[homeles_ot-l] Fwd: Extra $3 will 'buy a Slurpee'; Ontario breaks promise to double child benefit for poor, activists say

[Terrie]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Rae <rae at blindcanadians.ca>
Date: 2009/6/22
Subject: Extra $3 will 'buy a Slurpee'; Ontario breaks promise to double
child benefit for poor, activists say
To: John Rae <rae at blindcanadians.ca>


Extra $3 will 'buy a Slurpee'; Ontario breaks promise to double child
benefit for poor, activists say

Laurie Monsebraaten
The Toronto Star, June 22, 2009


Queen's Park has broken a promise made in March to distribute at least $50 a
month to some of the province's poorest children through the Ontario Child
Benefit, anti-poverty activists say.

Michele Carrier's 16-year-old son is one of those kids.

As a single parent on welfare with a teenager, Carrier will see just $3
extra as a direct result of the benefit when it is fully phased in this
summer, according to the Income Security Advocacy Centre.

"I guess I'll tell my son he can go and buy a Slurpee next month," said
Carrier, 41, who has been on welfare since 2006 after she lost her house and
her job while fleeing an abusive spouse.

About 1.3 million children in low-income families are to receive at least
$50 per month and up to $92 per month starting in July when the Ontario
Child Benefit jumps as a result of the province's decision to speed up
implementation of the initiative to help families during the economic
downturn.

Families on welfare and provincial disability support will see the full $92
benefit for each child under age 18 when their federal child benefit cheque
arrives next month.

But welfare rate restructuring and cuts to the families' basic needs
allowance means many children will receive much less.

Many families will get more, acknowledged Sarah Blackstock, the advocacy
centre's research director. For example, a single parent with two children
under age 13 will get $71 for each child, while a couple with one child
under age 13 will get an additional $108, she said.

"But it's totally irrational. In some cases you are better off by
significant amounts of money because you have a sibling or because you have
two parents instead of one."

Provincial officials say the discrepancies are a result of welfare
restructuring aimed at streamlining a rate structure that was too
complicated and expensive. They argue the advocacy centre's calculations are
too low because they do not include two welfare rate hikes due to inflation
and increases to the federal child benefit since Queen's Park launched the
benefit in 2007.

In Carrier's case, they argue, her monthly welfare and child benefit cheques
will increase by more than $51 next month compared to what she received in
2007.

Children's Minister Deb Matthews, who heads the province's poverty reduction
efforts and spearheaded the child benefit as a way to take kids off welfare,
defended the provincial benefit as an "extraordinary accomplishment."

"We have put $1.3 billion into the hands of low-income people that wasn't
there two years ago," she said. More than 1 million children, most of whom
are in low-income working families, will benefit, and of the 200,000
children on welfare, most will see more than $50 a month, she added.

Blackstock is not convinced. She says the province can't count federal
dollars and inflationary welfare increases towards its promise of a $50 a
month Ontario benefit.




-- 
Terrie ( mocharebyl at gmail.com )
“If you see an injustice being committed, you aren't an observer, you are a
participant.” June Callwood
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and
renders the present inaccessible.  Maya Angelou
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