From My Bottom Step

LTC Knows the Fare Hike is Bad

From staff report #13 in the 2008/09/03 LTC agenda:

The issues and challenges…of the 2009 operating budget…are…similar to those faced in the early 1990’s… In response to the issues of the early to mid 1990’s, London Transit raised fares, cut both on-road and support services… Accordingly, the combined effect…

36% decline in ridership
44% decline in rides per capita
…
And this also: “…the extent of the increase is expected to result in a loss of 131,700 trips, which…is considered a reasonably acceptable loss… Continue Reading

Nutritious Food Basket – 2008

From this year’s Nutritious Food Basket report by the Middlesex-London Health Unit:
Each year the Nutritious Food Basket is reported in Middlesex-London, it is evident that there is a discrepancy between the cost of food and the income that individuals and families receiving Ontario Works (OW) or Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) income support… What has been demonstrated consistently since 1997 is the amount provided by social assistance for Basic Needs and Shelter Allowance is never sufficient to allow for other regular expenses such as food… Social assistance has not been indexed to compete with the cost of living. As a result, individuals and families on social assistance have actually been receiving less funding over the years, comparatively speaking… There is ongoing evidence that improvements such as increases in income for OW and ODSP recipients and increased minimum wages are required… Continue Reading

London’s ODSP LTC Users

Yesterday’s CAPS Committee received a +1,000 name petition and heard a verbal delegation about Public Transportation Funding to ODSP Recipients.
Councillor Armstrong did most of the questioning, although most of it couldn’t be heard by me. Why do committee members make such little effort to use their microphones properly? I continue to speculate if it’s a deliberate tactic so that … Continue Reading

ODSP ‘Day Of Action’

OPSEU conducted a province-wide protest yesterday “to raise awareness of the stress faced by front line workers who handle more than 500 [ODSP] cases at a time.” 01
“The call for a Day of Action [resulted from] … severe understaffing and under funding that has caused a crisis in a provincial program that administers and distributes more than $2.6 billion in income support payments to disabled Ontarians living in … Continue Reading

NDP Pay Pledge

Kerry Gillespie correctly writes that “The NDP have long cried foul over the wage hike Liberal and Progressive Conservatives MPPs voted for just before Christmas” (”Hampton vows $10 wage, MPP pay cut”; Toronto Star; 2007/09/13). He tells us that Hampton has “vowed” to “immediately” raise the minimum wage to $10 “if elected” and then “index it to inflation.”
To … Continue Reading

Khalil Ramal’s PR BS

Pigs at the TroughNotwithstanding the fact that the election writ hasn’t been dropped and this is therefore legal, I find it distasteful that London-Fanshawe Liberal MPP Khalil Ramal’s office just sent out a full-colour glossy 5.5″ x 8.5″ PR postcard.
The justification from politicians for these things … Continue Reading

Determining Social Assistance Rates

Pigs at the Trough
In a 1988 Transitions report, the Ontario government reviewed social assistance programs and found them to be inadequate. Almost 20 years later, some Hamilton poverty activists who are tired of waiting for elected officials to give a damn have decided to lend a hand.1

The … Continue Reading

Social Assistance Rates Act

“Based on some proposals on social assistance reform, that had come out in 1988, but had never been acted upon by the Ontario government…poverty lawyer Craig Foye recently finalized draft legislation for the creation of a social assistance rates review panel… Last week, in a symbolic yet important move, McMeekin…” [editor's note: Ted McMeekin is Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot MPP] “…introduced the Ontario Social Assistance Rates Act 2007 as a private member’s bill, … Continue Reading

Standing Up for The Little Guy

Lawyer Sarah Shartal of Roach, Schwartz and Associates and plaintiffs Joy Adams and Janice Wareham are trying to hold the government of Ontario to account “for the way it treats the province’s poorest, sickest citizens” (”Standing up for disabled Ontarians”; Carol Goar; Toronto Star; 2007/06/11).

Apparently, a class action lawsuit has been launched on behalf of disabled Ontarians caught in the bureaucratic quagmire of trying to qualify for disability … Continue Reading

Nutrition Allowance for Social Assistance Recipients

My letter 2007/01/30 letter to the London-Middlesex Board of Health with respect to a nutrition allowance for social assistance recipients:

Mr. Tom McLaughlin, Chair
London-Middlesex Board of Health
c/o London-Middlesex Health Unit

Please be advised that I wish to draw to your attention, today’s excellent Toronto Star article entitled “Meal subsidy sought for poor.”

In the article, Donovan Vincent quotes the Toronto Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown, with … Continue Reading