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Act now for change. Monday, August 24, 2009 7:08 AM

From: "25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction"

<25_in_5_Network_for_Poverty_Redu@mail.vresp.com>
To: gcuthbert@rogers.com

25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction

Act now for change.
1. Quote of the Week: Federal Government Can't Afford to Waste Another Day
2. Ontario Works, my eye...
3. Broken Welfare System Punishes Province's Poor

Quote of the week

“Ontario Works, my eye… Because we accept poverty as a fact of life, just as we accept a growing disparity in the
distribution of income, we countenance wholly inadequate levels of welfare benefits that push people far below the poverty
levels of the working poor. Until we get serious about tackling overall poverty in a meaningful way, the welfare system will
simply not be fixed. However unjustified, our welfare system is but an extension of our acceptance of deep and widespread
poverty.”

Who said it? Nate Laurie, in an editorial in the Toronto Star, Wednesday August 19, 2009.
  

Ontario Works, my eye...

  
In a powerful editorial in the Toronto Star last week, economist Nate Laurie lays out the fundamental problem with the
social assistance system in Ontario – it just doesn’t work.

Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program are holdovers from the punitive Mike Harris days. And the
current economic recession demonstrates just how urgently these programs need reform.

As part of its Poverty Reduction Strategy, the provincial government pledged to undertake a Social Assistance Review.
Eight months have passed since that commitment, and there is still no indication of when the Review will happen, who will
be involved, or what the Review will look like.

25 in 5 encourages you to read the editorial, which is reprinted below – and to share it with your local MPP. Take the
opportunity while your MPP is still in your constituency over the summer to email, call, or set up a meeting. Show your MPP
the Nate Laurie editorial. And demand the government meet its commitment to a Social Assistance Review.

More information is available at www.sareview.ca.

And stay tuned as 25 in 5 ramps up the pressure on the government to hold a bold Review, and to make the changes that
are necessary.
  

Broken welfare system punishes province's poor

Ontario doesn't work for the rising tide of unemployed people who don't qualify
for EI
Aug 19, 2009
Nate Laurie

Ontario Works, the new name that former Ontario

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premier Mike Harris gave to social assistance in 1997, is one of the cruelest ironies left over from his assault on the
province's most vulnerable residents.

People who can't find work because there aren't any available jobs are called the unemployed. And as the accompanying
chart shows, their numbers have exploded in this devastating recession. As of June, the number of unemployed is up 34
per cent from just seven months earlier. Ontario isn't working for them.

But some of the newly unemployed have savings to fall back on – for a while at least. Some have a working spouse who
can keep the family afloat while his or her partner searches for another job. Some qualify for employment insurance to tide
them over while they look for new employment.

But for many people, being without a job in a job market shut down by recession means they have no source of money to
feed their families, to pay the rent, to finance their search for a new job. So they are forced to turn to Ontario Works.

As the chart demonstrates, their numbers move in lock step with unemployment – in short they are ending up on welfare
through no fault of their own.

For roughly every three Ontarians who have lost their jobs to recession, one has been forced to rely on a broken welfare
system because Ontario isn't working. Ontario Works, my eye.

The chart also shatters the myth that people opt for welfare because of moral laxity.

It should hardly be surprising that when market forces fail those with superior skills, it also lets down those with the weakest
skills, the minimum wage workers who have the least secure foothold in the labour market.

Because they tend to be poor to start with, the welfare system says, in effect, that they should be even poorer when they
are deprived of work: the level of social assistance they receive leaves them far below the poverty line.

And therein lies the real problem.

Because we accept poverty as a fact of life, just as we accept a growing disparity in the distribution of income, we
countenance wholly inadequate levels of welfare benefits that push people far below the poverty levels of the working poor.

Until we get serious about tackling overall poverty in a meaningful way, the welfare system will simply not be fixed.
However unjustified, our welfare system is but an extension of our acceptance of deep and widespread poverty. Ontario
works, but mainly for those with sufficiently high incomes.

These attitudes lead to some very curious policy decisions. For example, how is it that a province that spends billions of
dollars in aid to the auto industry in order to protect a dwindling number of high-paying automotive jobs gives so little
assistance to those most vulnerable to the same market forces which decimated the auto sector?

Why do we deny employment insurance to the very people who probably need it most?

Why do we offer far better retraining to laid-off auto workers than to those with the poorest marketable skills?

The biggest moral problem of a more generous welfare system lies not with who are forced to live on social assistance, but
with a society that chooses to ignore the growing and alarming poverty in its midst.

Ontarians claim to be mystified by the fiercely outspoken opponents of American health-care reform who worry that their
health benefits will suffer if health insurance is made available to those the 50 million Americans who have no medical
coverage. And yet, we seem to apply exactly the same logic when it comes to fighting the insidious poverty here at home.

No Mike, Ontario doesn't work.

Nate Laurie is an economist and consultant. He can be reached at nlaurie@rogers.com.

http://www.thestar.com/article/682686
  

About the 25 in 5 eBulletins

The 25 in 5 Network is steered by a coalition of Ontario organizations including Campaign 2000, the Income Security

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Advocacy Centre, the Social Planning Network of Ontario the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition, The Colour of
Poverty Project, the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice, Voices From the Street, among others.

This is a bulletin from 25 in 5 to its contact list of supporters and interested parties across the province. The Bulletin is
intended to keep you up to date on the implementation of a poverty reduction plan for Ontario and to let you know how you,
your organizations and networks can help make it happen.
For more information visit www.25in5.ca

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