REPORT OF THE ONTARIO SOCIAL ASSISTANCE REVIEW ADVISORY COUNCIL

May 2010

There is deep and continuing dissatisfaction with the existing approach to social assistance from all quarters: community groups, business, labour, policy makers, the people who run the system and those who receive its benefits.

Ontario’s core social assistance programs – Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program – together with the other programs that make up Ontario’s income security system, continue to fall short in providing an economic safety net for individuals and families as well as promoting opportunity to ensure everyone can contribute to the long-term prosperity of the province.

Ontario’s Social Assistance Review report, released Monday morning, called for Ontario to create a plan to ensure income security for the province, saying such a plan would help the economic recovery.

Over the years, different political parties who hold power in Ontario have said welfare reform was needed, and after hearings and reviews, changes would be implemented. The most devastating changes were made under Mike Harris’s leadership, which saw Ontario’s Social Assistance programs essentially gutted.

Ontario will take a deeper look at a major revamping of its welfare system after a report called for broad changes to help the disadvantaged into jobs, Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur said Monday.

The review will take 12 to 18 months, she said, with the NDP noting that means the issues of helping the poor are effectively on hold until after the October 2011 election.

A government-appointed panel says the Ontario welfare system is not working, and is calling for it to be completely overhauled.

The Social Assistance Review Advisory Committee released its report Monday morning at Queen’s Park.

It says the emphasis of welfare should be shifted from providing financial assistance to helping people break out of poverty.

Ontario should adopt a bold vision for welfare reform that includes new income supports and services for all low-income residents, says a government-appointed panel in a report being released Monday.

TORONTO, June 14 /CNW/ – The province urgently requires a more effective system of income security programs that meet the needs of Ontarians in a rapidly shifting economy, says a new report by the Social Assistance Review Advisory Council (SARAC).

The Social Assistance Review Advisory Council (SARAC) has issued a report to the Minister of Community and Social Services about changes to Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) rules that could make…

Whether he meant to or not, the auditor general’s December 7th analysis of OW/ODSP let a dysfunctional social assistance system off the hook, instead laying blame with the people who have nowhere else to turn to for basic support.

The ensuing debate risks losing sight of the simple fact that when it comes to social assistance, it’s not the people who are the problem.

Laurie Monsebraaten The Toronto Star Ontario has appointed the head of Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank to head a panel of anti-poverty advocates to advise the government on a long-awaited review of its welfare system,…

Bronwen Sims calls it Ontario’s “work disincentive program.” The 35-year-old woman, who suffers from bipolar disorder and fibromyalgia, has been living in poverty on Ontario’s disability support program for the past 10 years while doctors help her battle alcoholism, depression and severe panic attacks related to her mental illness.

Times of crisis are also times for tough decisions, as Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said in his economic statement last week. The province has already made the tough but smart decision to stick with its economic stimulus plan. Standing firm on the commitment to early learning is another tough but smart choice.

The next bold move the government must make is to stick to its guns on a comprehensive review of Ontario’s broken social assistance system.

On June 23, 2009, the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC) held a forum on the government’s upcoming review of the provincial social assistance system. This review is part of Ontario’s new Poverty Reduction Strategy and was restated in the 2009 budget.