Enter the name for this tabbed section: Special Diet News
$16,000 to $49,000 pay raises for Liberal caucus.Surely social assistance rates will also rise?
November 13, 2011: Media ReleaseToronto, Ont. – On Remembrance Day the Ontario Liberal government quietly announced pay raises of between $16,000 and $49,000 for 29 MPP who will become parliamentary assistants to a slimmed down Ontario cabinet of just 22 members.
“ By this bold signal that the austerity agenda stops at Ontario’s borders, the Liberal caucus sends a message of hope to the poorest in Ontario,” said Michael Hurley, President of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU). “ These increases of between 14 per cent and 42 per cent would make such an enormous difference if they were also applied to people receiving social assistance and disability benefits.”
The 29 parliamentary assistants will receive an additional $16,667 on top of an MPP’s salary of $116,000. The whip will receive an additional $21,000 and cabinet members an additional $49,000, also on a base salary of $116,000. Only 1 of 53 Liberal MPPs will not receive a substantial increase, making this an unprecedented announcement in its scope. Effectively, 98 per cent of the Liberal caucus has been reclassified and given a pay raise.
“People on social assistance cannot remember the time they last ate until they were full. The health of tens of thousands of children is being seriously compromised through ongoing malnourishment. It is time to raise the rates of assistance and disability.” Hurley said.
Social assistance paid a single person $663 a month in 1994. In December 2011 it will pay $599. With a room in a major Ontario city costing $400 a month, single social assistance recipients have $6.60 a day for all necessities of life. 474,000 women, children and men receive Ontario Works benefits and 397,000 receive Ontario disability benefits.
For more information, please contact: Michael Hurley
President, OCHU/CUPE (416) 884-0770
Persecution of doctor who helped poor people with medical conditions access special diet allowance shames the College of Physicians
For immediate release 6:00 a.m. October 3, 2011Toronto, Ont.- A bid by the College of Physicians to discipline a physician who helped poor people access a diet allowance was attacked today by a union representing 30,000 Ontario hospital staff.
“ Dr. Roland Wong has practiced medicine professionally, honestly and with great compassion” said Michael Hurley president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions. “ He signed off on forms so that poor people with medical conditions, like diabetes could access supplementary funding to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. When his efforts and that of other physicians drove up the cost of the program, the government pushed back, hacking back the program. This disciplinary hearing is another step in that pushback.”
6.5% of Ontarians, 871,000 men women and their children, received social assistance in Ontario in June 2011. Of these, 474,000 men, women and their children received Ontario Works and 397,000 men, women, and their children received ODSP.
The special diet allowance provided a supplement of up to $250 a month depending on the severity of a person’s medical condition. The Liberal government radically scaled back the program in 2011.
No party in the provincial election is promising to reinstate the special diet program or to increase social assistance rates, which were cut by 55% under the Harris government, by more than inflation. In 1994, a single person on social assistance received $664. In December 2011 the rate will be $599.
Dr. Wong’s disciplinary hearing: 80 College Street, College of Physicians and Surgeons at 9:00 a.m.
For more information: Michael Hurley: 416-884-0770
Enter the name for this tabbed section: Video
Poverty in Ontario is steadily increasing, and while the rich are getting richer, the poor are losing their livelihoods, their homes and are having difficulty providing for themselves and others. With the financial crisis used as a catalyst to cut from those who make the least, attacks on the most vulnerable in our country are becoming more brazen and the financial gap between the rich and poor gets wider every day.
One cause of this increased wage gap is the cut to the Special Diet - a food supplement program which provided up to $250 a month for those who could not afford to eat healthy food. This program is being replaced by a system which would exclude a significant portion of those who were previously using it to ensure they had access to decent meals.
One cause of this increased wage gap is the cut to the Special Diet - a food supplement program which provided up to $250 a month for those who could not afford to eat healthy food. This program is being replaced by a system which would exclude a significant portion of those who were previously using it to ensure they had access to decent meals.
Enter the name for this tabbed section: Social Assistance Fact Sheet
Did you know that...........?
People and social assistance
- In 2011, two years following the greatest recession since the Great Depression, 6.5% of Ontarians (871,000 men women and their children) received social assistance in Ontario (in June 2011)?
- 3.5% of Ontarians (474,000 men, women and their children) received Ontario Works
- 3.0% of Ontarians (397,000 men, women, and their children) received ODSP
- In 1994, two years following the major recession of 1990-1992, 12.1 % of Ontarians (1,310,000 men, women and their children) received social assistance?
- Ontario’s overall population is now 2.5 million higher than it was in 1994 yet there were more than 50% more people (440,000 more) receiving social assistance in 1994?
- That regardless of the overall downtrend, the number of single people receiving Ontario Works has increased by over 60% (155,000 vs. 95,000) since the year 2000?
Social assistance benefit rates
- Ontario’s single social assistance rate (Ontario Works) will be increased to $599 a month in December 2011, with $227 allocated (by regulation) to basic needs?
- The minimum monthly cost of a nutritional food basket requiring secure, energy efficient, and affordable storage, freezing, refrigeration, and cooking facilities is $265?
- Ontario’s single social assistance rate was $663 a month in 1994?
- If adjusted for inflation since 1994, Ontario’s single social assistance rate would now stand at $938 a month, $339 more than in 1994?
- It would take a 57% rate increase to equal the single rate paid in 1994 and a 25% increase to raise the Ontario Disability Support program rate to the level of the neediest Canadian resident senior citizen, an equivalency that was in place in 1975 under GAINS?
Social Assistance and Minimum wages
- The social assistance single rate now stands at 36% of full time minimum wages ($10.25 an hour), the same as in 1937 when minimum wages were first legislated?
- In 1994, the social assistance single rate stood at 61% of full time minimum wages ($6.70 an hour)
Affordability of an increase to social assistance
- The total provincial cost of social assistance to Ontarians in 1994 in 2010 dollars was $8.4 billion?
- The total provincial cost of social assistance to Ontarians in (fiscal) 2010 in 2010 dollars was $6.6 billion, 27% less than in 1994?
- Even a 27 % monthly increase in the income level for single Ontario Works recipients to $762 a month (less than half of the real inflation increase since 1994) would mean that total program costs would be equivalent to the costs of the program in 1994?
Fact Sheet by John Stapleton
Enter the name for this tabbed section: Raise The Rates Campaign
Poverty in Ontario is steadily increasing, and while the rich are getting richer, the poor are losing their livelihoods, their homes and are having difficulty providing for themselves and others. With the financial crisis used as a catalyst to cut from those who make the least, attacks on the most vulnerable in our country are becoming more brazen and the financial gap between the rich and poor gets wider every day.
One cause of this increased wage gap is the cut to the Special Diet - a food supplement program which provided up to $250 a month for those who could not afford to eat healthy food. This program is being replaced by a system which would exclude a significant portion of those who were previously using it to ensure they had access to decent meals.
Good paying jobs are also at risk, with library closures, entire board dismissals, system-wide cuts, privatization and more in the city of Toronto. These cuts hurt our communities by selling off public assets, removing good jobs, and decreasing the amount of services available to you as a member of your community.
One cause of this increased wage gap is the cut to the Special Diet - a food supplement program which provided up to $250 a month for those who could not afford to eat healthy food. This program is being replaced by a system which would exclude a significant portion of those who were previously using it to ensure they had access to decent meals.
Good paying jobs are also at risk, with library closures, entire board dismissals, system-wide cuts, privatization and more in the city of Toronto. These cuts hurt our communities by selling off public assets, removing good jobs, and decreasing the amount of services available to you as a member of your community.
Visit The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty's website to get more information and to join the fight to raise social assitance rates and bring back The Special Diet.