Submitted to the Star Thursday night ... awaiting publication (?):

Re: Protecting our social programs, letter, March 16, 2005

In response to our op-ed of March 10, Minister of Community and Social
Services 
Sandra Pupatello shows again how disconnected she is from the realities
of life 
for people on social assistance.  She insists on walling herself into a 
defensive position when it comes to discussing improvements in our
social safety net.  

While she points to the "increases" in support for people living on
social 
assistance, she hides behind large, meaningless numbers.  The impact of
these 
changes on the real lives of welfare recipients has been negligible.  

Her government's "$100 million" rate increase for social assistance
recipients 
resulted in less than sixty cents per day in extra income for a single
person 
on welfare.  The "$36.5 million" in extra support her government has
allowed 
to "stay in the hands" of families translates to another 65 cents a day
for a 
single mother with one child.  After inflation, people on welfare are
poorer 
now than when the Liberals came into power.  To say this record is
pathetic 
would be kind.

It is time Ms. Pupatello emerged from her fortress of numbers and
started 
talking about the effects of her policies on real people.  We see the
hard 
impact of real poverty in our offices every day.  And it is our clients'
real 
stories that drive us to speak out against this government's neglect of
its 
most vulnerable constituents.

Gary Bloch, MD, St. Michael's Hospital, and Kathy Hardill, RN(EC),
Regent Park 
Community Health Centre.  Both are members of Health Providers Against
Poverty 
([log in to unmask]).

-----Original Message-----
From: Social Determinants of Health [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Dennis Raphael
Sent: March 18, 2006 8:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SDOH] Poverty and what to do...


I despair at times as well. One of my biggest beefs is that in addition
to the absolute lack of concern by elected representatives, is the
failure of supporters to take the necessary action.  What I mean by this
is:

1) How many of you on this list take the time to send letters to
editors, your elected MPs or others?  If you do, great, if not, why not.
They will not fire you.  They simply count letters, emails, etc.

2) In addition to members of this list, there are literally thousands of
people who read our stuff, attend our lectures, see themselves as
supporters, but do nothing.

The reason the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, other media, elected reps
-- the Sandra Pupatello's, Gerard Kennedy's the Jack Laytons (whose
platform is good, but dare not speak the word poverty in public)  get
away with this is that they see NO consequences for their actions.

If Edward Greenspon and Paul Taylor -- the evil editor and health editor
of the Globe and Mail respectively were told  - repeatedly -- that their
health coverage is crap, they might be more receptive to doing something
about it.

So, let's begin right now!

[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]

Ontario
[log in to unmask] -- Minister of Community and Social
Services [log in to unmask] -- Former Director Daily Food
Bank, now Minister of Education [log in to unmask] -
Premier of Ontario


Provide similar emails to the list for your province/state!

By the way, the following appeared yesterday in the Toronto Star, but
not in the internet version...
------------------------------------------
Re: Protecting our social programs, March 16, 2006.  While in
Opposition, Sandra Pupatello made the rounds of anti-poverty and Faith
groups groups commiserating with them about how awful the Conservative
government was treating people on social assistance.  Her party promised
to end the claw-back of the National Child Benefit to families on social
assistance. Once elected, they changed their mind. Enough said.

Dennis Raphael

-------------------
Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask]


To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT
the subject header --  to [log in to unmask] SIGNOFF SDOH

DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO
THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU.

To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to
[log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header.
SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname

To post a message to all 1000+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask]
Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant.

For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask]

To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to
[log in to unmask] SET SDOH DIGEST

To view the SDOH archives, go to:
https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html

-------------------
Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask]


To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header --  to [log in to unmask]
SIGNOFF SDOH

DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU.

To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header.
SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname

To post a message to all 1000+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask]
Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant.

For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask]

To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask]
SET SDOH DIGEST

To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html