[Marxism] 'Raise the Rates' :The Vital Struggle Against Ontario's Sub-Poverty Welfare System

["Darrel Furlotte" <darrel.furlotte@xxxxxxxxx>]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 56... September 9, 2007
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Raise the Rates: The Vital Struggle Against 
Ontario's Sub-Poverty Welfare System

John Clarke

A drastic reduction in the adequacy of income support payments is key to the 
neoliberal agenda. This is especially true in a country like Canada that had 
earlier seen the consolidation of a basic social infrastructure. However much 
the balance is tilted in favour of the employers, employment insurance (EI) and 
welfare payments limit the desperation of the unemployed and the degree to 
which those with jobs can be forced to make concessions. Massive reductions in 
federal EI and provincial social assistance rates have been a focus of 
governments in the last fifteen years and the Mike Harris 'Common Sense 
Revolution' in Ontario was a very big part of this process.

The dramatic and confrontational Harris years have given way to a more sedate 
pace of social retrogression under the direction of the McGuinty Government. 
Nonetheless, once inflation is taken into account, 760,000 people on social 
assistance in Ontario will be poorer when McGuinty goes to the polls than they 
were when he began to implement his rather dubious agenda of 'change' in this 
province. At least a 40% reduction in the spending power of welfare cheques has 
taken place since 1995. Harris's work has not been reversed under the Liberals. 
It has really only been consolidated.

The demand to 'Raise the Rates' by 40% has been a major focus of the Ontario 
Coalition Against Poverty's (OCAP) activities since McGuinty took power. We 
have challenged the Liberals on their broken promises and duplicity.  It has, 
however, been a very difficult period by virtue of a very serious 
demobilization of social resistance. We have not seen major protests or 
campaigns to place demands before the regime in Queen's Park. The myth of a 
kinder and gentler Liberal Ontario has been able to take hold in this 
situation. Until recently, a major political mobilization around Provincial 
anti-poverty demands seemed beyond our grasp. A broad-based coalition of union 
and community organizations, under the name of 'Toronto Anti Poverty' is now 
planning a September march on the Ontario legislature. Several initiatives 
underlie this development.

After a couple of years of raising the demand for a major welfare increase from 
the Liberals, OCAP came across a provision within the rules of the system known 
as the Special Diet Policy. This allowed for a monthly payment of up to $250 a 
month per person on assistance, if a qualified medical provider diagnosed the 
need. One of the most important fights we've ever taken up came out of this. We 
reasoned that this obscure provision was never intended to be widely known and 
that, even where people on assistance applied for it, would in most cases by 
denied by the bureaucracy of the system. However, we asked ourselves what would 
happen if we could organize to ensure that thousands could obtain access to 
medical providers ready to fill in their applications for the Supplement. 
Moreover, we posed the question of how the matter would be affected if this 
mass of applicants had serious levels of support to ensure they could not be 
turned away empty hand! ed when they put in their forms.

Throughout 2005, a Special Diet Campaign unfolded that provided concrete 
answers to these questions. Over 8,000 people passed through community clinics 
in Toronto that OCAP initiated and these spread to other Ontario towns. While 
the direct results of our efforts were significant, of much greater importance 
was the degree to which an awareness of the Special Diet spread spontaneously 
through poor communities. In that year, spending on the Supplement by Ontario 
Works and Ontario Disability Support offices in this Province went up by $40 
million.

The campaign, however, went beyond an effort to put more money into peoples' 
pockets by utilizing a provision within the rules of the system. We very much 
presented this as a tactic that had to be linked to the bigger and more 
important issue of a major general increase in welfare income. This mix of a 
short term effective tactic and a broader goal tended to give a political focus 
to the campaign that captured imaginations and won support. Medical providers 
working at the community clinics organized themselves into a 'Health Providers 
Against Poverty' organization. A wide range of social agencies helped with 
clinics and spoke out to defend the right of their clients to access the 
Supplement. Many low-income communities, especially immigrant communities, used 
their informal internal communication networks to ensure that access to the 
Special Diet was obtained. Within the Somali community this assumed such a 
significant scale that a new organizat! ion, 'OCAP Women of Etobicoke' was 
formed.

The very nature of opposition to our efforts by those in authority tended to 
increase the support and mobilization on the issue. Despite its supposedly 
'progressive' Council majority, the City of Toronto did all it could to block 
access to the Special Diet. Welfare offices turned away hundreds of applicants, 
often in violation of their own rules. City politicians acted to limit these 
abuses only with the greatest reluctance and under considerable pressure. 
However, the huge numbers of people coming to Special Diet clinics had to back 
up their applications by joining in actions at local welfare offices or at City 
Hall to ensure they actually got what they were entitled to. This increased the 
level of organizing and could not fail to bring home to people that the process 
of applying for a dietary supplement, while necessary, posed the question of 
why a living income was not generally available?

The provincial government realized very well that greatly increased access to 
the Special Diet was beginning to call into question their role of quietly 
consolidating the social cutbacks of the Harris Tories. They acted in November 
of 2005 to revise the application form for the benefit in ways that would make 
it much harder to access. In fact, this measure by no means solved their 
problems. Lots of people did get cut off the Supplement but applications 
increased to a degree that was astounding. Moreover, after a year of working 
with the new rules, Health Providers Against Poverty felt able to resume the 
community clinics and reopen a channel for hundreds of people.

The ongoing agitation around the Special Diet, has meant that the issue of 
welfare rates has been kept alive. At the same time, agitation on the stagnant 
minimum wage has also been very significant in building a clamour on poverty 
issues. The well known efforts of NDP MPP Cheri Di Novo and her Federal 
counterpart, Peggy Nash, to put the issue of the minimum wage on the 
legislative agenda gained a very large amount of support and attention. Labour 
movement campaigns on the issue also put pressure on the Liberal government. 
OCAP is very critical of the degree to which electoral calculations and notions 
of political respectability led to these efforts focusing only on minimum wage 
levels and ignoring questions of social assistance income. However, that they 
contributed to a general sense that poverty had to be acted on is beyond 
dispute.

We should also acknowledge that the inaction of the McGuinty regime on poverty 
also revealed some disagreements at the top in society. The capitalist class is 
not a monolith and it has a (relatively) left wing along with its right wing. 
There are those in their ranks who question how far the process of 
impoverishment should go and can go before it creates adverse consequences and 
becomes self-defeating. So, we have TD Bank economists arguing for a higher 
minimum wage and increased social spending and we have the high profile Toronto 
Star 'War on Poverty.' Such divisions within the economically and politically 
powerful are important and provide an opening for a move to win concessions by 
those directly affected by the poverty they debate.

So it is that, for the first time in many years, a significant grouping of 
forces appears to be coming together to forge a common front challenge to 
poverty. Following a call issued by activists from the Toronto Disaster Relief 
Committee (TDRC), a working committee of union activists, social agency 
representatives and community organizers is now planning for a September rally 
at the Ontario legislature. Demands will focus on social assistance rates, the 
minimum wage and housing. Added to this is support for the 'Don't Ask Don't 
Tell' demand of No One is Illegal. In this city, a demand that those without 
immigration status be able to obtain basic services without being handed over 
to immigration authorities is a key and vital anti poverty demand that we all 
wish to support.

Planning for the September action is in a relatively early stage at the time 
that this is being written but things are clear enough to sound a note of 
optimism. Dozens of organizations have already endorsed the event. An ambitious 
job of outreach in low-income communities is being set in motion. An impressive 
rally, that includes a series of 'feeder marches' by participating 
organizations, is being developed. An event like this, in the lead up to the 
provincial election, could have serious political impact and set the stage for 
more sustained and province-wide mobilizing.

The question of raising social assistance rates and turning back the tide of 
poverty is not some humanitarian issue. It is a vital question for the ability 
of the working class population as a whole in terms of defending past gains. 
For too long, the issue has been treated as a low priority 'good cause.' It's 
time to change that and build a movement that can place demands before 
governments that can't be brushed aside.

John Clarke is a longtime activist with Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

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Join OCAP at the September 26 Anti Poverty Day of Action

On Wednesday, September 26, a broad coalition of community organizations, trade 
unions, health providers and low income people will be challenging Queen's Park 
to increase social assistance, raise the minimum wage and build 
affordable/social housing.

There will be a rally at the Ontario Legislature under the name of "Toronto 
Anti Poverty". Many of the organizations participating in the event, will hold 
their own actions on that day before marching on the Legislature for the united 
event.

OCAP Action on September 26: Mass Panhandle
11:30 A.M. METRO PARK
(Queen and Church)

http://ocap.ca/demonstrations/sep26
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