MEDIA RELEASE: Anti-poverty Activists in Sudbury on Austerity in the Provincial Budget

For Immediate Release

SOLIDARITY AGAINST AUSTERITY
More Austerity Means Deeper Poverty in Wynne Budget 2014

Sudbury, March 18, 2012 - The 3rd Annual Solidarity Against Austerity Rally and March is scheduled for March 25th. Organized by the Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty (S-CAP) and its allies in the Raise the Rates campaign, the rally will take place in Memorial Park and be accompanied by a pizza lunch and musical entertainment. Speakers will underline the ongoing devastation being created by the provincial government's austerity agenda.

　 Governments impose austerity by focusing on slashing government spending and services and jobs. S-CAP member Christy Knockleby says "austerity measures means that instead of buffering the hardships the world economy brings to Ontarians, the government takes that opportunity to add to the hardships, cutting back on social programs and freezing public sector wages. Nothing about this is inevitable, it is a choice that those in power are making and it is the wrong choice."

　 The Wynne government's 2013 budget not only failed people in poverty but continued to push more and more people deeper into poverty. The 1% increase for those on social assistance was less than the inflation rate, meaning that most people on social assistance actually lost money. Neither a token raise in asset levels for Ontario Works (OW) recipients nor a small improvement to clawbacks on waged work counter the Wynne Liberal's intensified major attacks on the poor. The Raise the Rates campaign calls for an immediate 55% increase to social assistance rates to lift the buying power of Ontario Works recipients up to what it was before the Harris government started the cuts in 1995. Every government should be held responsible for its failure to reverse those cuts.

　 Kathleen Wynne is every inch a Liberal. She talks about poverty reduction while imposing deeper poverty on communities. She has been a leading member of the Government all along while social assistance (OW and ODSP) rates have lost even more of their spending power. She was a cabinet minister while the minimum wage was frozen, while the Special Diet was slashed and while the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit was being eliminated. There is no question that the Liberals added their own misery to the brutal cuts that the Harris Tories imposed in 1995. Today a single person on Ontario Works is expected to survive on just $626 a month, while rent and cost of living continues to rise beyond reach. ‘This is unacceptable’ maintains SCAP member Anna Harbluk.

　 Wynne refused to raise minimum wage in the 2013 budget instead calling for an advisory panel to be formed to study the issue. The panel was told that they could not recommend what amount the minimum wage be raised to but only look at how it should be raised. Kathleen Wynne is now trying to use their limited recommendations as political cover for setting the new minimum wage at $10.94 and leave minimum wage workers below the poverty line. The NDP followed that up with a plan that would reach $12 an hour in June of 2016. Workers organizations and anti-poverty groups across the province, including S-CAP, have insisted that $14 an hour is necessary to raise a single person working full time above the poverty line.

　 The Raise the Rates Campaign is also demanding the restoration of the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB). The benefit was a mandatory benefit available to those on Ontario Workers and Ontario Disability Support Program every two years to a maximum of $799 a person or $1499 a family. The fund allowed people living with no money to spare to pay for the occasional large expenses such as moving costs, beds, or stoves. It allowed people to set up a household and to flee abusive relationships. Widespread protest against the removal of benefit, including the arrests of the S-CAP 11 at MPP Rick Bartolucci's office, resulted in a one-time increase of $42 million being added to the replacement fund, the Community Homelessness Prevention Program. That money is coming to an end, and while the government could use this upcoming budget as an opportunity to fix this problem, there is no indication they will.

　 The new Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative(CHPI) is municipally run, so each municipality must set its own guidelines and restrictions. Sudbury has been interpreting the program as applying only to those coming out of homelessness or at imminent risk of homelessness, meaning many of the situations people used the CSUMB for are no longer covered in it. Those needs are instead being ignored or the money taken from discretionary funding, which as the name implies, is discretionary, meaning that people cannot count on being able to access it. S-CAP worked hard last fall in pushing that the city update the discretionary funds guidelines to more accurately reflect current costs. When a person's entire monthly budget goes to paying rent only and a little left over for food, offering the person half the price of a new stove does nothing to help. The city has raised the amounts at least slightly, but the problem remains of what will happen if needs exceed the budgeted amount. S-CAP member Clarissa Lassaline says ‘the province needs to take back responsibility for adequately funding homelessness prevention, instead of continuing to download it on municipalities. That includes restoring the CSUMB.’

　 The Raise the Rates campaign is also determined to prevent any attempt at a merger between Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program which would lead to the imposition of work-fare on those on ODSP. This austerity based UK style reform would force people living with disabilities to make continual efforts towards finding whatever work they could. Such a merger was called for in the 2012 government report "Brighter Prospects" by Frances Lankin and Munir Sheihk. Such a merger would lead to more people being denied benefits if they are unable to keep the low paying jobs they find because of lack of adequate accommodations and increase the suffering of those currently living with disabilities.

    S-CAP and community and labour allies are coming together on March 25 to denounce the austerity that the Wynne government continues to impose and to continue building a movement to force the government to meet the needs of people living in poverty and the working poor.  A pizza lunch will be served at 11:30 in Memorial Park followed by speakers, music and then a march through the downtown area.

    S-CAP members and supporters will also be travelling to Toronto on March 22nd to participate with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in a outside the Ontario Liberal Party Convention.

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