Social assistance freeze worries planning council ED

The executive director of the Social Planning Council of Sudbury said she's “deeply disappointed” to learn the provincial budget will freeze social assistance and delay plans to increase the Ontario Child Benefit.

Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program will be frozen for a year, Premier Dalton McGuinty announced March 25.

The child benefit was supposed to rise from the current $1,100 a year per child to $1,310 a year in July 2013. Instead, it will be increased to $1,210 in 2013 and $1,310 in 2014.

He said the changes are necessary as the province works to whittle down a $16-billion deficit. The provincial budget is being presented March 27.

“These are the people in our communities that have the least amount of capacity to absorb any kind of a cut,” Janet Gasparini said.

“Food prices are not going to decrease this year, electricity is not going to decrease. They already don't have enough money to manage.”

Making cuts to social assistance is short-sighted, she said.

“This is only going to lead to deeper poverty with more harsh outcomes, which we already know causes people to get sick,” Gasparini said.

“It's also at the basis of who's in jail, and it's at the basis of who is suffering from mental illness. Now we're going to make that situation worse.”

The changes are being made as the province's social assistance system is under review.

The Commission for the Review of Social Assistance was created by the province in 2010 following the 2008 release of the provincial poverty reduction strategy.

The commission, led by Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh, has held extensive consultations, and released a discussion paper last month, which seeks further input from stakeholders.

Lankin and Sheikh are due to release their final report in June.

Gasparini said between McGuinty's recent announcement and the austerity recommended in last month's Drummond report, she's not sure there's much point to the commission anymore.

“What are we expecting, then?” she asked. “All of the answers are already on the table.”

She said the province should probably thank the commissioners for their time, and tell them they've shelved the poverty-reduction strategy.

Earlier this month, Gasparini criticized the work of the commission, saying she expected preliminary recommendations in their recently released discussion paper.

“When you read it, they don't recommend anything,” she said. “They go through in great detail all of what they heard. Then they go through another series of questions saying 'What do you think we should do? Well, it's way too late to be asking the general public that. They're supposed to be making recommendations in
June.”

She said she hopes the commission's final report includes recommendations to substantially boost social assistance rates, provide recipients with $100 a month for healthy food, and increase the minimum wage.

Sheikh told Northern Life last week the commission never promised it would release preliminary recommendations.

He said the discussion paper puts two or three options on the table for each of the challenges facing the social assistance system, and asks what people think about them.

Sheikh said the commission has not yet decided on any recommendations, although he said he heard from many people that social assistance rates are inadequate.

Posted by Arron Pickard