Province makes it harder to qualify for ODSP
Reforms will allow benefit recipients to earn more
Peterborough-Kawartha MPP Dave Smith said the Ontario government’s changes to social assistance will help people return to work — but some local anti-poverty advocates said the changes won’t help people in their struggle to meet their most basic needs.
“They (the government) have no plan to alleviate poverty,” said Joanne Bazak-Brokking of Income Security Peterborough in an interview Thursday.
The reforms include one change that Bazak-Brokking likes: recipients of Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) will be allowed to keep more of their earnings before their support is clawed back.
But there’s no increase in the “woefully inadequate” social assistance rates, she said, which means people will still struggle to pay the rent and buy food.
“It’s the lack of plan that addresses poverty that concerns us,” Bazak-Brokking said.
The overhaul to the Ontario Works and ODSP was announced Thursday at Queen’s Park.
The provincial government will change its definition of disability, among other changes, so it is closer to the federal government’s definition.
Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod said those currently receiving disability supports from the province will be grandfathered in but would not say whether fewer would be able to qualify in the future.
Bazak-Brokking said the criteria to qualify for disability benefits under the Canada Pension Plan is far more stringent than the province’s criteria.
People on ODSP will be able to earn $6,000 a year without having their support reduced, rather than the current $200 a month.
Those receiving support through Ontario Works will be able to take home $300 a month before seeing a drop in assistance, compared with the current $200. They would also have a 25 per cent exemption on any further earnings.
Smith wasn’t available for comment on Thursday.
The Progressive Conservative MPP’s office sent a release to
The Examiner with quotes attributed to Smith that were wordfor-word the same as quotes from two ministers in Queen’s Park press releases.
“Today is the first step in restoring dignity, encouraging employment and empowering the province’s most vulnerable to break free from a cycle of poverty,” Smith stated in the prepared press release issued by his office.
That quote is attributed in an Ontario government news release to Colleges, Training and Education Minister Merrilee Fullerton.
“Our plan is about a more effective, sustainable approach to helping people prepare to return to work and achieve better outcomes,” states Smith in his office’s release.
The same quote is also attributed to MacLeod in the government’s release.
Jim Russell, the CEO of the United Way in Peterborough, said in a phone interview Thursday he’s concerned about “the language of compassion” used in government press releases.
“With that language… there’s some judgment,” he said.
There’s a stigma attached when people receive social assistance, Russell said — and that stigma might have been erased if the province had further investigated the possibility of a Basic Income Guarantee.
But in July the province killed a three-year pilot project that provided payments to 4,000 lowincome earners in cities such as Hamilton, Brantford, Thunder Bay and Lindsay.
Christian Harvey, the director of the Warming Room emergency shelter in Peterborough, said he was also glad to see that people will be able to earn more money before their social assistance is clawed back.
But he doubts the Progressive Conservatives’ plan will encourage people to get back to work when there are so few jobs available in the first place.
Meanwhile he said the city’s emergency shelters are all full to capacity, and there are very few apartments available for rent.
Not that the homeless can afford apartments: rents are expensive, and Harvey said social assistance isn’t enough to live on.
“We need to make it so that people don’t live in a constant state of anxiety about meeting their basic needs,” he said. “Housing should be a right for everyone.”