Income Security Advocacy Centre

ISAC works to address issues of income security and poverty in Ontario

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End Employment Insurance discrimination against women / Mettre fin à la discrimination

* La version française suit * End Employment Insurance discrimination against women In the mid-1990s, Canada’s unemployment insurance system underwent a massive change. At that time, whether or not an unemployed worker qualified for payments was based on the number of weeks that they had worked before they lost their job. Although there were lots …

Changes Ontario is Proposing to OW and ODSP

On November 22, Minister Lisa MacLeod announced a number of proposed changes to the Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) system. We have prepared several backgrounders to help you understand particular proposals and what they could mean for low-income people in Ontario. We also hosted a one-hour webinar to share our analysis of …

OW & ODSP: What is a “Health Spending Account”? / OT & POSPH : Qu’est-ce qu’un « compte gestion-santé »?

What a “Health Spending Account” might mean to people on OW & ODSP On November 22, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services announced a number of proposed changes to the social assistance system in Ontario. Among these proposed changes is the creation of something called a Health Spending Account. While there are currently …

Improving access to justice for Indigenous people: New inter-regional Gladue Briefs Project

Community legal clinics in the south-west region of Ontario, along with Thunder Bay’s Kinna’aweya legal clinic and the Income Security Advocacy Centre, have joined together in a Gladue Briefs Project with the aim of ensuring that administrative tribunals make decisions that better take into account the circumstances of Indigenous people who appear before them. Background …

Important Survey on How Canada Measures Poverty: Jan 31 deadline

An important consultation is happening right now on the way that Canada measures poverty. The federal government has said that it will make the Market Basket Measure (MBM) Canada’s official poverty line, and will use the MBM to measure its progress on meeting its poverty reduction goals. But if the MBM isn’t set up properly …

ISAC Annual Report / Rapport annuel 2017-2018

– la version française suit dessous – The past year has seen many development in the income security and employment landscape, with many more to come in the near future. Check out our annual report to see the key milestones of our work in 2017-2018, including: The release of Income Security: A Roadmap for Change …

What Changing the ODSP Definition of Disability Would Mean / Que signifierait changer la définition d’invalidité du POSPH?

On November 22, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services announced proposed changes to the social assistance system in Ontario. One change would make the ODSP definition of disability more like definitions used in federal government benefit programs. This proposed change would result in many low-income people with disabilities in Ontario who would qualify …

Webinar: Changes to Social Assistance: What will they mean?

On November 22, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Lisa MacLeod, announced a number of changes to Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). These changes include: changing the definition of disability in ODSP to make it more restrictive changing the amounts of money that people in both OW and …

Many questions, few answers, and great risk for people with disabilities

Minister Lisa MacLeod’s announcement today about a new direction for social assistance in Ontario shows promising directions for Ontario Works, but leaves many unanswered questions and creates serious risks for people with disabilities. There is also no mention of addressing the most critical problem, which is improving the inadequate benefit rates for people on OW …