On a sunny Friday afternoon, three servers ladle stew into styrofoam bowls at a makeshift soup kitchen in the southwest corner of Nathan Philips Square. Men and women wait patiently in line for a meal that most will need to survive the month.
It’s only the first day of April but already most of the social assistance cheques have been spent on food, rent, transportation or other life necessities. A monthly benefit of $592 for a single person on Ontario Works doesn’t stretch too far.
A woman walks around offering slices of orange. “We bring all this stuff because poor people can’t always afford this,” she says, referring to the fruits and vegetables that should make up a significant portion of everyone’s diet. Substituting other foods for fruits and vegetables results in more calories and less nutrition. That, say health professionals, is why poor people are more likely to be obese than middle class or wealthy Canadians.
The placards lined up against the fence beside the food table tell the story: “$592 not enough to survive”; “Raise the rates 55%”; and “We don’t need a doctor’s note to tell us we’re hungry.”
As the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) prepares to march on Queen’s Park to demand an increase to social assistance rates, the aroma of beef and vegetarian stew drifts in the spring air and the music plays in the background.
In the meantime, OCAP hands out flyers to a couple of hundred protesters detailing what it calls the Two Torontos. The great divide between the poor and the wealthy. The deep and ugly gap between the rich and the poor that widens each year. One city. Two vastly different worlds.
When Dalton McGuinty became premier of Ontario seven years ago, social assistance recipients were still reeling from the 21.6% cut to welfare that Mike Harris and the Conservatives imposed when they were elected in 1995. Since then, the Liberals have increased welfare by $71 dollars a month for a single person.
OCAP says a 55 per cent increase is needed immediately to keep up with inflation and restore the money lost when the cuts took place almost 16 years ago. But with an election looming on the horizon, the Liberals appear to be more concerned with chipping away at their multi-billion dollar deficit rather than whether poor people have enough money to pay the rent and eat too.
In Tuesday’s budget, finance minister Dwight Duncan announced a 1 per cent increase to social assistance rates to take effect in the fall. In the meantime, the government has revised the list of conditions eligible to receive a Special Diet Allowance in hopes of reducing the costs associated with the program that increased from $6 million in 2003 to more than $200 million in 2008.
The Liberals removed conditions that (in their opinion) do not require a special diet and now make recipients consent to the release of medical information to support their application. The changes took effect today and the allowance still remains capped at $250 per month.
Beyond the changes to the Special Diet Allowance, the government has done nothing to relax the stringent limits on assets and earned income. For a person on Ontario Works, the maximum asset level is equal to one month’s assistance. When people earn money, the province takes half of what they earn off their monthly benefits cheque.
Across the street, Duncan addresses the Economic Club of Canada at the Sheraton Hotel. For $90 a seat, guests sit and listen to the finance minister discuss the 2011 budget initiatives followed by a question and answer session.
OCAP has a lot of questions for Dwight Duncan. So after lunch the group and its supporters cross Queen Street and gather in the shade on the sidewalk at the front entrance to the hotel. OCAP organizer John Clarke wants to know why the finance minister is increasing social assistance rates by less than the rate of inflation, pushing poor people deeper into poverty.
“People today are poorer under Dalton McGuinty than they were under Mike Harris,” says Clarke, standing in front of an OCAP banner that says “United We Eat, Divided We Starve.”
On April 3, 1935, the city’s unemployed marched on Queen’s Park under a banner that used the same words.
“They organized a movement that was so powerful that the authorities had to take it into account. They were prepared to fight to win and we have to build a movement today that fights to win.”
In the background, Grade 7 and 8 students from City View Alternative Senior School, who remained on the sidewalk on the north side of Queen Street, chant “Raise the Rates, Raise the Rates.”
The school is located on the third floor of Shirley Street Public School in the Dundas and Lansdowne area and has been operating for 12 years. Its unique approach to learning draws students from all across the city who, among other things, study math from a social justice perspective.
Back in front of the hotel, Ursula, a single mother struggling to raise her son, replaces Clarke behind the microphone.
“We can empower each other so that the many can become one voice,” says Ursula.
After a few more speeches, the students from City View take charge with a performance about Rob Ford’s Gravy Train. “The top ten per cent of adults own 53 per cent of all private wealth,” says one student with the aid of a megaphone.
To illustrate their point, the students set up 10 chairs on the sidewalk that are facing the street. One student is leisurely occupying five of the chairs while five students are forced to sit on one chair at the far end.
“The next ten per cent own 17 per cent of all private wealth; the next ten per cent own ten and a half per cent of the private wealth.”
Moments later, the protesters in front of the Sheraton move past a line of bike cops and on to Queen Street. The police quickly block traffic from traveling both ways on Queen between Bay and York Streets. From here, the protesters begin to march west along Queen and north on University Avenue to Queen’s Park to deliver their message to the premier.
The students join the end of the march. Two of them carry a banner that says “Hey McGuinty, If We Get It, Why Don’t You?”
An obvious reference to the fact that even a bunch of Grade 7 and 8 students have figured out that you can’t eat and pay rent on $592 per month.
Click here to see more photos from the rally and march.
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