Ontario’s poorest worse off now – book

Ontario’s poorest worse off now – book

Despite a recent budget promising anti-poverty measures, Ontario’s poorest citizens remain worse off now than when the McGuinty Government was elected in 2003. Nearly half a million Ontario children are growing up poor. Meanwhile hunger is widespread, with food banks serving 330,000 Ontarians each month. Many are working people whose low wages trap them in poverty.

These are a few key findings from Lives Still in the Balance, published by Ontario’s major faith communities through the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC). Updating a book first published in 2004, Lives Still in the Balance shows that the promise of significant improvement for people living in poverty sadly remains just that – a promise.

The book was launched on April 18 at Queen’s Park.

“We’re thankful for the small steps the provincial government has taken to improve life for the poor,” says Susan Eagle. “Former social assistance recipients can now receive drug benefits for six months after taking a job, and some improvements to humanize the social assistance system have been made. Yet compared to the severe hardships that people in poverty endure every day, these are only baby steps. We need a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy, and the government hasn’t developed one.”

The facts, outlined in Lives Still in the Balance, are disturbing. Combining up-to-date analysis from leading anti-poverty advocates and academic analysts with first-hand accounts from low-income people, the book sketches a colossal social deficit of poverty, hunger and homelessness. People on social assistance have plunged far below the poverty line, and have only received income increases of 7% since 2003 (including a 2% hike this November). The new Ontario Child Benefit will still not provide parents on social assistance with as much income as they would have received if the government had simply stopped its clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement. The announced minimum wage increase to $10.25 is a welcome move – but why is the government taking three years to implement it, when the working poor need help now?

“The government’s housing record is equally disappointing,” says ISARC secretary, the Rev. Brice Balmer of Kitchener. “The government is nowhere near to achieving its 2003 promise of 20,000 affordable housing units, and its March budget only offered to finally spend $392 million of federal housing funding offered in 2005. Meanwhile 122,000 Ontario households are waiting years for affordable housing, and 750,000 Ontarians live in a household paying at least half of its income in rent. It’s an appalling situation that should shame us all.”

“We chose the book’s title because people’s lives are at stake,” says editor Murray MacAdam, the bookeditor.. “Why does our wealthy province tolerate allowing one citizen in six to live in poverty? Where are our values? Will the government, and the opposition parties, develop and promote a credible anti-poverty agenda?”

(PRESS RELEASE)