by Arleen Macpherson
Published in June 1998
As of June 1st, the Family Benefits Act, The Vocational Rehabilitation Services Act, and The General Welfare Act will have been replaced by The Ontario Works Act (OWA) and the Ontario Disability Support Program Act (ODSPA) in accordance with The Social Assistance Reform Act or Bill 142. I waded through Bill 142 (75 pages) on the internet one night recently and hastily concluded that I would not want to be subject to it, nor would I want to have to work by it, or be responsible for enforcing it.
It is a very depressing piece of legislation which will not only create desperation and hopelessness for those who are already struggling to stay alive, but which will also, I believe, impoverish all of us who live in this province. This Act, with its many sections and sub-sections, leaves no stone unturned, no corner uncut, and no penny uncounted in paring down the measly incomes of our most vulnerable fellow citizens.
How can we consider subjecting people between the ages of 60 and 64 to workfare? Who would want to deprive a pregnant woman of an extra $37 per month when she has extra expenses of maternity and baby clothing, calcium and vitamins, a balanced diet, transportation for doctor’s appointments, etc. Why would we want to include the value of food, meals, or services such as babysitting donated by friends, as income to be deducted from the person’s allowance? Also considered as income are any loans which might be taken to pay the last month’s rent or just to get through to the end of the month. Since a person’s income will be reduced by the amount of the loan, I wonder how they will manage to repay the loan? Didn’t Mike Harris say that people would be able to rely on help from family and the community when he first cut assistance rates by 22% in October 1995? This is but a tiny sample of the cost cutting measures included in the acts of Bill 142.
Trying to access social assistance if you should be so unlucky as to need help is an even greater nightmare. The many requirements, testing, and delays seem designed to discourage vulnerable people from even applying. Additionally, “what the regulations do not talk about is the attitude that people will meet in Ontario Works Offices, but this may be more important than any of the individual rules. Places like Alberta brag about the fact that their welfare workers are trained to try to make it hard to apply for welfare. Expect Ontario workers to do the same.” (Social Safety News, Issue 19, April 1998)
I am reminded here of “Helen”, a middle-aged woman on Social Assistance, whom I met recently when she came to St. John’s Kitchen for a work term during her “retraining program” in the Food and Hospitality Industry. She is a trusting person who simply wants to do the right thing. She would dearly love to have a paying job and to get “off welfare.” Helen does very good, thorough, and neat work. She was willing to do whatever tasks were needed and got along well with everyone at St. John’s Kitchen. But she requires ongoing direction and supervision and is incapable of working fast. For all these reasons, she was not able to get even a temporary placement position in any fast food outlet. Sadly, just one month before Helen was scheduled to graduate and to receive a certificate in Food and Hospitality Services, her worker decided that she was not suited for this work and terminated this schooling. Does anyone count the human costs of these decisions? I wonder what it might have meant for Helen’s self-esteem if she had been allowed to earn her first certificate? Helen herself says, “I don’t know why I still call her my social worker. She doesn’t seem very social to me.” Meanwhile, Helen has been shifted into a sheltered workshop where she will attempt to learn computers. Her worker is constantly telling her that if she doesn’t soon get a job she will be cut off assistance. This may possibly be an idle threat but it keeps Helen in a perpetual state of fear and uncertainty. One wonders, whose life is it anyway?
When I discussed these issues and examples with a friend recently, he commented: “That makes me feel so cheap. Is it really necessary for us to nickel and dime everyone to death?” My reaction was similar. There is no heart, no spirit, and absolutely no caring in all of these latest moves to reform social assistance. They are formulated in the name of debt and deficit reduction when in reality, a large part of the national and provincial debt was created by tax cuts to large corporations and the wealthy and by usurious interest rates imposed by large banks and other moneylenders.
A Different Reality
Recently I read in the Toronto Star (April 29, 1998) that the “world’s rich are getting richer[…] in the next three years the wealth of the mega-rich will grow by 10 percent annually reaching $23.1 trillion at the end of the year 2000.” What an astonishing figure! And a mere 20% of the world’s population controls these trillions of dollars in a finance system which David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World (Kumarian Press, 1995), describes as a “global gambling casino.” $37 per month in the hands of a pregnant woman is a figure that I can better understand. It also seems like a more positive use of money or a better bet if it improves the chances for the birth of a healthy child. Instead, a growing proportion of our public wealth is flowing to the moneyed people rather than paying for the society we need. Bill 142 supports and strengthens the corporate agenda. It chips away at all the social gains made in the past 50 years.
Social Safety
The Social Safety News is a joint publication of Ontario Legal Clinics’ Steering Committee on Social Assistance and the Social Planning Council of Toronto. It claims that “one of the most important provisions in the Ontario Works Act is the creation of a welfare police force, called ‘Eligibility Review Officers’ or ERO. EROs are given extensive and quite frightening powers.” They are able to do random home visits at any time, without any suspicion of wrongdoing. They can get search warrants to search homes. They may enter any place other than a home and demand the production of records, computer disks, and data if they believe that they might contain evidence related to eligibility of recipients. The EROs can also demand that anyone in the place cooperate with the investigation and answer the ERO’s questions. If a person (counselors, therapists, service agencies, shelters, food banks, etc.) refuses to answer or to assist with a demand to produce information, they may be charged with the offense of obstructing an Eligibility Review Officer and fined or imprisoned.
As my friend in our discussions said a while back, “This makes me feel so mean.” It threatens to pit service workers against the very people that they are trying to help and even build friendships with. How can we establish mutual trust and support for each other in this kind of environment? How, indeed, can we even hope to build community? The Toronto Commissioner of Community and Neighbourhood Services has said publicly, “There is a fundamental contradiction between policing and client support functions.”
Travesty of Justice/Not Reform
Reform has always meant to me that something was going to be improved or get b
etter. Premier Harris himself said, “We are going to give people a hand-up.” This bill is not a reform or a hand-up; it is a push farther down into poverty. If we put it together with cuts to health and education, abandonment of provincial subsidies to social housing, public transportation, and other costs, it adds up to very substantial punishment of vulnerable people in our midst. Linda McQuaig, author of five books challenging the prevailing economy, visited Kitchener recently. She decries the fashionable view these days that economic costs are all that matter, that human costs are not important. “That simply is an unacceptable formulation. It should be illegal. We’re talking about people’s lives here, their sense of self-worth. They are depriving people of a sense of involvement in their world and in their communities.” McQuaig insists that there are alternatives, that governments can adopt more people-friendly policies to foster greater employment, a strong safety net, and the eradication of child poverty.
Trying to Understand
International finance and economic systems are very complex. But as I begin to understand them even a little I see a total lack of balance and a great lopsidedness. The nickels and dimes that are extracted from the general populace add up to whopping subsidies and tax credits to the very rich financial institutions and corporations who seem insatiable in their quest for profits and unfettered access to world markets. These are very good economic times for some. There is a lot of money flowing around (more than $23 trillion). Why can’t wealth be equitably and justly distributed? How can we say, through our Bills and through our political actions, that we can’t afford a basic standard of living for all?
Let us heed the words of Canada’s Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay, when she says, “Poverty is a serious breach of equality rights which I believe has no place in a country as prosperous as ours.” (KW Record, May 28, 1998, p. A11)
It is a very depressing piece of legislation which will not only create desperation and hopelessness (for those who are already struggling to stay alive), but which will also, I believe, impoverish all of us who live in this province.
