Doctors protest social services cuts
MPP Dave Smith says a basic income guarantee for Ontario would cost billions
The provincial government’s cuts to social services are “regressive” and will end up costing far more than the “pennies” they will save, said Dr. Jessi Dobyns at a rally on George St. on Thursday — but MPP Dave Smith said it would actually cost billions annually to expand and continue the basic income guarantee.
Dobyns, a local family physician, is the co-chairwoman of the Peterborough Healthcare Providers Against Poverty.
She told a group of about 25 people at a rally in front of the social services offices in Peterborough Square on Thursday that recent cuts to social services will prove expensive in the end.
People living in poverty have more severe illness when they get sick, she said — and it’s nearly impossible for them to get better when they’re discharged from hospital into a homeless shelter.
“If Ford wants to stop hallway medicine, he has to treat poverty first and foremost,” Dobyns said.
The rally in Peterborough was organized by Healthcare Providers against Poverty, in collaboration with Basic Income Peterborough and the Income Working Security Group (which is part of Peterborough Poverty Reduction Network).
It took place a day after the Ontario chapter of Healthcare Providers Against Poverty re-
leased an open letter to the provincial government, signed by more than 700 health care providers and 30 organizations.
The letter calls on the government to reinstate the basic income pilot project, which was cancelled this summer (a year into the three-year pilot).
The letter also asks the government not to cut a planned threeper-cent increase in social assistance to 1.5 per cent.
Joanne Bezak-Brokking, cochair of the local Income Security Working Group, said that cutting the increase to 1.5 per cent undermines people’s ability to access the necessities of life.
“People were counting on that,” she said, calling the cuts “punitive”.
Jason Hartwick, chairman of Basic Income Peterborough, called it “ridiculous” that the provincial government cancelled the basic income pilot project after just a year.
“Our ask is: Let’s finish that study,” he said. “Let’s find out if (basic income) works or not.”
The basic income pilot project provided payments to 4,000 lowincome people in communities including Hamilton, Brantford, Thunder Bay and Lindsay.
Single participants received up to $16,989 a year while couples received up to $24,027, less 50 per cent of any earned income.
But the Ford government cancelled it in August, Canadian Press reported, saying the project was failing and many participants had dropped out.
Peterborough-Kawartha’s Progressive Conservative MPP was at Queen’s Park during the rally in Peterborough on Thursday, but spoke to The Examiner later by phone.
“The way social services are set up — it’s not working,” Smith said.
For example, Smith said, many people remain on Ontario Works for five years when the program is meant as a short-term way to help the unemployed get back on their feet.
Smith said the government is planning to release a plan for redesigning the social services system sometime in early November.
He also said that expanding the basic income guarantee would cost $17 billion annually — which is unaffordable.
“We can’t add $17 billion to our spending.”