SPNO News

Presentation to the Commission on Quality Public Services and Tax Fairness

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:49:24 GMT

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Background on the piece

Janet Gasparini of the Social Planning Council of Sudbury was presenting at the Commission on Quality Public Services and Tax Fairness. Funded by Public Services Foundation of Canada (PSFC) and chaired by PSFC Chair Judy Wasylycia-Leis, the Commission visited 12 Ontario communities in early 2012. The Commission heard from frontline workers, public service users, community groups, and experts on public services and taxation. Visit http://www.standupontario.org to hear what others had to say.

Submissions in Response to Social Assistance Review Discussion Paper #2

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 17:20:59 GMT

The Social Assistance Review Commissioners asked for any submissions in response to their Discussion paper #2 by March 16, 2012.

Poverty Free Ontario has no central coordinating resources to enable any organizing around this but we did provide a PFO Bulletin and Call to Action resulting from our last cross-community tele-call in February.

A number of communities have used these materials and their own local discussions to get their views in, all very consistent with the conversation that we had in February.Click on the link below to see the submissions received by Poverty Free Ontario.

Submissions in Response to Social Assistance Review Discussion Paper #2

Putting a Face to Social Assistance
by the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction

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Call for Cross-Community Action on Social Assistance Review Discussion Paper #2

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:59:40 GMT

People and organizations in communities across Ontario who are concerned about the intolerable living conditions of recipients of Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) are urged to send a message to Commissioners Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh regarding their Discussion Paper #2 released on February 2, 2012.

PFO Bulletin #9 accompanying this call to action offers an analysis which all are encouraged to use in their communications to the Commissioners. A meeting/tele-conference of 35 PFO leaders in 19 communities on Feb. 10 identified the following questions and key messages as priorities for communication to the Commissioners:

Give the Gift of Dignity This Holiday Season

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:04:42 GMT

Want to give the Gift of Dignity this Holiday Season?

Sign our Petition to Put Food in the Budget of our neighbours on social assistance. An immediate increase of $100/month to enable people to purchase healthy food is a gift that:

combats hunger and injustice
reduces reliance on our already over-burdened food banks and volunteers
is a start at eliminating some of the wasted time and energy that goes into maintaining our systemic, second rate food system for the poor.
is a first step towards raising rates to adequate levels that reflect the real cost of living in Ontario.
restores the right of individuals to purchase their own healthy food
is simply the right thing to do.

Thanks to all of you who sign this petition and help to restore some balance in a world where Charity cannot redress poverty and inequity.

Sign the Petition here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/put-food-in-the-budget.html

Let’s Vote for a Healthy and Inclusive Community

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:41:44 GMT

On the cusp of the provincial election Laurentian University Social Work students at the Centre for Research and Social Justice Policy and others speak out about eradicating poverty in Ontario and what they expect from politicians via the video below

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Let's Vote for a Poverty Free Ontario

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:24:57 GMT

MEDIA RELEASE

For Immediate Release:
8:00 AM, Thursday, September 15, 2011

From Cornwall to Windsor, from Sudbury to Fort Erie

“LET’S VOTE FOR A POVERTY FREE ONTARIO”

Election-style signs are going up in communities across Ontario this morning, as a coalition of faith groups and community-based organizations call for making poverty eradication a priority concern in the provincial election campaign.

The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) and the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC) are co-sponsoring Poverty Free Ontario (PFO) as a non-partisan initiative to urge all political parties and electoral candidates to make a commitment for ending poverty in Ontario in this decade. The press conference in Toronto with various religious leaders will ask the provincial political party leaders to commit to a debate on poverty.

Media conferences being held simultaneously in up to 16 communities on Thursday morning, September 15 will be followed by a “sign blitz” as teams of local supporters place “Let’s Vote for a Poverty Free Ontario” signs on the grounds of participating organizations and individuals throughout their communities. A list of participating communities and contacts is attached to this release.

“Ontario’s poverty rate stands at 13.1%, the highest level in the last thirty years,” says Peter Clutterbuck, PFO Coordinator for the SPNO, “Community members and civic organizations in touch daily with the intolerable living conditions of low income Ontarians recognize that ending poverty is a major political issue. For example, in Cornwall, City Council has proclaimed September 15 as Poverty Free Ontario Day.”

SPNO Partners with ISARC on Poverty Free Ontario

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 19:05:27 GMT

SPNO is working on the Poverty Free Ontario initiative in conjunction with the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC), which is dedicated to faith-based approaches to public policy reform in areas of social justice and poverty elimination. ISARC’s current campaign can be found at www.faithtoendpoverty.ca

2009 Figures Show Growth Rate of Poverty in Ontario the Highest of All Regions in Canada since 2007 Election

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:27:24 GMT

TORONTO, June 17, 2011

Statistics Canada figures released this week show that Ontario’s poverty rate increased to 13.1% in 2009, a growth rate of 17% since the 2007 provincial election year (See Table following).

“Using the province’s official low income poverty measure, Ontario’s poverty rate of 13.1% is slightly below the Canadian average of 13.3%,” comments Peter Clutterbuck, Coordinator of SPNO’s Poverty Free Ontario campaign, “The rate of Ontario’s poverty growth, however, has increased the highest of all other regions of Canada since 2007.” A total of 1,689,000 Ontarians in 2009 lived in poverty, which is 277,000 more than in 2007.

While the rate of poverty growth by age group is lowest among children at 3.5%, Poverty Free Ontario notes that the proportion of working age adults (18 to 64 years old) living in poverty increased from 11.2% to 13.4%, a growth rate of 19.6%. Ontarians 65 years and older also show an extremely high poverty growth rate of 41.9% since 2007, although the overall proportion of seniors in poverty still remains below 9%.

Moving to a Poverty Free Ontario

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:44:22 GMT

The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) plans to launch an initiative to build cross-community support for a Poverty Free Ontario by the end of this decade.

Social planning councils have a long history since the 1930s of advocating for low income people, whether welfare recipients or working poor. In recent years, the SPNO and its organizational members have assumed a lead role in urging the Ontario Government to adopt a poverty reduction strategy for Ontario. Specifically,

In the summer-fall of 2007, SPNO mobilized cross-community support for poverty reduction in Ontario and released a report on “Ontario as the Child Poverty Centre of Canada”, which prompted Premier McGuinty prior to the October 2007 election to commit to the development of a poverty reduction strategy within one year of his Government’s re-election.
SPNO strengthened its cross-community mobilization on poverty reduction by developing a Policy Framework and Blueprint for Poverty Reduction and by conducting two tours of the province visiting 30 communities prior to the release of the Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy in December 2008.
Since 2009, working with community leadership in Toronto and across the province, SPNO has focused on the Put Food in the Budget Campaign (PFIB), promoting the adoption of a benefit increase of $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement for all adults on OW and ODSP as the first step towards adequacy in benefit levels to enable all Ontarians to live with health and dignity.
Partnering with The Stop Community Food Centre and guided by the PFIB Steering Committee, the SPNO has provided organizing and field support for the use of the on-line Do the Math survey tool (9,000 completed) and has engaged 20 communities across the province in the Do the Math Challenge.

Root causes of inequality and poverty

webmaster@spno.ca (Administrator) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:08:28 GMT

Response to Toronto Star editorial

Re: Welfare Reform: Breaking the cycle of poverty, Editorial, Dec. 4

In her announcement of the social assistance review, Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur unfortunately refers to reform that will “empower low-income Ontarians, including social assistance recipients, to break out of the cycle of poverty,” which the Star picked up as the title of its lead editorial.

The notion of a “cycle of poverty” suggests poverty that is transmitted from generation to generation and implies something inherently deficient in poor people rather than placing a focus on basic living conditions, which are the root causes of inequality and poverty in our society.

It is misleading to suggest that intergenerational poverty is the primary source of poverty in Ontario and Canada. Research evidence is clear that, compared to the United States and even the United Kingdom, the rate of poverty passed from one generation to the next in Canada is very low.

The structural conditions that produce high rates of poverty are:

Income support programs that provide woefully inadequate benefits for those unable to work.
Wage levels that keep people in poverty and the lack of good jobs.
The lack of affordable housing and other social supports such as child care.

If governments would address these conditions with investments and action and not just long-term studies and plans, they could take credit for acting to end poverty rather than trying to explain it away in intergenerational terms.

Peter Clutterbuck, Social Planning Network of Ontario