Ending Poverty Project (2008-2010) The Ending Poverty Project was initiated by ISAC and Ontario Campaign 2000 to work with low-income people in 10 communities to share ideas for what’s needed to end poverty in Ontario…
Windsor Our partner, Legal Assistance of Windsor, decided to focus the project initially in two low-income neighbourhoods. Following our workshop in June 2008, they continued meeting with social housing residents in the two neighbourhoods and…
The Ontario government included the Social Assistance Review in its Poverty Reduction Strategy in Chapter 4: Smarter Government. The commitment reads: “We will undertake a review of social assistance with the goal of removing barriers…
On May 6, the Ontario legislature unanimously passed Bill 152: The Poverty Reduction Act.
This legislation is particularly significant because it acknowledges that poverty is not inevitable and that government can and should create policy to reduce poverty.
There are 3 key facets of the legislation.
On May 6, 2009, all parties in the Ontario Legislature voted unanimously to approve an amended Bill 152: The Poverty Reduction Act, 2009. The Bill was originally introduced by government on February 25, 2009. Two…
Ontario finally has a poverty reduction strategy. It’s about time.
For years, anti-poverty activists have been pleading with government to take poverty seriously. Teachers have talked about how poorly children do in school when they are hungry and distracted. Health practitioners have listed the ways poverty makes people sick and costs the health-care system millions of dollars. Low-income people have insisted that they should not be blamed for their poverty, but rather that the root causes of poverty such as low wages, lack of child care, discrimination and low levels of training and education should be addressed.
On December 4, 2008, the Ontario government released Breaking the Cycle: Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. In this Strategy, the province has committed to reducing child and family poverty in Ontario by 25% in the next…
It’s time for a paradigm shift in how we think about social assistance, its objectives and its role. Social assistance programs must incorporate an explicit objective to move people out of poverty, by offering meaningful support opportunities for those who can work and ensuring that those who cannot are able to live with dignity.