Regarding poverty as a key determinant of health: What does
the future hold for the population health of Ontario?


Forwarded Message:
From: Sherrie Tingley <[log in to unmask]>

Ontario Social Safety NetWork

FOR RELEASE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2000

FIVE YEARS LATER:  Welfare Rate Cuts Anniversary Report

Toronto--Welfare recipients must get by on a welfare cheque
that buys 30%
less than when the Mike Harris government was elected in 1995,
according to
a report released today by the Ontario Social Safety NetWork.
 In real
value, welfare benefits today are the lowest that they have
been for 35
years.

The Ontario government's response to deepening child poverty
and
homelessness has been to say that even after the cuts, Ontario
welfare rates
are 10% more than in other provinces.  The Premier and the
Minister of
Community and Social Services never address the issue of how
the cost of
living, particularly shelter costs, compare with the other
provinces.  The
OSSN shows that average rents are far higher than the shelter
allowance:  in
February 1998 62% of people on welfare in Toronto had to use
part of their
food allowance for rent, and rents have risen further since
then, but
welfare rates have not.

Rather than the meaningless measurement of comparing Ontario's
rates to
other provinces, "Five Years Later" shows what the current
amount of welfare
will actually buy for a single person, and for a single parent
with one
child.  After the cost of food and rent, a single parent with
one child has
only $2.24 per day left for all other costs: transportation,
clothing,
household furnishings and supplies, telephone, school
supplies, health and
personal care needs, user fees for public services.

The Report also contains a section dealing with the
particularly devastating
effect the cuts have had on women fleeing abusive men, a list
of other
policy changes which have increased hardship for those needing
assistance,
and a Poverty Index setting out key numbers in the welfare
picture.

The Ontario Social Safety NetWork, whose members include faith
groups, low
income self-help groups, social agencies, labour
organizations, community
legal clinics and individuals, is calling on the government to
raise Ontario
welfare rates.  When asked about the possibility of a raise in
October,
Finance Minister Ernie Eves stated that nothing has been ruled
out, although
Minister Baird rejected a raise.  The government must at least
recognize the
high cost of rents and raise the shelter portion of the
allowance; they
should implement a cost-of-living adjustment; and they must
end the clawback
of the Canada Child Tax Credit from children whose parents are
forced to
rely on social assistance.

The full text of Five Years Later can be found at:
http://www.welfarewatch.toronto.on.ca







Our Web Sites have information and reports from all of our
Quality of Life Projects!
http://www.utoronto.ca/qol     http://www.utoronto.ca/seniors

*************************************************************
In the early hours I read in the paper of epoch-making
projects
On the part of pope and sovereigns, bankers and oil barons.
With my other eye I watch
The pot with the water for my tea
The way it clouds and starts to bubble and clears again
And overflowing the pot quenches the fire.

 -- Bertolt Brecht
**************************************************************

Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Public Health Sciences
Graduate Department of Community Health
University of Toronto
McMurrich Building, Room 308
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5S 1A8
voice: (416) 978-7567
fax: (416) 978-2087
e-mail:   [log in to unmask]