Hope you will consider sending a letter to your MPP with copies to the Premier and Opposition Leaders via the following link urging anti-poverty action as the 2013 Ontario provincial budget negotiation process unfolds. Please share with your friends and networks.
http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1734&ea.campaign.id=19624
Inequality is taking a deeper hold in Ontario, despite a promise by our political leaders to address poverty. Please urge our political leaders to keep their word.
Prior to her election as Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party and becoming the new Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne declared that she wanted to be known as the “social justice premier”. This statement raised some hopes and expectations among community advocates for low income people for serious action on social assistance reform and the minimum wage.
Since assuming leadership of the Government, Premier Wynne has not been very specific about her social justice agenda. The Throne Speech in March included only a few brief references to affordable housing and several recommendations in the recent social assistance reform report by Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh. Besides generally referring to interest in helping social assistance recipients move into employment, the only specific recommendation that the Premier has expressed an interest in acting on is the $200 per month earnings exemption for social assistance recipients with working hours before implementation of the clawback on their earnings.
Neither has either opposition party leader has shown any greater interest in serious social justice action to this point. Mr. Hudak’s policy proposals harken back to the worst visions of workfare and punitive practices of the Mike Harris days. Ms. Horwath has shown no inclination to go beyond the earnings exemption recommendation in her negotiation on the spring provincial budget with the Premier. Social justice for the most vulnerable is searching for a champion among our political leadership in Ontario.
It has been almost five years since the social assistance reform was announced as one of the cornerstones of the Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. Such lengthy research, consultation and study were not required for an earnings exemption to be the only specific measure under consideration.
The budget to be delivered in April offers an opportunity for the Premier to show “good faith” in her expressed intention to be the “social justice premier” for all Ontarians. To that end, Poverty Free Ontario invited Premier Wynne to meet with PFO delegates from across Ontario for a discussion of their proposals for a social justice agenda. Sadly, the Premier’s Office has not formally acknowledged nor responded to the invitation.
Still, more than 100 PFO leaders from more than 20 communities all across Ontario came together in Toronto for a day on March 8. They discussed and endorsed the following Six Point Plan for a Social Justice Agenda:
The PFO community leadership assembled on March 8 asked that invitations be made to the Premier and Opposition Leaders for meetings with a cross-community PFO delegation prior to the budget to discuss a social justice agenda based on the preceding Six Point Plan.
For further information contact:
Peter Clutterbuck, SPNO Coordinator
(416) 653-7947 cell (416) 738-3228
pclutterbuck@spno.ca
Web site: www.povertyfreeontario.ca
[1]It is fitting to footnote here that Commissioners Lankin and Sheikh’s recommendation for the $200 earnings exemption in their report actually proposes that the clawback on additional earnings be increased from the current 50% to 57% — not indicated in the body of their report but in footnote #46 on page 73, reducing the benefit to recipients of even this minimal measure of reform.