“i had hope for the first time in a long time. now i don’t know what i’ll do”

deb singh is a counsellor at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre and chair of the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres

The Ontario Basic Income Pilot was a program initiated by the Wynne Liberals and designed by former Conservative senator Hugh Segal. Each month, the government would give low-income residents a sum of money with no strings attached, then track how they fared. For tracey mechefske, Basic Income was a lifeline. She started a business, improved her diet and enrolled at a local gym. Then, without warning, Ford cancelled the entire program

the thing that I wish people would understand is that I’m not a mooch. I’m a taxpayer, and I want to be selfsufficient. I always hear that those of us who were part of the basic income pilot should shut up and get a job. I’ve had several jobs.

I was born with two twisted tibias. When I was 15, I was in a snowmobile accident. I had surgery, but 25 years later, exacerbated by that accident, the twisted tibias began to give me mobility issues. I also have a sulphite allergy and serious gastrointestinal problems that cause me excruciating pain. When it’s bad, I can barely get out of bed.

Despite all my physical problems, I was always a good student. I went to the University of Nipissing intending to do a double major in history and psychology with a minor in ancient religion. I enjoyed school, but by the end of first year, my stomach problems made keeping up with the workload impossible. It was a similar story when I tried college the following year, so I worked in retail, but eventually I needed too many sick days and I was let go. I went on disability in 1993.

My husband, Kurt, and I got married three years later. Soon after that, one of his relatives couldn’t take care of their 15-month-old son, so we became foster parents, and I devoted myself to raising him while my husband worked. He’s a trained small-engine mechanic but had trouble finding jobs in his field. He worked as a baker at Tim Hortons, and as a deliveryman at a couple of pizza spots, but then our car died. Between us, we didn’t have much, but we were getting by. We were really careful about money, and in 2012, after three years in social housing, we had put enough away for a down payment on a house.

Around the time we moved in, to cope with my sulphite allergy, I started making homemade products, like all-natural facial scrubs, dish soap and moisturizing creams. My friends tried them and loved them. I dreamed of starting my own business, but it’s difficult for people on disability to get small-business loans.

Everything changed when I got accepted into the Basic Income Pilot. Every month, we got $2,803. I wrote up a business plan and took out a $15,000 line of credit to cover start-up costs— ingredients, packaging, legal fees, advertising—and to cover booths at fairs and trade shows. The great thing was that as a small-business owner, I was able to work around my disabilities. I could work a lot when I was feeling well and take a day off when I wasn’t. I felt a sense of possibility that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Things took off pretty quickly. A few months in, I had regular customers as far away as North Bay, and the gift shop at Beaver River Museum signed on to carry my products. I was making the monthly $500 payment on my line of credit. There wasn’t a ton left over—anyone who thinks Basic Income recipients are rolling in dough is way off. But my husband and I were able to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, visit his parents in North Bay, go to the movies—Spider-Man: Homecoming was my favourite—which was something I hadn’t been able to afford in a long time. We were also able to pay $25 for a monthly gym membership. I swam in the pool every day and saw a major improvement in my legs and my overall health.

I was living the start-up life. Everything I earned from my business was going back into my business, and I had a financial plan that would lead to profitability within three years, just as the Basic Income Pilot was set to end. If things had continued the way they were going, I would have paid off my line of credit and hopefully had enough to get off disability. I timed it perfectly—or so I thought.

On the campaign trail, Ford promised he wasn’t going to terminate the program early, which was a huge relief. But then he got elected and did just that. I got my last cheque in March and quickly realized I wasn’t going to be able to continue with my business. I couldn’t pay for supplies and make my line-of-credit payment. Now I’m stuck with a loan that I never would have taken out if I didn’t have the Basic Income Pilot. I am behind on my payments, and it’s going to collections. My credit rating will be seriously hurt.

To get by, my husband and I are going to the food bank. We’re running out of heating oil, and I don’t know where we’re going to get the money to buy more for winter. The bank suggested refinancing our home to make the payments, but I’m terrified that will mean losing our house before too long. My disability payments and my husband’s minimum wage are not enough to keep us above water. It’s so frustrating because everything was going so well. Basic income isn’t a handout; it’s giving people the chance to make something of themselves, to get out of dead-end situations. I had so much hope. Now I don’t know what I’ll do.

the day in march 2018 when the Ontario Liberals announced their gender-based violence strategy, I cried with joy. The plan included $14.8 million in additional funding for Ontario’s rape crisis centres.

That money was needed. At the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre, where I work, I had been turning away survivors who’d taken that courageous first step to seek support. We had to tell them to wait a year and half before they could get help. The demand is just overwhelming.

The Toronto centre was to receive an increase of $159,000 per year for three years. Ninety per cent of that would go to hiring two full-time counsellors. For overworked staffers and survivors, it was a miracle.

One month after the election, everything changed. We learned the new government would not be honouring its predecessor’s commitment. We lobbied then–attorney general Caroline Mulroney for eight months to do something, anything. We asked for an in-person meeting; eventually, she gave us a 12-minute conference call. And all I heard from her was “sorry.”

Our pressure—and I think that phone call—paid off, at least a little bit. The province announced a $1-million boost in onetime funding to be split between Ontario’s 42 rape crisis centres. The Toronto centre would only be getting $76,000 instead of $477,000, but it was something. Our wait time is down to 11 months, thanks to two part-time counsellors we hired. But they’ll be gone once their contracts end in a few months’ time. The survivors who require our help aren’t going away.

for burn patients to survive, you have to heal their wounds. Currently, we remove burned tissue in surgery and cover those areas with the patient’s healthy skin, extracted from somewhere else on the body. If it’s a big burn—40 per cent or more of total body surface area—finding adequate unburned skin is difficult.

Burn specialists have worked on tissue engineering for some time, and we’ve seen exciting possibilities with stem cells. The real game changer, however, happened by accident two years ago. Someone in my lab came to me and said, “There’s something weird about some stem cells I’m looking at.” We realized that this lab assistant had mistakenly extracted stem cells from burn tissue rather than from healthy skin. We examined the cells, and I couldn’t believe what I saw: they were just as viable as healthy skin. It was a breakthrough. It meant that we don’t need to take additional skin from the patient. The more burn tissue there is, the more stem cells we collect.

We published our research in 2018 and looked for support from the bigger funding agencies. The response was consistent: too experimental, too speculative. But the Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine kicked in $100,000 to fund animal testing, which has been extremely promising. In our large-animal models, skin healed 30 per cent faster and looked much more like normal skin. But a pig is not a patient.

In May, the province announced it was cutting OIRM’s $5-million-a-year funding. The next day, OIRM awarded us a one-time $450,000 grant to continue our research for the moment. We were lucky—we just squeezed in—but if our safety trials show the treatment to be safe and effective, I fear there will be no more money for our next steps. To study severe burn patients—the people this treatment was made for—takes up to six years and costs as much as $3 million. Without OIRM, we’ll be in desperate need of funds, and I don’t know where we’ll get them.

before doug ford became

premier, Toronto had a Goldilocks government—not too big, not too small. Council as a whole could tackle the challenges that come with running a major city, while individual councillors could take the pulse of each neighbourhood. Ford’s decision to cut council nearly in half ruined this delicate balance. The ways in which Torontonians used to influence decision-making has been cut in half, too.

Municipal government is at its best in a school gym or a church basement. Neighbours, councillors and public servants work as a team designing a playground or a safer street, or making any of a hundred local decisions. When the premier cut the number of councillors, he didn’t change the number of local issues that need attention. Now, councillors are faced with more meetings than there are evenings, so we miss a lot of them. Instead of being there to read the room and spot the consensus moment, I often have to decide what to do based on a post-meeting briefing with my office staff. The conversation and the decision are divorced.

Bigger issues are handled by one of council’s committees. The great thing about committee work has always been listening to all the people who come to city hall to give us advice. With fewer councillors, we’ve had to reduce the number of committees. Again, the amount of work hasn’t changed, so each committee has more to do. This puts time pressure on committees, and too often we have to shorten the time available to the public. We learn less, and it shows.

Some city issues are managed by special boards: the TTC and the police are examples. Last term, councillors occupied 388 seats on 170 boards. Now, most boards have no councillors, and the rest have fewer. We appoint citizens instead. Before Ford, councillors collectively interviewed more than 900 applicants for these spots. With fewer councillors, we had to hand off a lot of the interviewing to city staff. Council still approves them, but we often don’t get to sit with the candidates and get to know their hopes for the city before we appoint them.

Then there’s council itself. With fewer members, debates are a lot shorter. This may sound good, but longer debates give councillors time to huddle together and discuss what we’ve heard from the people we represent before we cast our votes.

Another change is a huge increase in the number of items that go to council without going through committee, because there isn’t room on crowded committee agendas. When this happens, there’s no chance for the public to speak to us before we vote. Most of these issues are approved without any council debate.

Being a councillor used to mean being at the centre of a rich conversation about our city. Now we mostly rush through overlong to-do lists. Being an engaged Torontonian used to mean being part of that same conversation. Now it’s more like watching from afar with fingers crossed.