario government; this is a must-see site.

OACL Presentation to Minister of Community, Family and Children's Services (March 1998)
In this all-encompassing brief to Hon. Janet Ecker, OACL addresses reinvestment needs in areas such as aging families, individualized funding, the Special Services at Home program, the Ministry's restructuring efforts ("Making Services Work for People"), Individual Service Agreements (ISAs), Levels of Support (LOS), social assistance reform, deinstitutionalization, education. OACL also identified several immediate service delivery cost issues, such as escalating rates for workers compensation, pay equity shortfalls, etc.

Response to Bill 142 (Social Assistance Reform Act) - Submission by the Ontario Association for Community Living to the Standing Committee on Social Development

Ontario Association of Youth Employment Centres (OAYEC)
OAYEC is a non-profit, charitable organization providing supportive services to a network of 50+ youth employment counselling centres across Ontario.

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
OCAP is a direct-action anti-poverty organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We mount campaigns against regressive government policies as they affect poor and working people.

Short History of OCAP - by John Clarke (Nov 9, 2001)

Selected site content:

City Moves to Sell-Off Toronto Community Housing:
Ford will destroy public housing unless we stop him!
June 14, 2011
Source:
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
OCAP is a direct-action anti-poverty organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We mount campaigns against regressive government policies as they affect poor and working people.

Related link:

How the mayor can keep a roof over TCHC’s head
June 19, 2011
By Nick Falvo
Mayor Rob Ford recently backtracked on a crucial issue. First, he threatened to use revenue from the sale of public housing units to balance the city’s budget. Twenty-four hours later, he flip-flopped and agreed that the revenue should be used to fix Toronto’s existing social housing stock (as originally promised). Ford’s about-face speaks to the real-life nightmare that would ensue if important repairs were not made to existing public housing units. It also speaks to the power of advocates who are both glaringly aware of what those nightmares would look like, and are prepared to fight tooth and nail for social housing. (...) Rent in most parts of Canada — especially in large cities — is out of reach for a substantial portion of households. Today in Toronto, average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is more than $1,100 a month. Yet the maximum shelter allowance that a single adult with one child receives on social assistance is just $578 a month.
Source:
Toronto Star

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Austerity, Resistance and the Poor
April 1, 2011
By John Clarke
On April 1, the Dalton McGuinty government, will introduce a new version of the Special Diet benefit for those on Social Assistance. (...) The new system will be much more restrictive than the present one, with enhanced mechanisms of scrutiny and enforcement. All who presently receive the Special Diet will have to re-apply under the Austerity, Resistance and the Poor
April 1, 2011
By John Clarke
On April 1, the Dalton McGuinty government, will introduce a new version of the Special Diet benefit for those on Social Assistance. (...) The new system will be much more restrictive than the present one, with enhanced mechanisms of scrutiny and enforcement. All who presently receive the Special Diet will have to re-apply under the new set up. (...) At noon on April 1, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and its supporters will be rallying in Toronto City Hall Square and marching on the provincial government – Queen's Park. We will be confronting a social cutback of massive dimensions. Welfare and disability rates in Ontario have lost 55 per cent of their spending power since 1994.

Source:
E-Bulletin No. 484
[ The Bullet ]
Socialist Project

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Related link:

Activist Communique: OCAP defends the Special Diet
By Krystalline Kraus
April 3, 2011
The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) was joined by its allies at a Raise the Rates rally at Nathan Phillips Square on Friday at noon -- on the day that cuts to the Ontario Special Diet program were set to take effect. At issue was the recent cut and re-invention of the Special Diet supplement that was announced in Ontario Premier McGuinty's 2010 budget.
Source:
rabble.ca

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Driving the Poor Deeper Into Poverty:
The Province and the City of Toronto
Team up to Attack the Special Diet
March 19, 2010
By Liisa Schofield and John Clarke
Since 2005, a large part of OCAP's (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty) work has involved organizing to obtain and defend access to a benefit known as the Special Diet Allowance (SDA). Under this, people living on the Province's sub poverty social assistance system who obtain the appropriate diagnoses from a medical provider, can receive up to an additional $250 a month for food. Access to the Special Diet has had to be fought for tooth and nail. Medical providers interested in helping poor people access this benefit are few and far between. (...) As this is being written, the prospect that the Liberals will use their upcoming Budget to abolish the Special Diet outright is looming very large (see our submission to the pre-budget ‘consultations’ - Feb. 3, 2010).
[ Liisa Schofield and John Clarke are organizers with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. ]
Source:
E-Bulletin No. 329
[ The Bullet Socialist Project ]
The Socialist Project does not propose an easy politics for defeating capitalism or claim a ready alternative to take its place. We oppose capitalism out of necessity and support the resistance of others out of solidarity. This resistance creates spaces of hope, and an activist hope is the first step to discovering a new socialist politics.

Related link:

Raise the Rates: The Vital Struggle Against
Ontario's Sub-Poverty Welfare System
By John Clarke
August 22, 2008
A drastic reduction in the adequacy of income support payments is key to the neoliberal agenda. (...) The Toronto Relief Committee (TDRC), a working committee of union activists, social agency representatives and community organizers is planning for a September rally at the Ontario legislature. Demands will focus on social assistance rates, the minimum wage and housing.
Source:
The Socialist Project
John Clarke, author of the above article, is with OCAP.

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Ontario: 'Poverty Reduction'? Reforming without Reforms in a Neoliberal World
by John Clarke
June 30, 2008
"(...)Clearly, the present round of Ontario Government consultations on poverty can't be wished away. It is dominating the political landscape in Ontario at the moment. In OCAP, we deplore this fact but have to recognize it. At present, we can only present our point of view and realize that we are not able to transfer community energy from talking with Liberals to mobilizing against them. However, there is one obvious limitation to the government's consultation strategy. At a certain point, the talking has to stop and the results of the process must be revealed. At that time, the striking lack of progress on poverty reduction is going to hit people in the face."
Source:
Centre for Global Research
The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) is an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists. Based in Montreal, the CRG is a registered non profit organization in the province of Quebec.

[ more Canadian content from CRG ]

- Go to the Anti-poverty Strategies and Campaigns page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/antipoverty.htm

Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care was founded in 1981 with a mandate to advocate for the development of high quality, non-profit child care services in the province of Ontario. The organization includes representatives from: education, health care, labour, child-welfare, injury prevention, rural, First Nation, Francophone, social policy, anti poverty, professional, student and women’s organizations. In addition, we serve community based child care programs and 15 local coalitions across the province.

Child Care Still a Patchwork of Underfunded Programs
5 July 07
The Ontario government today accounted for how it is spending $142.5 million in previously announced child care funds. The allocations mean that existing child care programs will have the funding to keep current spaces open for Ontario children and families, but does not expand the child care system.

Child care community welcomes new funding - first of its kind for years!
News release
January 8, 2004
"Yesterday Minister Bountrogianni announced that this year's federal Multi-lateral Framework money - 9.7 million dollars - will go to non-profit, regulated, child care centres for capital repairs and upgrades. This is the first announcement of new funding for child care in Ontario for some time and is welcomed by the child care community. It meets an important need and is an encouraging sign that the new Liberal government recognizes the value of not-for-profit and regulated care.

Ontario Coalition for Social Justice
"The Ontario Coalition for Social Justice is a coalition of provincial and national groups promoting social and economic justice in Ontario.
The OCSJ is committed to:
- expanding the quality, accessibility and universality of health care, education and social welfare programmes
- promoting anti-racism
- advocating economic policies that protect the rights of workers and lead to fair employment with compensation at a liveable wage
- protecting the programmes and services that ensure our quality of life in Ontario."

- incl. links to : Media Releases - Campaigns - Resources - Newsletter & E-bulletin - Our Network - Become a Member - About Us

Economists Support Welfare:
Over 75 economists endorse raising the minimum wage and social assistance rates
Media Release
Posted May 14, 2004
Endorsement by Ontario economists and labour policy experts of improvements to Ontario's minimum wages and income security programs.

ODSP Action Coalition
The ODSP [Ontario Disability Support Program] Action Coalition is made up of community clinic caseworkers, agency staff, and community activists. We undertake campaigns and activities designed to raise awareness of issues affecting persons in receipt of Ontario Disability Support Program benefits. The ODSP Action Coalition was formed in 2002 as a coalition of lawyers, community workers and consumers. The coalition is leading the campaign to document and publicize problems with ODSP and has engaged in lobbying and advocacy to encourage solutions to those problems.
- incl. links to: * About Us * Campaigns * Resources * Coalition Activities * Help for Recipients * Links * Contact Us

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Selected site content:

A test of Ontario's appetite to fight for poverty reduction
By Mike Creek (25 in 5 Network for Poverty reduction),
Adrianna Tetley (Association of Ontario Health Centres),
ODSP Action Coalition
March 20, 2010
Ontario is about to face one of the biggest tests of its commitment to poverty reduction. Will it comply with an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruling that says it must end discrimination in its special diet allowance program, or will it target the program for cuts as part of its deficit reduction plan? At stake is not only Ontario's "25-in-5" poverty reduction target but also the very lives of the many Ontarians who have nowhere else to turn for support. The special diet program is a long-standing part of Ontario's social assistance system. It provides additional allowances for people with higher food costs due to prescribed medical dietary treatment.(...) In 2008, Ontario committed to a five-year poverty reduction strategy. All parties in the Legislature agreed to take public action to reduce poverty by 25 per cent by the year 2013 – the 25 in 5 target. We celebrated the turning of the corner on the poverty debate in Ontario. We would be the first to applaud the government's decision to maintain the special diet program and, in keeping with the tribunal's ruling, enhance allowances accordingly. Eliminating the program, however, could erase all the goodwill the government has built on poverty reduction.
Source:
Toronto Star

* 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction
* Association of Ontario Health Centres
* ODSP Action Coalition

Related link:

Letter from the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario (NPAO)
and the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) to the
Minister of Community and Social Services
March 18, 2010
"...the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario and Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario strongly urge you to withdraw the directive and respect the professional opinion of authorized health professionals, including nurse practitioners, in those cases where, in their clinical judgment, a social assistance recipient’s condition entitles them to the Special Diet Allowance.
Source:
Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario
Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario

---

"Stupid Rules" Create Dire Consequences
January 28, 2010
The Coalition had an opportunity to meet with members of the Social Assistance Review Advisory Council (SARAC) in late January, and to present them with a list of quick changes that could be made to some of the "stupid rules" in ODSP. This Council was recently appointed by the government to give advice on two things: some "quick fix" changes to counterproductive rules, and the mandate and scope of a more comprehensive social assistance review to be carried out later this year.

Related link:

A Proposal for ODSP Rule Changes (Word file - 127K, 16 pages)
The ODSP Action Coalition is made up of community clinic caseworkers, agency staff, and community activists. We undertake campaigns and activities designed to raise awareness of issues affecting persons in receipt of Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) benefits.

---

Endorse the Disability Declaration
October 6, 2009
The ODSP Action Coalition is requesting individuals and groups to endorse our Disability Declaration. The Declaration sets out some of the rights that people with disabilities have according to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and then states what changes the Ontario government needs to make to ODSP to fulfill those rights. Although Canada has not yet ratified the Convention, the Coalition believes it is important for people with disabilities and organizations that work with them to use it in articulating how and why their needs must be met.

Ontario Federation of Labour

A Blueprint for Economic Stimulus and Poverty Reduction in Ontario:
Blueprint could help cut child poverty by 19%
News Release
February 12, 2009
TORONTO – A report by the 25 in 5 Poverty Reduction Network shows how the Ontario government could get three-quarters of the way towards its goal to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent. A Blueprint for Economic Stimulus and Poverty Reduction in Ontario – the result of consultations in 30 Ontario communities – lays out a plan that could reduce the number of poor Ontarians by 197,420 (15 per cent) and reduce the number of poor children in Ontario by 62,000 (19 per cent) within the next three years.

Complete report:

A Blueprint for Economic Stimulus
and Poverty Reduction in Ontario (PDF - 157K, 28 pages)
February 2009

* 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction
* Ontario Federation of Labour (Sheila Block of the OFL wrote the report)

Related link:

Welfare 'stimulus' touted
February 12, 2009
By Laurie Monsebraaten
If Premier Dalton McGuinty wants to protect Ontario's faltering economy, he should give more money to people like René Adams so she can buy her daughters healthy food and pay for swimming lessons, poverty activists say. The Toronto single mother, who volunteers at a local food bank while she looks for full-time work, says every extra penny she receives goes back into the local economy. (...) In addition to cutting poverty, putting money into the hands of those who need it most is the best way to stimulate the economy at a time of global economic uncertainty, says a report by the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction. (...) The proposed economic stimulus and poverty reduction package calls on Ontario to spend $5 billion over the next two years to beef up welfare and other social supports and build new child-care spaces and social housing units.
Source:
The Toronto Star

Ontario Health Coalition - Campaign to Save Medicare

Ontario Health Coalition Report Paints Disturbing Picture of Ontario’s Privatized Long Term Care
Ontario Health Coalition
Media Release - May 27, 2002
Source : DAWN DisAbled Women's Network - Ontario

Ownership Matters: Lessons from Ontario's Long-Term Care Facilities
"On May 27, 2002 the Ontario Health Coalition released Ownership Matters: Lessons from Ontario's Long-Term Care Facilities. This is a report prepared for the Hospital Employees' Union of British Columbia by the OHC which examines the effect of the Ontario Tory government's privatization of Long Term Care on the quality of care and patients."
Complete report (25 printed pages)
Boomers beware* - this report contains some disturbing information for those of us who will be unfortunate enough to require care in a long term care facility in Ontario in our waning years. Here's a short list of the findings contained in the report :
"- Ontarians in long term care facilities receive extremely low levels of service compared to other jurisdictions.
- Ontarians in long term care facilities are among the oldest and the sickest but receive the least therapy, rehabilitation and nursing care.
- Basic accommodation costs in Ontario' s long term care facilities are among the highest in the country.
- Staff workloads, overtime and accident and injury rates are on the increase.
- Minimum standards and facility inspections have decreased in the last half decade.
- The "second tier" - percentage of beds held for residents who pay a surcharge - has increased while the percentage of beds held for those who can' t afford the premium rates has decreased.
- Connections between government and private owner/operators are unprecedented."
(*not just Ontario boomers either...)

[Gilles' comment:] My own mother had a stroke in the fall of 1995, leaving her paralysed on her left side and with some cognitive difficulties. I don't have any cognitive difficulties, however, and I've seen the steady erosion of the quality of care in the three long term care facilities where my mother has lived since then. Reduced levels of care, downsizing, lack of adequate training for new staff, morale problems, more residents suffering from depression, and, oh, yeah --- increasing demand. In April 1998, the Ontario government announced a $1 billion investment to create 20,000 new long-term care beds across the province. Read the report to find out why this turns out to be a building bonanza for the private sector.("The corporations that helped to bring the Conservatives to power were eager to capitalize on that desperation. It now seems they'll been given their chance - at the taxpayer's expense.")

Ontario Medical Association

Poverty makes Ontario sick
August 5, 2008
Economic inequality translates into limited access to health-care for province's poor
Source:
The Toronto Star

NOTE: The co-authors of this article, Dr. Michael Rachlis, Dr. Gary Bloch and Dr. Itamar Tamari,
were also involved in writing the following series of three articles in the May 2008 issue of the Ontario Medical Review:

Poverty and Health: article series
The Ontario Physicians Poverty Work Group has prepared a series of articles that provide physicians with an overview of the issues related to poverty and health, indicators and resources that can be used in practice, along with strategies to help mitigate the health effects of poverty in individual patients and communities.

* Part 1: Why poverty makes us sick (PDF - 157K, 6 pages)

* Part 2: Identifying poverty in your practice and community (PDF - 143K, 5 pages)

* Part 3: Strategies for physicians to mitigate the health effects of poverty (PDF - 2MB, 5 pages)

Source:
Ontario Medical Review • May 2008 issue
[ Ontario Medical Association ]

Related link:

Doctors Point to Poverty as Major Cause of Illness
New report shows how poverty impacts health and what doctors can do to
help address this growing health-care crisis
TORONTO, July 29 /CNW/ - A new report by a group of Ontario doctors highlights the ways in which poverty affects the health outcomes of adults and children and the role health-care professionals can play in reducing the impact of poverty on people's health. The report, "Why poverty makes us sick," authored by The Ontario Physicians Poverty Work Group, reveals that poverty substantially raises the rate of chronic illness, infant mortality and lowers life expectancy.
Source:
CNW Group (formerly Canada Newswire)

Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSSA)
OMSSA is a non-profit municipal social services association formed in 1950 to collect and share information on social services and to provide professional development and consulting services.

Selected site content:

60 Years of Income Security & Work: What the ‘Big Picture’ & ‘Long Files’ Reveal (PDF - 909K, 31 pages) * By John Stapleton for the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association June 8, 2010 Contents: • The Big Picture: income programs and jobs • The long file and the ‘great megatrend’ • The last three big recessions • Profound Caseload change • Assets over time • Social assistance and Minimum wages • The Welfare diet • Some tentative conclusions *NOTE : The link above takes you to a 31-page Powerpoint presentation in a PDF file that I found quite accidentally while doing a Google search. We all know how cryptic a Powerpoint presentation can be for anyone who wasn't there to hear the presenter expanding on his or her speaking points... BUT: The presentation also contains 19 charts, mostly for Ontario only, including some contextual and historical information that you won't find anywhere else, e.g.: * Income security expenditures by program, Ontario (2008-09) * Income security expenditures by target recipient, Ontario (2008-09) * Income security expenditures by level of government and source, Ontario (2008-09) * Monthly social assistance benefits (single person + single parent with one child), Ontario - 1935 to 2010

Ontario Non-profit Housing Association (ONPHA)
ONPHA is an association of non-profit housing organizations which provide high quality affordable housing for low and moderate income people in communities across Ontario. Our membership includes 694 private and municipal non-profit housing providers.
Great resource for non-profit housing associations! Membership (limited to non-profit housing groups) gives access to a large body of information, but there's lots here for non-members too. Here's just a sample of what you'll find on this site: ONPHA's Services - Management Tools - Publications - Non Profit Housing - Tenant Access Info - Public Affairs - Government Relations - Tenant Protection Act - Program Issues - Municipalities - Media Releases - Connections - Links (large collection of Canadian and international housing links)

Where's Home 2006:
A Picture of Housing Needs in Ontario (PDF file - 262K, 45 pages)
March 2007
This latest in a series of reports co-produced by ONPHA and the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, Ontario Council finds that there aren't enough apartments available in Ontario, and those that are available are unaffordable for the average worker

Fact Sheet (PDF file - 17K, 1 page)
Undated (PDF file is dated March 14/07)

Earlier reports in this series - back to 1999

Sources:

Cooperative Housing Federation of Canada
The Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada (CHF Canada) is the organized voice of the Canadian co-operative housing movement. We exist to unite, represent and serve the community of housing co-operatives across Canada and member organizations that support their operation and development.

Related links:

The Wellesley Institute
The Wellesley Institute advances the social determinants of health through rigorous community-based research, reciprocal capacity building, and the informing of public policy.

The Wellesley Institute Blog

Affordable Housing - from the Ontario Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs

For more info on the 2007 Ontario Budget, go to the Canadian Social Research Links Ontario - Government Links page

From the
Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA):

ONPHA Comments on Housing Strategy
Strategy recognizes importance of community-based housing for Ontario’s future (PDF - 111K, 2 pages)
Hamilton, ON
November 29, 2010
The Province released it's [sic] highly anticipated Long-Term Affordable Housing Strategy today accompanied by housing and community sector stakeholders, including the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA).

Source:
Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA)
For over 20 years, ONPHA has been the voice of non-profit housing in Ontario. ONPHA unites over 760 non-profit organizations providing housing in 220 communities across Ontario. Our members include municipal and private non-profits of all sizes, with all types of funding. ONPHA is the recognized voice of Ontario's non-profit housing at the municipal, provincial and federal levels

Ontario Project for Inter-Clinic Community Organizing - OPICCO
"The Ontario Project for Inter-Clinic Community Organizing - OPICCO - grew out of the Toronto community legal clinic training session in April 2002, the theme of which was 'Community Development for Changing Times'. A number of Toronto clinic workers indicated an interest in meeting on an ongoing basis to continue the exciting dialogue begun at the conference.
The purpose of the site is to provide community organizations & community legal clinics in Ontario with tools for organizing.
This website is an outcome of the collective desire to continue the networking online and thus expand collaboration and resource-sharing throughout the province of Ontario and beyond..."

Related Link:

Legal Aid Ontario

Ontario Public Service Employees Union

What will you do when I'm gone?
Wasteful bidding process drives health professionals out of home care
Nurses, therapists, and other health professionals are leaving home care at a time when they are needed more than ever. The Minister of Health says that the process which has destabilized the home care workforce is returning. Competitive bidding puts the patients of home care health professionals up for auction.

* Read more about the issue.

* Watch the video.

* Tell us your story. (Family members and patients, health professionals and support staff)

Ontario Tenants Rights
- incl. links to : Ontario Tenants homepage | Residential Tenancies Act | Finding an apartment | Ontario Landlord and Tenant Q&A | Housing and poverty reports | Other housing links | Tenant rights and social justice | Renters muncipal issues | Rent Control | Apartment safety & security | Tenant health: Toxic mold, cockroaches | Consumer Information | Tenant association organizing | Utility costs: Ontario hydro, natural gas | Ontario MPP list | more...
- also includes resources organized by municipality for the largest three dozen municipalities in the province (under "Community Information" in the right-hand margin of the home page.)

Ontario Tenants
Most Asked Questions And Answers

Ontario Women's Justice Network
The goal of Ontario Women's Justice Network (OWJN) is to promote an understanding of the law with respect to violence against women. OWJN provides accessible legal information to women and their supporters in a manner that reflects the experiences and realities of women. We review and analyse written law (legislation) and case law (court decisions).

OPIRG.ORG - Ontario Public Interest Research Groups
- includes links to PIRGs at the following Ontario universities : Brock - Carleton - Guelph - Kingston - McMaster - Ottawa - Peterborough - Toronto - Waterloo - Windsor - York

Open Policy
John Stapleton's personal website.
John is a Policy Fellow with the Metcalf Foundation and St. Christopher House in Toronto.

Selected site content
from Open Policy:

Open Policy Course in Public Policy for Advocates and Activists
- Twenty-five sessions + reading list + links for further study
Source:
Open Policy Ontario John Stapleton's website

--------------------

Loophole blunts injustice
March 29, 2011
By Carol Goar
No one was gladder than John Stapleton to see Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s latest budget go down in flames. The Toronto social activist — along with a bevy of savvy corporate investors — was taking advantage of one of the tax loopholes Flaherty proposed to close. And therein lies a story of ingenuity, compassion and the kind of justice they don’t teach in law schools.
Source:
Toronto Star

--------------------

December 1, 2010
Commentary on October 2010
Ontario social assistance statistics
by John Stapleton of Open Policy:

Well, now I'm waiting for someone to note a precipitous drop in social assistance in Ontario from September to October 2010, and perhaps cautiously see it as a harbinger of better times.

Time to think again, however.

The drop in lone parents is due to women leaving Ontario Works (OW) to go back to school and OSAP ( Ontario Student Assistance Program) where they will stay until May next year. This caused the overall beneficiary count to go down by about 4,000 month over month . Now look closer at the previous three years on the charts and you'll see a tendency to dip in most cases and categories in this period when outside brawn-based seasonal jobs related to packing away the summer come to the fore.

Leaf raking and cottage close-up are not full time jobs.

The bad news is that the usual seasonal upswing starts in October and ends in March. That is not to say that we should be unimpressed by a 2,000 drop in singles and modest reductions in couples receiving OW. It is good to see.

This is a tricky balance-sheet recession, but barring something unforseen, we should see a post recession top in caseloads in March 2011 and a long slow recovery from that top which will see caseloads at about 6.6 to 6.9% of Ontario's population - very modest indeed for the most momentous recession since the Great Depression and a far cry from the 13.9% of population reached in March 1994.

Source:
John Stapleton
Open Policy (personal website)

----------------------

Related links:

October 2010 Monthly Statistical Report:
Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program
(Ontario's two welfare programs)

Ontario Works (OW) Statistical Report
[This link takes you to the latest version of the OW statistics : October 2010.]
Ontario Works provides employment and financial assistance to people who are in temporary financial need. The employment assistance helps people become and stay employed and includes job search support services, basic education and job skills training, community and employment placement, supports to self-employment, Learning, Earning and Parenting, addiction services and earning exemptions that allow participants to earn income as they move back into the workforce. Temporary Care Assistance provides support for children in financial need while in the temporary care of an adult who does not have a legal obligation to support the child. In October 2010, there were 4,335 TCA cases receiving social assistance on behalf of 5,986 children.

Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) Statistical Report
[This link takes you to the latest version of the ODSP statistics : October 2010.]
The Ontario Disability Support Program was designed to meet the income and employment support needs of people with disabilities. The program provides income support and health-related benefits to people with disabilities who are in need of financial assistance. The employment supports component of the program offers a range of goods and services to help people with disabilities to look for, obtain or maintain jobs on a volunteer basis. Assistance for Children with Severe Disabilities provides a benefit for parents caring for children with severe disabilities at home. In October 2010, there were 24,498 ACSD cases receiving this benefit on behalf of 28,564 children.

Source:
Ministry of Community and Social Services

----------------------

The Recession's Repeat Performance
Ontario's shaky economy is looking a lot like it did in 1994.
The difference? Back then, we had a much better social safety net.
September 29, 2010
By John Stapleton
With poverty rising and political control shifting, the economic instability of 2010 is reminiscent of the recession of 1994. Back then, though, we had a secure safety net of social services to cushion the landing.
(...)
There’s no sign Canada is close to pulling out of an alarming economic nosedive that began last fall, resulting in the worst quarterly contraction in nearly two decades. (...)
Does this mean it’s time to prepare for another big hit on social services, like the 21.6 per cent cut to social assistance in 1995? Perhaps, but it’s important that we all realize that some things have changed this time round. The first thing that’s different is the incentive for low income people to work. During the last recession, welfare rates were 70 per cent of minimum wage – now they stand at 35 per cent. During the last recession, there were 200,000 single mothers receiving social assistance when our national population was 11 million. Now there are 80,000 single mothers on assistance and our population is 13.5 million. In 1994, almost 14 per cent of Ontario’s population received social assistance. In 2010, after the largest recession since the Great Depression, this percentage stands at 6.5 per cent of population – only slightly above the post-war average. If welfare rates had been indexed like Old Age Security and CPP, the single social assistance rate would now stand at $904 a month. But the maximum amount paid is now $585 a month. It would take a 54 per cent increase in rates to get them to where they were in real terms in 1994. In 1994, there was no workfare or community participation for people receiving public assistance. In 2010, it is the rule. The poorest of the poor felt the effects of the last recession but – unlike the rest of us – never recovered, as social programs got tighter and benefits decreased.
Source:
The Mark

---

Sixty and Single in Ontario
The province's government income security system discriminates
against those in the 60-64 age bracket who are not married or widowed.
September 3, 2010
By John Stapleton
(...) The reality is that if you have no other form of income, have no disabilities, are in need, and are looking for work, you will qualify for an Ontario Works welfare cheque of up to $585 a month. With GST, HST, and Ontario tax credits, the total for the year comes to $7,878, around 60 per cent below any recognized poverty line. But was it always like this? Did we always expect 60-year-olds to get along on this little money? The answer is a resounding no. It used to be much higher. (...) [Today] the 60-year-old single or divorced person who can't get work is left in destitution, waiting for their 65th birthday [i.e., when federal Old Age Security kicks in]. This is one really strange way to run a government income security system.
[ HISTORIAN ALERT: This article contains some very interesting historical insights back to 1975 re. federal and provincial benefits for the elderly and the near-elderly living on low incomes in Ontario (and in Canada, to a lesser extent). ]

Source:
The Mark - The people and ideas behind the headlines
The Mark is a national movement to record Canadian ideas and propel the people behind them. It is a collection of thoughts and a tool for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and debate between outstanding Canadians.

Related links:

Take Our Seniors Off welfare Campaign (Word file - 70K, 16 pages)
Fall 2005
By Naomi Berlyne
- campaign initiated in January 2005 by Naomi Berlyne, Seniors Housing Support worker at Central Neighbourhood House in Toronto, and Helle Hulgaard, Community Legal Worker at West Toronto Community Legal Services.
- includes case files prepared from interviews with clients and a January 2005 Toronto Star article by Carole Goar on life as a senior on welfare in Ontario
Central Neighbourhood House

---------------------

Barely Surviving: The Predicament of Toronto’s Poor Single Adults (PDF - 105K, 3 pages)
By John Stapleton, Principal, Open Policy Ontario
PDF file dated July 9, 2010
(...) Most Torontonians are not aware that it would take a 55% increase in benefits to Ontario Works (welfare) to bring them in line with the value of benefits in 1993. Similarly, single disability benefits (ODSP) would have to be raised almost $250 a month to bring them in line with the value of benefits paid in the mid-1970's. (...)
In fact, over 50,000 single adults in our city (7,000 higher than last year) are having a very difficult time meeting their most basic needs while receiving welfare benefits. (...) Job one is to make sure that all single persons are adequately housed, are able to eat nutritiously, and able to access transit, clothing and personal care. To a government and public that remains suspicious of large welfare increases, a housing benefit payable through the tax system offers a promising alternative.
Source:
Discussion papers <=== links to 10 more papers from Toronto Debates 2010
"To learn more about the issues facing our city, read these papers by Torontonians who know about the challenges and are clear about our options in the years ahead."
NOTE: John Stapleton's paper is one of five under "Debate 1: Prosperity and the Economy" (the other authors in this debate are Joe Berridge, Jim Stanford, Tony Coombes and Richard Florida). The other two debates are "Finance, Transportation, and Managing the City" and "Sustainability, the Environment, and Community" - the second of which includes a link to:
Put Food at the Top of the Municipal Election (PDF - 122K, 4 pages)
By Debbie Field, Executive Director, Food Share Ontario

Source:
Toronto Debates 2010 --- "a forum for strong and intelligent debate among the leading mayoral candidates in the October municipal election"

Related links:
VoteToronto2010
Toronto Board of Trade
Open Policy - John Stapleton's website
Food Share Ontario

---------------------

Economic Recovery:
Commentary by Paul Hellyer, John Stapleton
June 2010

Print more money?

Look to Canadian precedent to revive economy
By Paul Hellyer
June 23, 2010
(...) In 1938, there were no new jobs available in Canada — none. Then war broke out in 1939. Pretty soon everyone was working. Some people joined the armed forces, others built factories or made munitions. The question is, where did they get the money necessary to do all this? The Bank of Canada printed it. (...) [T]he money-creation function was shared between the Government of Canada, through the Bank of Canada, and the private banks. This was the system that got us out of the Great Depression, helped finance World War II, helped finance postwar infrastructure such as the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Trans-Canada Highway and assisted in laying the foundation for our social security network. It was the system that gave us the best 25 years of the 20th century!
Source:
The Toronto Star
[ Author Paul Hellyer was Minister of Defence in the Trudeau government in the 1970s. ]
[ See Paul Hellyer - from Wikipedia ]

------------------------

Spend or save?

The Battle Between Paradigms
With economic recovery, a new stimulus-based mentality has arrived to challenge the old laissez-faire way of thinking. Which will win?
By John Stapleton
June 16, 2010
For about 30 years (since U.S. President Ronald Reagan), much of the western world lived under the spell of the prevailing “less government, lower taxes, markets rule” paradigm. But a year or more of economic recovery has allowed a new alpha paradigm to muscle its way onto the scene. The “stimulus/growth/spend lots/no limits” paradigm has successfully duelled the global “less-is-more-everything-costs-billions” paradigm, bringing it to a standstill. This centre stage “smackdown” – where neither wins the decision in the hearts and minds of Canadians – is our defining battle.
Source:
The Mark
"The people and ideas behind the headlines"

-------------------------

Canada's Fiscal Future:
What to make of former Bank of Canada
governor David Dodge's predictions on Canada's economy?
By John Stapleton
June 11, 2010
(...) In a recent piece called Canada’s Fiscal Edge to Fade Without Tough Action (see the link below), former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge set out his predictions respecting the economic troubles that Canada faces in the next decade unless the country can get its fiscal house in order. Dodge does not believe that spending cuts alone will be sufficient to stem the tide of red ink despite recent GDP growth, and he calls for more consumption taxes in order to balance the books in the future. Yet in his assessment of the spending cuts that will be required, he notes that "cuts would need to be both continuing and more radical than those of the mid-1990s."
Source:
The Mark
The Mark is a national movement to record Canadian ideas and propel the people behind them. It is a collection of thoughts and a tool for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and debate between outstanding Canadians.

Open Policy - John Stapleton's website

The commentary
by David Dodge:

Canada’s Fiscal Edge to Fade Without Tough Action: David Dodge
Commentary by David Dodge
May 25, 2010
The problems facing Greece, Spain and Ireland may lead investors to think Canada is free from fiscal worries. They should think again when looking ahead for the next few years. Canada’s relatively sound position by international standards masks a structural deficit that is poised to resume growth later this decade unless governments find more permanent solutions to cutting expenses than in their latest budgets, and introduce new measures to durably boost revenue.
(...)
Can Canadian governments balance their budgets by mid- decade with program spending cuts alone? It would mean a significant reduction in services or income-support programs, even if there were unprecedented productivity gains in public services. Specifically, it would require significant cuts in public-pension payments, employment-insurance benefits and welfare payments, health and long-term care coverage as well as increased co-payments. The quality of education, and investment in roads and public transit also would decline. [bolding added]
[Author David Dodge David Dodge is former Deputy Minister of the federal departments of Finance* and Health, and the former governor of the Bank of Canada.]
(*...thus proving that you can take David Dodge out of Finance but you can't take Finance out of David Dodge. Gilles)
Source:
Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a New York-based company employing more than 10,000 people in over 135 offices around the world. Bloomberg is about information: accessing it, reporting it, analyzing it and distributing it, faster and more accurately than any other organization.

-----------------------------------

Cutting Through the Fog:
Why is it so hard to make sense of poverty measures? (PDF - 186K, 22 pages)
Richard Shillington and John Stapleton
May 2010
(...) This paper is intended to open up some room for thoughtful discussion about poverty issues among interested Canadians. The goal is not to tell anyone what to think, but to encourage all of us to question.
(...) Data can be presented in many different ways, depending on the goals of the person or group providing the data. It is important to question what is being measured, how it is measured, and when it was measured.
(...) Being critical of the statistics used as “evidence” for a point of view involves finding out what assumptions underlie the numbers.
For example, you might hear that:
• the percentage of Canadians living in poverty is around 15%...or only 5%, or
• Canada’s Employment Insurance (EI) program covers approximately 85% of the unemployed…or only 45%.
(...) The gap between these statistics is so large because they measure different things.

Source:
Metcalf Foundation

-----------------------------------

Payday lender’s stock has soared despite regulations
Cash Store executive says he welcomed regulations
May 8, 2010
By James Daw
A funny thing happened on the way to regulating payday lenders in the midst of a recession. Owners of the only public company based in Canada that specializes in high-cost, short-term loans have seen their shares triple in price. (...) John Stapleton, a consultant and expert in social assistance policy, says some consumers will pay dearly to cash a cheque or get a payday loan rather than risk having a deposit seized by a lender. “You can’t (easily) find out if you have a lien against you that could result in money being seized from an account,” he said Friday. Welfare recipients he has interviewed are refused a bank account for lack of official identification. So they pay high fees to a cash their meagre monthly cheques from Ontario Works.
Source:
Toronto Star

-----------------------------------

The Perfect Calm
We may not be out of the economic storm yet.
By John Stapleton
Social Policy Consultant.
April 29, 2010
(...)
Living in the “perfect calm,” what others call the “eye of the storm,” is disarmingly placid. Interest rates have almost reached zero, an historically low standard. If you can borrow, money costs next to nothing. The financial system is awash in credit, which it is using to back both good bets and bad. We are awash in liquidity.
(...) Let's remember that after the two big recessions of the 1980s and 1990s, interest rates were high and governments could predict recovery because all they had to do was lower the rates and the skies cleared. This time around things are very different as monetary and fiscal policy can only get tighter while governments will be tapped out. This recession isn't over, it's just taking a breather.
Source:
The Mark - News and perspectives daily

-----------------------------------

Imagine a World Without Taxes
If all taxes are bad, surely getting rid of them would make the country a much better place.
April 14, 2010
(...) there already are a few countries where people pay very few taxes and government is very small. Haiti, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Afghanistan lead that list. They have it figured out. What are we waiting for? Our leaders have seen the light. What's wrong with the rest of us?

-----------------------------------

Employment Insurance Spells Post-Recession Welfare
If increased welfare [dependency] rates after the crisis don’t surprise you, who’s on that welfare might.
By John Stapleton
April 14, 2010
With every recession in the past, welfare caseloads peaked after the immediate crisis was over. The recession of the early 1980s hit Canada hardest in 1981, but the number of welfare recipients in Ontario topped out in March 1983. The Canadian economy suffered another blow in 1991 and 1992, but the number of Ontarians on welfare was at its highest in March 1994 as the long recovery was beginning. The reason for this lag effect can be spelled out very simply: Employment Insurance or EI.
(...)
With the implementation of a $10.25 an hour minimum wage in Ontario on March 31, a 37.5-hour work week for a person earning minimum wage will result in gross income of $20,000 a year, while the single welfare rate pays just over $7,000 a year in maximum benefits. This means single people who choose or are forced to choose welfare are settling for an income that’s just over one third what they would make with steady work.

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Back to Scratch
March 31, 2010
With the recent increase in Ontario's minimum wage, the gap between the minimum wage and the welfare rate is as wide as it was during the Depression....

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The Recession Continues
February 24, 2010
Economists measure economic recovery using statistics that ignore the reality faced by the majority of the population....
Source:
The Mark
The Mark is a national movement to record Canadian ideas and propel the people behind them. It is a collection of thoughts and a tool for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and debate between outstanding Canadians.

-----------------------------------

Down but Not Out: Reforming Social Assistance Rules
that Punish the Poor for Saving (PDF - 173K, 6 pages)
By John Stapleton
Toronto, March 2 – Reform is required for social program rules that prevent the poor from saving in Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) and Tax Free Savings Accounts (TFSAs), according to a study released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Down but Not Out: Reforming Social Assistance Rules that Punish the Poor for Saving,” author John Stapleton says that encouraging asset accumulation, even in small amounts, is crucial in helping to lift people out of poverty. Yet most Canadian welfare, disability and social service programs deny or cancel benefits if applicants or recipients place a modest level of savings in an RRSP or TFSA. Barring a province-led effort at reform, says Stapleton, the federal government should take the lead by calling on provinces and territories to exempt meaningful RRSP and TFSA amounts from their welfare asset rules, leaving individual jurisdictions to decide the appropriate levels

NOTE: this paper includes a table entitled
"Treatment of Registered Instruments in Provincial Social Assistance Programs in Canada, 2010"
Recommended reading!!
March 2010
For each Canadian province and territory, you'll find information about how the welfare system treats income from Registered Instruments (including Registered Retirement Savings Plans, Registered Education Savings Plans, Registered Disability Savings Plans and Tax Free Savings Accounts). The table also includes current liquid asset exemption levels for selected family types and sizes in each jurisdiction.
Source:
C.D. Howe Institute

--------------------------------------

The Recession Continues
Economists measure economic recovery using statistics
that ignore the reality faced by the majority of the population.
February 24, 2010
By John Stapleton
"... for everyone who is not an economist (or a journalist who reports the findings of economists), a recessionary period is generally defined as “bad times,” meaning lower living standards, unemployment, lower spending, and lack of opportunity. And as the present recession proves, the economy can grow while the lives of the great majority of people who inhabit the economy do not improve at all."
Source:
The Mark
The Mark is founded on the idea that thousands of credible Canadians have important things to say but cannot reach a national audience. (...) The Mark will be their platform. At its core The Mark is a national movement to record Canadian ideas and propel the people behind them. It is a collection of thoughts and a tool for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and debate between outstanding Canadians.

--------------------------------------

File a tax return, raise your income
February 20, 2010
A single mother earning $15,000 a year could get about $8,000 extra income from tax, child and other benefits. She would then have about $23,100 to spend. Single mothers earning much more could also qualify to raise their income. (...) John Stapleton, a consultant who works with the Metcalf Foundation and a volunteer tax preparer, recalls a study conducted before he retired from the Ontario government. One hundred welfare recipients who were not collecting child benefits included 95 who had never applied for those benefits, or had not completed a tax return. Only five were not eligible for benefit. (...) There are many reasons for missing out on benefits: Lack of awareness, lack of reading or mathematical skills, bad experiences in other countries, fear of abusive spouses who demand the benefits. (...) Most Canadians are proud we have social benefits for low-income earners, young parents and the elderly. If you have good reading skills and know someone who could be missing out, you could do some homework.Consider visiting the websites of the Canada Revenue Agency, Service Canada, Ontario Ministry of Revenue and Service Ontario.
Source:
The Toronto Star

--------------------------------------

Welfare historians and number-crunchers, Rejoice!

Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) Caseload Change
- April 2007 to July 2009 (PDF - 159K, 1 page)
This graph shows the steady increase in ODSP cases since the recession began
Source: Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services

---

Ontario Works (OW) Caseload Change
- April 2007 to July 2009 (PDF - 159K, 1 page)
This graph shows the steady increase in OW cases since the recession began
Source: Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services

---

OW & ODSP Combined Caseload Change
- June 2007 to July 2009 (Excel file - 52K)
This excel worksheet shows the steady increase in ODSP and OW cases since January 2008
Source: Open Policy (John Stapleton)

---

Selected Welfare Rates, 1935 to date (PDF - 64K, 1 page)
This graph shows the monthly change in income of a single person and a single mother with one child on social assistance in Ontario from 1935 to 2009
Source: Open Policy (John Stapleton)

---

Ontario Social Assistance rates
and Minimum Wage for a Single Person, 1967 to 2010 (Excel file - 26K)
This excel worksheet shows a comparison of incomes between a single person working at minimum wage and a single person on social assistance since 1967
Source: Open Policy (John Stapleton)
NOTE: If you're having a problem accessing this file, try this:
1. Go to the Recession Relief Coalition website's Indicators page
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page; this Excel file is the fifth link from the bottom of the page (on May 21, 2010)

The source of these files is the Recession Relief Coalition website.

---

Time for a “Made in Ontario”
Working Income Tax Benefit
Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity and Open Policy Ontario
call for improvements to Working Income Tax Benefit design in Ontario to help low-income earners escape welfare.
September 2, 2009
Press Release
Toronto – The government of Ontario should accept the invitation from the federal government to modify the design of its Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB). WITB benefits should be re-oriented to support low-income earners when they work more, thereby easing their move from social assistance onto full-time employment when welfare benefits are lost.

Complete report:

Time for a “Made in Ontario”
Working Income Tax Benefit (PDF - 897K, 28 pages)
September 2009
Open Policy Ontario
John Stapleton, Principal
"Low-income Ontarians who are attempting to break out of poverty to achieve financial sustainability often find barriers in their way. In fact, many who try to break away from welfare and find employment face strong disincentives to work. They continue to struggle with insufficient work, low wages, and little-to-no wage progression. (...) This report is not about addressing the full range of welfare reform; rather, it seeks to merge the WITB and Ontario’s welfare system and thus provide greater incentives for low-income Ontarians to achieve full-time employment by reducing the barriers created by the welfare wall. (...)

Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity
The Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity is an independent, not-for-profit organization that deepens public understanding of macro and microeconomic factors behind Ontario’s economic progress. We are funded by the Government of Ontario and are mandated to share our research findings directly with the public. The Institute serves as the research arm of the Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress. The mandate of the Task Force, announced in the April 2001 Speech from the Throne, is to measure and monitor Ontario’s competitiveness, productivity, and economic progress compared to other provinces and US states and to report to the public on a regular basis.

---

Designing new architecture for Ontario social assistance
Forget trying to reform the current system and build a new one that is both simpler and fairer
June 2, 2009
By John Stapleton
When Ontario's long-promised review of welfare begins this spring, the provincial government faces a stark choice. Does it spend years trying to unravel a set of 800 social assistance rules that make up the current outdated system? Or will this government take the bolder road and build an entirely new and improved income security system? (...) The social assistance system in Ontario was rebuilt during the 1990s with the introduction of the Ontario Works Act and the Ontario Disability Support Program Act. The purpose was to provide a basic welfare program in Ontario Works whose success was predicated on the principle that only the neediest of the needy would receive assistance. Success was defined in terms of leaving the program. Reliance on the program was considered dependency. That system does not work. It needs replacing.
Source:
The Toronto Star
John Stapleton is a Metcalf Innovations Fellow, and Community Undertaking Social Policy Fellow at St. Christopher House in Toronto.
This article is based on his report on Ontario's new income architecture, The 'Ball' or the 'Bridge': The stark choice for social assistance reform in Ontario (see below).
[ Open Policy - John Stapleton's personal website ]

Complete report:

The ‘Ball’ or the ‘Bridge’:
the stark choice for social assistance reform in Ontario (PDF - 243K, 5 pages)
May 2009
By John Stapleton
"(...) If Ontario chooses to keep the ‘ball’ (the 800 rules that guide welfare in Ontario) stuck together and loosen eligibility rules (as it has historically done during recessions), caseloads will climb and peak approximately three years following the end of the recession at tremendous cost to the province while thwarting human potential in a significant portion of Ontario’s adult population. The choice is stark for social assistance reform in Ontario. We either can risk more than doubling Ontario’s social assistance population as we did in the early 1990s or we can build the new bridge. The choice is ours to make."

Source:
Ontario Alternative Budget
[ Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ]

Depression-era hardship could await Ontarians
Press Release
February 12, 2009
TORONTO – Without government action, the lack of adequate income security programs could plunge Ontarians suffering the worst of the current recession into dire straits, says a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).Silence of the Lines: Poverty Reduction Strategies and the Crash of 2008 shows how the economic downturn is already worse than the Great Depression but predicts different results for Ontarians who end up down on their luck.
Source:
Ontario Alternative Budget
[ Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives ]

Complete report:

The Silence of the Lines:
Poverty reduction strategies and the crash of 2008 (PDF - 135K, 5 pages)
February 2009
By John Stapleton
"(...) people who once could successfully apply for welfare during a rough patch (along with all the people turned away from EI) are going to be turned away at the welfare office. The reason for this is that since the last major recession, governments have brought in four significant sets of changes:
• Lower social assistance rates;
• Much lower assets limits;
• Earning exemptions policies that do not apply to new applicants; and
• ‘Workfare’ — now called ‘community participation’.
The confluence of these four sets of changes has not been tested in a recession but when the ‘new poor’ make a welfare application, they will be turned down to live off lower paid jobs or their dwindling savings. When they re-apply later on, they will be told that ‘any job is a good job’ and will be pointed in the direction of the relatively plentiful low paid jobs that will be available.

Dorothea Crittenden: Canada's first woman deputy minister
reformed welfare and social assistance
December 24, 2008
Obituary
By Gay Abbate
"(...) Dorothea Crittenden was a trailblazer who devoted her life to helping build Ontario's welfare system. She was also a key player in the creation of the Canada Assistance Plan, a federal-provincial cost-sharing plan that guarantees all Canadians equal access to social assistance."

As a rule, I don't include links to obituaries on my site or in my newsletter. In this case, however, I've made an exception based on the valuable historical insights that I've found in the obituary, and moreso in the paper below by John Stapleton, and that I wanted to share with Canadian social historians --- more pieces of the puzzle, as it were...
[...and no, I won't link to your Aunt Bertha's obituary. Don't even ask.]

The above obituary by Gay Abbate appeared in The Globe and Mail on December 23, and it's based in part on information provided by Dr. Crittenden in the course of interviews with John Stapleton in 1991.
The content of those interviews appears in the paper below, which provides valuable historical information about Canadian social policy from the Depression to the mid-1970's when she was Ontario's Deputy Minister of Community and Social Services. Of particular interest to Canadian social historians, I'm sure, will be sections like * What Ontario gave up for CAP * Project 500 in the 1970s * the cap on CAP (I should note that the cap on CAP was in the early 1990s and not the 1980s, as noted in the above obituary. John's paper has the correct info on that.)

Coming of Age in a Man’s World:
The Life, Times and Wisdom of Dorothea Crittenden,
Canada’s First Female Deputy Minister (PDF - 355K, 22 pages)
January 2007

Welfare won't be much help
December 24, 2008
John Stapleton
With the adoption of Breaking the Cycle, Ontario plans to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent in five years. It will be tough for the Ontario government to meet this commitment as poverty usually increases during recessions and welfare caseloads grow. Poverty and its attendant costs increase a lot in major recessions. Just like the Great Depression, we started the present recession with a liquidity crisis, a debt bubble and a crisis in confidence. By 1932, Ontario's relief expenditures had tripled while old age pension costs had doubled. Governments are now bracing for a new onslaught but we will not see these spectacular cost increases in the current recession.
Source:
The Toronto Star

Related links:
- Go to the Anti-poverty Strategies and Campaigns page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/antipoverty.htm

-------------------------

Spooked by the prospect of recession?
Toronto-based social policy analyst John Stapleton teaches us a valuable history lesson with his new piece The ‘Last Recession Spook’: A Very Curable Disease, released by the CCPA as part of its Ontario Alternative Budget technical paper series. This paper looks at the history of public investments during economic downturns and finds the ghost of the last recession (in the 1990s) still haunts Canadians, limiting our thinking of what’s possible to modest terms. Exhorting Canadians to start real change and improvement, he writes, “The last recession was unlike all others and rather than reducing government programs during recessions, we used to increase them.”

The ‘Last Recession Spook’: A Very Curable Disease (PDF File, 157K, 5 pages)
By John Stapleton
April 2008
Source:
CCPA Ontario Alternative Budget series

How our tax system discourages self-reliance
By John Stapleton
January 04, 2008
"...there are some straightforward solutions (to the problem of families caught in the cycle of poverty).
I offer four:
- Reduce Marginal Effective Tax Rates for adults with low incomes
- Stabilize households in transition to greater self-reliance
- Support children in their transition to adulthood through a "Time-out"
- Create a new government responsibility centre to promote accountable interactions: A new government responsibility centre created from existing government ministries should be tasked with resolving the multiple barriers that now result from pro-gram overlap and duplication."
Source:
The National Post

-------------------------------------------------------

Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults (MISWAA)

Why is it so tough to get ahead? How our tangled
social programs pathologize the transition to self-reliance (PDF file - 1MB, 62 pages)
John Stapleton
November 2007
This report documents the disincentives to achieving greater self-reliance within Ontario’s welfare, housing and social support system. It aims to make understandable to policymakers and the public how removing subsidies from poor Ontarians in an uncoordinated way makes it impossible for recipients to achieve greater self-reliance. Research was undertaken with members of the Somali, Vietnamese-Chinese and St. Christopher House communities. The issues of disincentives are viewed through the lens of first generation poor immigrants receiving benefits from multiple sources, and youth who have grown up in public housing in households with social assistance as the main income source.(...) The report outlines a series of recommendations for policy solutions that can be taken right away to eliminate some of the barriers thrown up by multiple subsidies and program policies. The ultimate goal for this report is to call attention to the need for a new governance model – one that enables governments and their agencies to forge policies and procedures in a coordinated way so that the transition to self-reliance is a healthy, supported process for people.
Source:
The Metcalf Foundation
The goal of the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation is to enhance the effectiveness of people and organizations working together to help Canadians imagine and build a just, healthy and creative society.

The [1932] Campbell report:
The origins of modern public assistance in Ontario (PDF file - 100K, 12 pages)
2005
Article by John Stapleton and Catherine Laframboise
"(...) The report of Wallace R. Campbell and the Advisory Committee on Direct Relief to the Provincial Government of Ontario resulted in the first standardized welfare policy in Ontario and laid the foundation for welfare as we know it today — cash assistance to needy families and individuals."

Coming of age in a man’s world:
The life, times and wisdom of Dorothea Crittenden
Canada’s first female deputy minister (PDF file - 356K, 22 pages)
January 2007
By John Stapleton and Catherine Laframboise
Dr. Crittenden was Deputy Minister of Community and Social Services from 1974 to1978. In the early sixties, she was Ontario’s chief negotiator during the development and implementation of the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), which came into effect in April 1966. She offers valuable historical insights on life during and after the war, on the development of social assistance in Ontario, and on the federal-provincial aspects of welfare in Canada's largest provinces.

Parkdale Community Legal Services (Toronto)
"Parkdale Community Legal Services is a community legal clinic located on Queen Street in the west end of Toronto. We provide free legal advice, assistance and representation to low income residents living in the Parkdale area. We are funded by Legal Aid Ontario and Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Since 1971, Parkdale Community Legal Services has delivered poverty law services to low-income residents of Parkdale. We cover a wide variety of subject areas, including social assistance, workers' rights, tenants' rights, immigration and refugee claims, mental health law, and domestic violence issues."
- incl. links to : A Bit of History - Law Reform Briefs and Reports - Our Community - Get Involved with PCLS! - Activism at PCLS - Psychiatric Survivor Issues - Right to OHIP Coverage - Special Focus: Homelessness - Our Osgoode Connection - Law Links - Social Justice
Related Link:
Legal Aid Ontario

Peacock Poverty
PeacockPoverty is a Canadian collective of individuals with an experience of poverty who join together to share knowledge, strength, talent and wisdom with each other and friends. The collective is autonomous, independent of agency affiliation, by and for poor people and friends.

From Reuel Amdur
in Peacock Poverty:

Auditing the Ontario Auditor General
December 14, 2009
by Reuel Amdur
Social worker and freelance writer Reuel Amdur asks some pointed questions about the 2009 Ontario Auditor General's report.

Related link:

2009 Annual Report:
Office of the Auditor General of Ontario
December 7, 2009

-------------

Also from Reuel Amdur
in The Canadian Charger:

October 22, 2009
McGuinty abandons children
By Reuel S. Amdur
The voice is the voice of Dalton McGuinty, but the hands are the hands of Mike Harris.

June 29, 2009
Dalton McGuinty’s War on the Poor
By Reuel S. Amdur
Overview and critique of Ontario's two social assistance programs, Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

Source:
The Canadian Charger - "Canada's National E-Weekly"

Peterborough Social Planning Council"Through research, community development and public education the Peterborough Social Planning Council works to build a strong community."
- incl. links to : Annual Report - Membership and Donations - Volunteer Opportunities - Publications - Projects - Newsletter - Events - Funders - Boards and Committees - Staff Profiles - Links - Contact Information - Employment Opportunities

PollutionWatch

An Examination of Pollution and Poverty in the Great Lakes Basin
November 2008
This PollutionWatch study examines the links between reported industrial air releases and income throughout the Great Lakes basin.
- incl. short abstract of the study and links to the complete report and fact sheets (all of which appear below)

People Living in Low Income Communities Likely to Face Greater Pollution Releases
New study examines links between pollution and poverty in Great Lakes basin and Toronto
News Release
November 27, 2008
Toronto, ON – People living in poverty in the Great Lakes basin may be experiencing an increased burden of high air pollution from industrial facilities in their communities, says a new study released today by the Canadian Environmental Law Association and Environmental Defence through the groups’ PollutionWatch project. The study, An Examination of Pollution and Poverty in the Great Lakes Basin, found 37 communities, known as census subdivisions, in the Great Lakes basin have high poverty rates at or above the national average (11.8%) and high releases of toxic air pollutants (over 100,000 kg) from industrial facilities.

Complete report:

An Examination of Pollution and Poverty
in the Great Lakes Basin (PDF - 12.3MB[*see note below], 69 pages)
November 2008

Fact sheets:

PollutionWatch Fact Sheet:
An examination of pollution and poverty in the City of Toronto (PDF - 5.2MB, 19 pages)

PollutionWatch Fact Sheet:
An Examination of Pollution and Poverty
in the Great Lakes Basin (PDF - 2.1MB, 17 pages)
November 2008

Related link:

Poorest areas also most polluted, report shows
Study finds low-income families, already facing low levels of health, are placed at further risk
November 27, 2008
By Moira Welsh
Many of Toronto's poorest residents live near industries that spew the highest levels of toxic chemicals and pollutants into the air, a groundbreaking report has found. Low-income families, many already facing diminished health from stress, bad nutrition, diabetes and poor dental care, are placed at further risk because they breathe air contaminated with pollutants suspected of causing cancer and reproductive disorders, say the authors of the report.
Source:
The Toronto Star

*COMMENT re. filesizes:
According to the Download Speed Calculator, a 12.3MB file will take just over 30 minutes to download on a 56K dialup connection.
Sure, most of us who surf the Net using a broadband Internet connection will only wait three minutes or so (!?!) for this file to download, but it's possible to optimize PDF files for the Web so that they're smaller and easier to download for everyone, but especially for people with slower connections. Here's a 96-page report on health indicators (PDF - 96 pages) that's just over 2MB in size to prove that even complex pages can be converted into PDF without bloating the file size. My gratuitous advice to website administrators : if you see that your PDF file is larger than a few megs, try to strip down some of the fluff (colours, special fonts, etc.) to reduce the size of the final product.

Poor in Toronto
Community Information Weblog on LiveJournal
"This community is for those who are Torontonians, considering being Torontonians or are interested in Torontonians. The original focus was (is still) on: The Working Poor and The Hardly Working. The idea is to offer a playground of information regarding: assistance in getting by, information about advancing ones career and enjoying life more - with little to no money. However, people who do not consider themselves either of the above have shown interest in this community and I believe they can also contribute to the group. Social Workers, Activists, Recent Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, Discount Shoppers, Students, Penny Savers, Discount Shoppers, Penny Savers, and others are also more than welcome to join the group if they believe they can add to the community objectives."
NOTE: this is a weblog that you can browse or, if you register, post your thoughts to share with others.
Check it out, even if you aren't poor in Toronto...

Poverty Watch Ontario - "To monitor and inform on cross-Ontario activity on the poverty reduction agenda"
Poverty Watch Ontario is keeping an eye on the provincial poverty reduction consultations and poverty reduction events in Ontario.
Poverty Watch Ontario is a joint venture of the Social Planning Network of Ontario, Ontario Campaign 2000, and the Income Security Advocacy Centre.

Poverty Watch Resources - links to websites and reports

Partners:

25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction
25-in-5: Network for Poverty Reduction is a multi-sectoral network comprised of more than 100 provincial and Toronto-based organizations and individuals working on eliminating poverty. (...) We are asking our government for a plan to reduce Ontario poverty levels by 25% in 5 years and by 50% before 2018

Social Planning Network of Ontario
The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) is a coalition of social planning councils (SPC), community development councils (CDC), resource centres, and planning committees located in various communities throughout Ontario.

Ontario Campaign 2000
Ontario Campaign 2000 is a provincial partner in Campaign 2000, with 66 member organizations across the province.
[ Campaign 2000 ]

Income Security Advocacy Centre
The Income Security Advocacy Centre works with and on behalf of low income communities in Ontario to address issues of income security and poverty.

Source:
Poverty Watch Ontario
Poverty Watch Ontario is a joint initiative of the Social Planning Network of Ontario, Ontario Campaign 2000 and the Income Security Advocacy Centre. These organizations have partnered since early 2008 to promote a cross-Ontario community dialogue on a poverty reduction strategy for the province.

NOTE : To avoid repetition of links on multiple pages, I've moved most links concerning the
Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy to the Canadian Social Research Links Anti-poverty Strategies and Campaigns page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/antipoverty.htm

The Travails of Toronto
By Andrew Jackson
October 22, 2010
TD Economics have released an interesting if rather thin report on the Toronto recovery (PDF - 562K, 5 pages). I say thin because, while there is not a wealth of current data, we do get labour market data for the huge Toronto Census Metropolitan Area. As they show, there has been a huge loss of manufacturing jobs in the region, offset to a degree by recent job gains - unfortunately, often part time - in other sectors. And there are major grounds for concern that a lot of lower income Toronto residents are facing a pretty tough time now and moving forward. In August (which I use since we have EI data for that month also) the Toronto CMA had an above average unemployment rate of 9.1% (using the three month moving average.) Strikingly, that translates into the fact that almost exactly one in five unemployed Canadians (300,000 of 1,511,000) lived in the Toronto CMA. Statscan EI data - which TD did not look at for some reason - show that less than one in three of those Toronto unemployed workers were collecting regular EI benefits in August compared to 45% nationally. Strikingly, Toronto had one in five of the unemployed in Canada, but less than one in seven (13.7%) of Canada’s regular EI beneficiaries in August. (The EI data are not seasonally adjusted while the unemployment data are, but I don’t think that makes much of a difference since the same pattern was evident last time I looked in the Winter.) I keep hoping that someone (HRSDC? the Ontario government? the City of Toronto, the Mowat Centre? - all step forward) will take on as a research project this key question - just why do so few of Toronto’s many unemployed workers qualify for EI?
Source:
Progressive Economics Forum Blog
[ Progressive Economics Forum ]

Raising the Roof (RTR)
"Raising the Roof is the only national charity in Canada dedicated to finding long-term solutions to homelessness"
Here are but a few samples of the comprehensive up-to-date information on homelessness  you'll find on this site :

Shared Learnings on Homelessness
"Practical tools, resources and information sharing for frontline staff, managers and volunteers working to address the problem of homelessness in their communities. Use this site to find out about initiatives in cities, towns and rural areas across Canada. Link to others working within the homelessness sector, share your experiences and learn from theirs."

NOTE: Sadly, the Recession Relief Coalition website domain name was not renewed and the site is dead.
You can find archived copies of old Coalition files at the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/ by pasting in the old URL from the first link below.

Recession Relief Coalition
(Formerly the Recession Relief Fund Coalition )
The Recession Relief Coalition is a broad-based group of organizations and individuals concerned about the impact of the recession on Canada’s most vulnerable and marginalized residents. Over 260 organizations and over 1,100 individuals across Canada have endorsed the coalition’s call on the federal government to create a recession relief fund to prevent cuts to public and private not-for-profit agencies serving vulnerable communities, and to increase funding to support vital social services including homelessness programs and settlement services.
- incl. links to:
* home * actions (no content yet) * indicators * contact * participate * video * gallery * news * archives * blog * submit your story

Endorse the
Recession Relief Fund Declaration
- read the declaration, then scroll down the page and add your name to the growing list of supporters.

Selected site content:

This Is What the Recession Looks Like: June 2009 (PDF - 161K, 8 pages)
Research Bulletin #1
- calling for immediate government action on: * Social Assistance Reform * Unemployment Income (EI Reform * Funding for Non-Profit Sector, including Housing and Homelessness Programs
- incl. Key Facts & Trends in this Recession
Source:
Indicators