Poverty Awareness in York Region

Editorial from the Toronto Star, March 18, 2006

Ontarians spend $1.2 billion a year feeding and taking care of their pets.

Given that huge sum, just how much value do you think Ontario residents place on the 660,000 men, women and children who are dependent on them for social assistance? The answer is that Ontarians spend just over three times as much on welfare benefits as they do on their pets. That comes to a monthly average of just about $540 per recipient for food, shelter, clothing and all the other necessities of life.

That figure is disgraceful - especially when one-third of all welfare recipients are children, and another third are disabled adults.

Has the province forgotten the sense of compassion and caring that long defined it before the former Conservative government of premier Mike Harris slashed welfare benefits by 22 per cent some 11 years ago to pay for big tax cuts? The answer will come Thursday in the budget that Premier Dalton McGuinty's government tables at Queen's Park.

In a bid to remind McGuinty that the plight of Ontario's poorest citizens has actually worsened since he came to power, advocacy groups, including the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, the Canadian Auto Workers and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, took to the streets Wednesday in a Hunger March, demanding an increase in social assistance. They want benefits raised by 40 per cent to make up for the 1995 cuts and the inflation that has eaten into welfare cheques since then.

The advocates claimed an increase of that magnitude is justified because after paying rent and utilities, some welfare recipients had as little as 35 cents a day to feed and clothe themselves.

The poor had the right to hold their peaceful protest. They also should have the right not to go hungry, as many of them now do. Underscoring the inadequacy of social assistance, All Saints Church drop-in co-ordinator Brian Buckle stresses what everyone on welfare already knows: "In the City of Toronto, you can't be on welfare and pay rent and buy food."

Joining the growing chorus of those who believe McGuinty can do better, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives this week released a pre-budget report urging the premier to stop ignoring the needy. Pointing to a huge windfall in corporate taxes the government didn't expect, the centre says the government has run out of excuses for leaving the poor behind.

While Finance Minister Dwight Duncan may not have all the money he would require to undo all the harm inflicted on welfare recipients over the past 11 years, he will unquestionably have the money he would need to reverse most of the Conservatives' original 22 per cent cut in benefits.

Although McGuinty has worked hard to repair the damage the Conservatives did to health care and education, he has done little to address the pressing needs of Ontario's most vulnerable people. He hasn't even entirely reversed the Tories' deplorable policy of depriving children on welfare of the money Ottawa provides for poor and middle-income children.

The time has come for McGuinty to declare his government represents the interests of all Ontarians, even those who are without a strong voice.

In Thursday's budget, the premier needs to let his voice speak for the disabled, for the province's poorest children and for their parents who go without so their children can eat. He needs to tell them that his government will give them the assistance required to make sure they at least have food on the table and a decent place to live.