Deepening poverty will cost a pound of cure

The Ford government is moving full steam ahead with changes which will significantly increase poverty in the province. It has cancelled the Basic Income Pilot. It has reduced protections for low wage workers including cancelling the minimum wage increase and reducing the number of paid sick days permitted. On Nov. 22, it announced more changes including a grossly inadequate 1.5 per cent increase to social assistance rates and a promise to restrict the definition of disability so that fewer disabled Ontarians will qualify for the Ontario Disability Support Program.

What does this mean for our community?

In Peterborough, emergency shelters are full to capacity and have been all summer long. More people have been forced to live rough outdoors than ever before according to the city’s Social Services department. The rental vacancy rate is 1.5 per cent with much of the available housing far from affordable for someone living on Ontario Works who receives $733 per month. Imagine – $733 dollars to pay your rent, utilities, phone, groceries, transportation, clothing, and everything else.

Poverty represents a huge preventable threat to the health of Ontarians. We see this every day in our work.

Recently a young man came into a primary care clinic for an appointment. He laid his coat on the waiting room floor and lay down on it. When asked if he was all right, he responded “I’m just exhausted. I’ve been walking the streets for the past 3 nights because I can’t find a shelter bed.” Imagine being so exhausted that you would lay down to sleep on the floor of a busy waiting room full of strangers.

Another time, a young woman living in a tent in a secluded area in the city’s west end was given a prescription for her asthma medication. She could not fill it because she had no drug benefits because, as she said,“I work part-time at Walmart.” She had a minimum wage job with no benefits that did not allow her to afford a place to live.

The one-two punch of weakened worker protections and weakened social assistance programs is a deadly combination that will worsen the health of low-income Ontarians. Far from ending hallway medicine, it is sure to entrench it.

The Ontario government has announced that the province is “Open for Business.” Clearly to accomplish this it intends to drive down wages, increase precarious work, and, as an added bonus, consign thousands of disabled individuals to languish in abject poverty.

As health care providers treating the effects of poverty on a daily basis, we call on the Ford government to reinstate the worker protections contained in Bill 148; to continue the Basic Income pilot; to substantively increase social assistance rates; and to keep the current disability benefits eligibility criteria. All of this will amount to a prudent ounce of prevention which will reduce Ontario’s chronic disease burden and prevent taxpayers from having to foot the bill for the very expensive pound of cure that will be required if it does not. Peterborough Healthcare Providers Against Poverty is a voluntary organization of healthcare providers who work to eliminate poverty and to increase equitable access to housing, food security, adequate income, and healthcare.