[homeles_ot-l] submission

Tue Apr 4 10:16:24 EDT 2017

Reuel,

My recollection was that the Rae government initially raised and then,
faced with a continuing recession in which government workers had to forego
some of their salary in "Rae days", froze the social assistance rates.

And that it was the Mike Harris government that actually cut the rates -
and significantly:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/04/26/its_time_to_end_the_erosion_of_public_assistance_in_ontario.html
.

I'm not sure whether you're recommending Ontario keep its Liberal
government, which has slowly liberalized some benefits (particularly work
incentives). Or just demonstrating the importance of getting social
democrats to commit to better reforms and holding them to account.

Marlene
Heaven on Earth is a choice you must make, not a place you must find. --
Wayne Dyer.
So, I support strategies to increase the supply of affordable housing, such
as the Multifaith Housing Initiative <http://www.multifaithhousing.ca/> and
http://housing4all.ca/  .

On 3 April 2017 at 21:52, Reuel Amdur <amdurre2 at sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Canadian Charger   Ontario’s NDP Government: A Sad History
>
> [image:
> http://www.thecanadiancharger.com/cms/contributors/images/5/RA-new.jpg]
> Reuel S. Amdur
>
> More by this author...
> <http://www.thecanadiancharger.com/page.php?cid=5&id=5>
>
> *The current official abandonment by political parties of concern for the
> poor, in their focus on "the middle class," calls to mind the Ontario NDP's
> disregard for the poor going back to the days when they were in power, from
> 1990 to 1995. At the time, I was working first at Seaton House, a men's
> shelter and residence operated by Toronto's welfare department, and then as
> a supervisor in Ottawa's welfare department.*
>
> When Bob Rae’s NDP government was elected, those of us concerned about the
> poor thought we had died and gone to heaven.  Not.  Under Rae the poor
> endured one blow after another.  Prior to the Rae election, each December
> there was provision for a token amount added to the check as a Christmas
> bonus.  During Bob Rae’s term in office, the Christmas bonus was abolished
> across the province.
>
> As far as rates are concerned, prior to the Rae régime, each year it was
> practice to increase rates in recognition of changes in the cost of
> living.  Rae interrupted that practice.
>
> Then there is the matter of a form colloquially referred to as the
> layman’s medical.  This was a form that a welfare worker could fill out in
> aid of a client applying for disability benefits.  I remember being in a
> meeting with a physician who was on the Ottawa board which determined
> eligibility for such benefits.  He waxed enthusiastic about layman’s
> medical forms completed by Holly Murphy, an Ottawa welfare worker.  The
> form was the only designated input by the welfare worker about the
> condition of the client seeking designation as disabled.  The doctor’s
> comment was an indication of its potential impact, but the Rae government
> abolished it.  It became that much harder for someone to get the higher
> disability rate of assistance.
>
> Rae’s government also hit welfare recipients with cars.  They were allowed
> to have a car so long as its value was not greater than $5,000.  ($10,000
> is the current limit.)  Welfare offices all began buying automotive red
> books, to determine the value of cars.  The regulation went on to specify
> what would happen if someone showed up with a car worth more than $5,000.
> The person was given six months to dispose of the car.  In fact, burdened
> by a rule book bigger than the phone book, workers frequently failed to
> apply the regulation.  In her book *Hope and Despair*, Monia Mazigh
> describes her experiences in applying for welfare while she had a car.  The
> first time, she was told that she was not eligible till she got rid of the
> car.  The second time the worker ignored the car and put her on
> assistance.  There was a complicating factor that was never raised with
> welfare: it was not her car.  It was her husband’s, Maher Arar, who was in
> a Syrian prison at the time.  Fun and games with a stupid regulation.  The
> regulation is still in effect.
>
> Sponsored immigrants were a special target.  If a person applied for
> assistance because of a sponsorship breakdown, the immigrant’s assistance
> was dinged $50 a month.  There were a few exceptions, but, for example, if
> the sponsor had left the country the deduction still applied.  Fortunately,
> this regulation is now unpleasant history.
>
> Another measure applied to new applicants for assistance.  While the rules
> for the amount that recipients may keep from any earnings on welfare vary
> from time to time, leaving recipients confused and fearful about any work,
> at one point the Rae government decreed that new applicants would be docked
> 100% of earnings for the first several months on assistance.  I remember
> one young man who had been on a federal make-work program in Kingston,
> silk-screening t-shirts.  He could not make a living at it and came to
> Ottawa and applied for welfare.  I told him about the rule.  He told me
> that he would not be looking for work for that period of time.
>
> The sad experience with Ontario’s NDP government carries an important
> lesson.  Do not be lulled to sleep by a government labelled NDP, or
> socialist, or social democratic.  Assume that, whatever government is
> elected, it is the enemy.  Make it prove otherwise.
>
>
>
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