Yesterday, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy announced a one-time “Taxpayer Rebate” worth $200 to all taxpayers in the province as a Fall Economic Statement 2024 surprise. Ontario families who qualify for the Canada Child Benefit for 2024 will also receive the $200 rebate for each eligible child under 18.
The news of the “surprise” had broken out last week and the reactions have been mixed. An article in The Star summed up what many had been thinking: “The cash injection could also give Ford a political boost as he considers calling an election more than a year ahead of the scheduled June 2026 vote”.
Amid high grocery prices and cost of living, Ontarians could use some good news in the Fall Economic Statement, especially low-income Ontarians, including the nearly one million people receiving social assistance. Approximately 1 in 15 Ontarians receive social assistance, forcing them and their families into a constant struggle with abject poverty and inequality.
Ontario Works (OW) rates have been effectively frozen since 2018 to a punishingly and unjustifiably low $733 maximum per month for a single Ontarian. Considering a 20 per cent increase in the prices of goods and services since 2018, no increase in the rates essentially means a reduction of the rates. Ontario Disability Support Program recipients saw a $60 year-over-year increase due to an inflation-related adjustment this year, but this amount does little to mend the $11,727 gap between their total welfare incomes and the poverty line.
While it’s good to “put money back into people’s pockets”, there are a few pockets that need this money more than others. The Fall Economic Statement does not suggest that the rebate will be means-tested or a sliding scale will be applied. To the contrary, Premier Ford himself justified giving a $200 rebate to millionaires and billionaires because “They’re taxpayers.” It is also unclear whether the one-time payments will be considered income or assets when determining eligibility for social assistance programs and would result in clawback on the recipients’ social assistance income.
While we will get more clarity as the rebate rolls out early next year, one thing is for sure: a one-time $200 payment irrespective of wealth is a much less prudent use of the province’s money than targeted investment in the systems that inadvertently trap Ontarians into poverty.
The $3.0 billion allocated for the rebate would go a long way in making the changes that vulnerable Ontarians have been consistently asking for from the government. It would cost about $335.5 million to index OW to inflation (using a 2018 base rate) for single individuals, who make up almost 70% of total OW cases. A targeted policy decision like this could immediately and sustainably alleviate the condition of a group that experiences the highest rates of poverty in the country. And it would cost about one-tenth of what the government is promising to provide as a one-time payment to everyone in the province, irrespective of need.
The disregard for low-income Ontarians has now become a recurring theme in government expenditures. Despite underspending $1.2 billion necessary to keep existing social assistance programs operating in 2025-26 and a 6.6 billion projected deficit, somehow the Ford government has decided the best way to spend $3.0 billion derived from the capital gains tax is on what amounts to an election-year rebate.
One-time cash infusions are not going to stop the gap between the rich and the poor from widening ever further. For a wealthy person, this $200 rebate is the cost of a fancy dinner, or maybe a designer T-shirt. For low-income, vulnerable Ontarians, $200 could be a month’s worth of groceries, or the cost of a whole (second-hand) winter wardrobe. But then what? The empty cupboard remains empty, and next month’s bills still need to be paid.
Increasing social assistance rates would go a lot further to bring more stability to the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people currently expected to live on $733 a month, and it would cost taxpayers less than $3.0 billion. If the Ford government is ready to open the province’s coffers to help people in need, let’s make it count through raising social assistance rates.
ISAC is running a campaign to increase OW rates: click here to send a letter to the Premier and your MPP to let them know you want to see social assistance rates in Ontario increased!