Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Workers' Rights Night - June 26
Share your story - Learn your rights - Work for change
Thursday, June 26
6:00 - 8:00 pm
St. Paul's Presbyterian Church
Corner of Murray and Water
Feeling like a second-class citizen?
Not getting holiday or vacation pay?
Working overtime and not getting paid?
FREE! ALL WELCOME!
Come out for a free dinner, entertainment, education and action! Bring the kids for activities!
For more information call The Peterborough Community Legal Center at 705-749-9355
Presented by the Peterborough Community Legal Center and The Workers Action Center
Sponsored by The New Canadian Center and the Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP)
Thursday, June 26
6:00 - 8:00 pm
St. Paul's Presbyterian Church
Corner of Murray and Water
Feeling like a second-class citizen?
Not getting holiday or vacation pay?
Working overtime and not getting paid?
FREE! ALL WELCOME!
Come out for a free dinner, entertainment, education and action! Bring the kids for activities!
For more information call The Peterborough Community Legal Center at 705-749-9355
Presented by the Peterborough Community Legal Center and The Workers Action Center
Sponsored by The New Canadian Center and the Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP)
Friday, June 13, 2008
City Asked To Support Moratorium On Uranium Mining, Council Votes On Resolution This Monday
Safe And Green Energy - Rally at City Council
Monday, June 16, 2008
6:30pm - 9:30pm
Peterborough City Hall
500 George Street North
City Asked To Support Moratorium On Uranium Mining, Council Votes On Resolution This Monday
We need people to come out to city hall on Monday June 16th at 6:30 pm to show support for a moratorium on Uranium Mining in the Peterborough area. Council pushed the resolution forward last Monday in an enthusiastic manner to be voted on this Monday...... but we are worried there is pressure on them from the 'Industry'. So, we don't want to be bothersome, or disrespectful, but we want to be there, and show the councilors how important this is. We have a presentation to give and If we pack the
place, they will see the concern of the people. There is more info on the issue below.
The Peterborough resolution goes to council vote on Monday, June 16th at 6:30 pm, Peterborough City Hall, 500 George Street North. Please be there and help make Ptbo history.
******************************************
On Monday June 16th, Peterborough may become the 20th municipality in southern Ontario to sign on to the growing list of cities, counties and townships that have rejected the idea of uranium mining.
A resolution submitted by Safe And Green Energy Peterborough (SAGE) is asking the City of Peterborough to petition the province to initiate an immediate moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in the Otonabee River watershed. At last Monday's Committee of the Whole meeting, it was moved that the resolution go to council vote on June 16th.
The submission to council was prompted by the seven known uranium exploration projects underway within the Otonabee River watershed in Haliburton County, directly upstream from Peterborough. At least one project bears real potential of becoming an operating uranium mine. All five Haliburton County municipalities have recently passed similar moratorium resolutions.
Information supporting the resolution underlines the possible impacts of uranium mining on Peterborough. Of particular concern is that the Otonabee River supplies the City of Peterborough with all of its drinking water. The Serpent River near Elliot Lake is considered contaminated for a distance of over 100 kilometres downstream due to abandoned uranium mining operations. People are cautioned not to drink the water or consume fish from this segment of the river.
"The communities and businesses along the watercourse between Haliburton County and Peterborough should also be concerned," commented Roy Brady of SAGE. "That includes almost all of the Kawartha Lakes region."
The Otonabee River and the Kawartha Lakes constitute major segments of the Trent-Severn Waterway, which is routed directly through the City of Peterborough. This recreational waterway is central to overnight visitor activity in the Peterborough area, which includes close to 300,000 overnight boating visitors per year.
Within the 19 municipalities that have passed resolutions against uranium mining, about a million Ontarians have been represented on this issue. The Peterborough resolution goes to council vote on Monday, June 16th at 6:30 pm, Peterborough City Hall, 500 George Street North.
For further information, contact:
John Etches - Safe And Green Energy Peterborough
705-748-2219 or email: etchesjohn@yahoo.ca
Monday, June 16, 2008
6:30pm - 9:30pm
Peterborough City Hall
500 George Street North
City Asked To Support Moratorium On Uranium Mining, Council Votes On Resolution This Monday
We need people to come out to city hall on Monday June 16th at 6:30 pm to show support for a moratorium on Uranium Mining in the Peterborough area. Council pushed the resolution forward last Monday in an enthusiastic manner to be voted on this Monday...... but we are worried there is pressure on them from the 'Industry'. So, we don't want to be bothersome, or disrespectful, but we want to be there, and show the councilors how important this is. We have a presentation to give and If we pack the
place, they will see the concern of the people. There is more info on the issue below.
The Peterborough resolution goes to council vote on Monday, June 16th at 6:30 pm, Peterborough City Hall, 500 George Street North. Please be there and help make Ptbo history.
******************************************
On Monday June 16th, Peterborough may become the 20th municipality in southern Ontario to sign on to the growing list of cities, counties and townships that have rejected the idea of uranium mining.
A resolution submitted by Safe And Green Energy Peterborough (SAGE) is asking the City of Peterborough to petition the province to initiate an immediate moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in the Otonabee River watershed. At last Monday's Committee of the Whole meeting, it was moved that the resolution go to council vote on June 16th.
The submission to council was prompted by the seven known uranium exploration projects underway within the Otonabee River watershed in Haliburton County, directly upstream from Peterborough. At least one project bears real potential of becoming an operating uranium mine. All five Haliburton County municipalities have recently passed similar moratorium resolutions.
Information supporting the resolution underlines the possible impacts of uranium mining on Peterborough. Of particular concern is that the Otonabee River supplies the City of Peterborough with all of its drinking water. The Serpent River near Elliot Lake is considered contaminated for a distance of over 100 kilometres downstream due to abandoned uranium mining operations. People are cautioned not to drink the water or consume fish from this segment of the river.
"The communities and businesses along the watercourse between Haliburton County and Peterborough should also be concerned," commented Roy Brady of SAGE. "That includes almost all of the Kawartha Lakes region."
The Otonabee River and the Kawartha Lakes constitute major segments of the Trent-Severn Waterway, which is routed directly through the City of Peterborough. This recreational waterway is central to overnight visitor activity in the Peterborough area, which includes close to 300,000 overnight boating visitors per year.
Within the 19 municipalities that have passed resolutions against uranium mining, about a million Ontarians have been represented on this issue. The Peterborough resolution goes to council vote on Monday, June 16th at 6:30 pm, Peterborough City Hall, 500 George Street North.
For further information, contact:
John Etches - Safe And Green Energy Peterborough
705-748-2219 or email: etchesjohn@yahoo.ca
MPP to Host Poverty Discussion and Media Release: OCAP Not Participating in Sham Consultations: Minister Matthews lies
Local Liberal MPP Jeff Leal to host discussion on poverty in feeble attempt to cover up his Government's public relations disaster (i.e. provincial “poverty tour” which was designed to shut out the voices of people who are poor, low-income or anti-poverty activists) and legitimize their 'poverty reduction strategy' ...
MPP Jeff Leal discussion on issues concerning poverty:
Tuesday June 17, 2008
Peterborough Public Library
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Refreshments and snacks provided
For more info contact his office at:
742-3777 or jleal.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Tell the Liberals we need less talk and more action!
40% Raise to the Rates Now! Affordable Housing Now! Living Minimum Wage Now!
--------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [ocap] For Immediate Release: OCAP Not Participating in Sham
Consultations: Minister Matthews lies to legitimize secret 'poverty meetings'
As you likely know, the Provincial Liberals are currently touring the province with a consultation scam to make it seem like they care about poor people while they do nothing for us. We are going to go to the Toronto closed-door consultations and tell Minister Matthews and the government that we don't need more talk, we need action!
June 18th
3:30 pm
meet at PARC - 1499 Queen Street West
We have been unable to get a bus so if you have one (or a car or van) please let us know at the OCAP office as we are scrambling to make sure we have enough space for people to get there.
Accessibility - call or e-mail to make arrangements.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCAP Not Participating in Sham Consultations: Minister Matthews lies to legitimize secret 'poverty meetings'
(June 11, 2008) Yesterday, during an interview with CBC's Metro Morning, the Minister of Children and Youth Services, Deb Mathews, claimed the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) was invited to and attended a secret poverty consultation.
In reality, these meetings have been designed expressly to avoid interacting with anti-poverty groups like OCAP and with poor people in general. OCAP has never received an invitation to attend these private consultations. These meetings make no attempt to address systemic poverty in this province, rather they seek to allay the public's concerns "within existing resources."
"We don't need to waste our time in secret consultations. We need a government that is actually going to do something about poverty," says A.J. Withers, an OCAP Organizer. "We know what the problems are. Welfare and disability rates are too low, we need a livable minimum wage now, we need more affordable housing and we need the housing we do have to be in decent repair."
The Liberal government would like the public to believe it will make real and substantial changes in people's lives. Instead, this government continues to quietly chip away at crucial money and services. "While they talk about reducing poverty, the Liberals continue to let welfare and disability rates lose ground to inflation. They slashed the Special Diet supplement that let thousands of people eat healthier food, and they introduced the confusing Ontario Child Benefit that means parents probably won't be able to buy coats for heir kids this winter," says John Clarke of
OCAP. "This is not a government that actually cares about poor people, it is a government trying to get political capital by talking a lot about us, but doing nothing for us," Clarke says.
While Matthews is a liar, she was right about one thing: there have been protesters outside of her sham consultations, in cities all across Ontario. This month, in Toronto, we plan to be among them.
**
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
10 Britain St. Toronto, ON M5A 1R6
416-925-6939 ocap@tao.ca www.ocap.ca
**
MPP Jeff Leal discussion on issues concerning poverty:
Tuesday June 17, 2008
Peterborough Public Library
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Refreshments and snacks provided
For more info contact his office at:
742-3777 or jleal.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Tell the Liberals we need less talk and more action!
40% Raise to the Rates Now! Affordable Housing Now! Living Minimum Wage Now!
--------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [ocap] For Immediate Release: OCAP Not Participating in Sham
Consultations: Minister Matthews lies to legitimize secret 'poverty meetings'
As you likely know, the Provincial Liberals are currently touring the province with a consultation scam to make it seem like they care about poor people while they do nothing for us. We are going to go to the Toronto closed-door consultations and tell Minister Matthews and the government that we don't need more talk, we need action!
June 18th
3:30 pm
meet at PARC - 1499 Queen Street West
We have been unable to get a bus so if you have one (or a car or van) please let us know at the OCAP office as we are scrambling to make sure we have enough space for people to get there.
Accessibility - call or e-mail to make arrangements.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCAP Not Participating in Sham Consultations: Minister Matthews lies to legitimize secret 'poverty meetings'
(June 11, 2008) Yesterday, during an interview with CBC's Metro Morning, the Minister of Children and Youth Services, Deb Mathews, claimed the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) was invited to and attended a secret poverty consultation.
In reality, these meetings have been designed expressly to avoid interacting with anti-poverty groups like OCAP and with poor people in general. OCAP has never received an invitation to attend these private consultations. These meetings make no attempt to address systemic poverty in this province, rather they seek to allay the public's concerns "within existing resources."
"We don't need to waste our time in secret consultations. We need a government that is actually going to do something about poverty," says A.J. Withers, an OCAP Organizer. "We know what the problems are. Welfare and disability rates are too low, we need a livable minimum wage now, we need more affordable housing and we need the housing we do have to be in decent repair."
The Liberal government would like the public to believe it will make real and substantial changes in people's lives. Instead, this government continues to quietly chip away at crucial money and services. "While they talk about reducing poverty, the Liberals continue to let welfare and disability rates lose ground to inflation. They slashed the Special Diet supplement that let thousands of people eat healthier food, and they introduced the confusing Ontario Child Benefit that means parents probably won't be able to buy coats for heir kids this winter," says John Clarke of
OCAP. "This is not a government that actually cares about poor people, it is a government trying to get political capital by talking a lot about us, but doing nothing for us," Clarke says.
While Matthews is a liar, she was right about one thing: there have been protesters outside of her sham consultations, in cities all across Ontario. This month, in Toronto, we plan to be among them.
**
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
10 Britain St. Toronto, ON M5A 1R6
416-925-6939 ocap@tao.ca www.ocap.ca
**
Monday, May 19, 2008
Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors
Sleepover: Toronto, Queen’s Park May 26th – May 29.
Rally: Queen’s Park May 26th, 5 p.m. – dusk. MCs: Thomas King and Cathy Jones. More special guests and musicians to be announced. For more info: michelle.langlois@ryerson.ca
Respect the right of First Nations to say no to economic exploitation and environmental destruction.
No jail for saying no.
Free Bob Lovelace and the KI Six.
On May 26th Indigenous communities and supporters including environmental and social justice groups will gather at Queen’s Park to uphold our duty to protect the land, forest, water, and air and to promote respect for our Indigenous rights to say no to economic exploitation and environmental destruction. It is time to end the jailing and harassment of our people for protecting mother earth and traditional ways. Please come to our large rally on May 26th at the legislature. We are also inviting supporters to join us in four days of ceremony, speakers, workshops, music, and a three night sovereignty sleep-over directly on the front lawn of the legislature.
Right now Indigenous communities across Ontario are taking a stand to assert our right to protect our traditional territories and the future of our peoples. Our communities are peacefully protesting destructive industrial projects that the government is permitting on our traditional lands without community consent.
Rather than respecting Treaties of co-existence and the UN recognized Indigenous right to withhold consent over industrial projects on traditional lands, the Ontario government is harassing Native people and jailing community activists and leaders including Bob Lovelace, Donny Morris, Sam McKay, Jack McKay, Cecilia Begg, Darryl Sainnawap, Bruce Sakakeep, and others. This cannot stand! Please join us in supporting freedom for First Nations and respect for the land.
NO CONSENT means STOP the DESTRUCTION to MOTHER EARTH!
We Need: volunteers, donations of money, food, tents, blankets, billeting, endorsements, and publicity.
Please let us know if your group wants to organize an event during the Gathering on May 27, or May 28.
To help out, or for information updates contact: sovereigntysleepover@gmail.com
Supporters: come prepared to take care of your own needs and to take direction from the communities.
This is an event of: Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation) [others may join soon].
Supporters: Christian Peacemaker Teams, Rainforest Action Network, No One is Illegal Toronto, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Labour Congress, CAW Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy, Ryerson University, Mining Watch, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, ForestEthics, NOW Magazine, Defence for Children International.
----
Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors:
http://gatheringofmotherearthprotectors.blogspot.com
Welcome Rally:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=16866967546&ref=mf
Sovereignty Sleepover:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=16866967546&ref=mf
Mother Earth Protectors Walk:
http://mother-earth-walk.knet.ca
----
GROUND RULES
1) Respect the decisions of the community reps and abide by them.
2) Practice nonviolence, bring no weapons, show respect, do no property damage or graffiti
3) No alcohol or illegal drugs.
4) Take responsibility for your own actions.
5) No racist, sexist, homophobic, or other oppressive behaviour.
6) Stay sanitary. Wash your hands and clean up after yourself.
7) Help out with the tasks that are needed including cooking, cleaning, etc.
8) Children under age 16 need an adult supervisor.
10) We ask that you not cover your face or wear camouflage at this event.
11) You are at a public action intended to draw public attention. If you don’t want your image photographed or on video, please turn away or politely ask the photographer to stop.
Rally: Queen’s Park May 26th, 5 p.m. – dusk. MCs: Thomas King and Cathy Jones. More special guests and musicians to be announced. For more info: michelle.langlois@ryerson.ca
Respect the right of First Nations to say no to economic exploitation and environmental destruction.
No jail for saying no.
Free Bob Lovelace and the KI Six.
On May 26th Indigenous communities and supporters including environmental and social justice groups will gather at Queen’s Park to uphold our duty to protect the land, forest, water, and air and to promote respect for our Indigenous rights to say no to economic exploitation and environmental destruction. It is time to end the jailing and harassment of our people for protecting mother earth and traditional ways. Please come to our large rally on May 26th at the legislature. We are also inviting supporters to join us in four days of ceremony, speakers, workshops, music, and a three night sovereignty sleep-over directly on the front lawn of the legislature.
Right now Indigenous communities across Ontario are taking a stand to assert our right to protect our traditional territories and the future of our peoples. Our communities are peacefully protesting destructive industrial projects that the government is permitting on our traditional lands without community consent.
Rather than respecting Treaties of co-existence and the UN recognized Indigenous right to withhold consent over industrial projects on traditional lands, the Ontario government is harassing Native people and jailing community activists and leaders including Bob Lovelace, Donny Morris, Sam McKay, Jack McKay, Cecilia Begg, Darryl Sainnawap, Bruce Sakakeep, and others. This cannot stand! Please join us in supporting freedom for First Nations and respect for the land.
NO CONSENT means STOP the DESTRUCTION to MOTHER EARTH!
We Need: volunteers, donations of money, food, tents, blankets, billeting, endorsements, and publicity.
Please let us know if your group wants to organize an event during the Gathering on May 27, or May 28.
To help out, or for information updates contact: sovereigntysleepover@gmail.com
Supporters: come prepared to take care of your own needs and to take direction from the communities.
This is an event of: Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows First Nation) [others may join soon].
Supporters: Christian Peacemaker Teams, Rainforest Action Network, No One is Illegal Toronto, Canadian Federation of Students, Canadian Labour Congress, CAW Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy, Ryerson University, Mining Watch, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, ForestEthics, NOW Magazine, Defence for Children International.
----
Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors:
http://gatheringofmotherearthprotectors.blogspot.com
Welcome Rally:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=16866967546&ref=mf
Sovereignty Sleepover:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=16866967546&ref=mf
Mother Earth Protectors Walk:
http://mother-earth-walk.knet.ca
----
GROUND RULES
1) Respect the decisions of the community reps and abide by them.
2) Practice nonviolence, bring no weapons, show respect, do no property damage or graffiti
3) No alcohol or illegal drugs.
4) Take responsibility for your own actions.
5) No racist, sexist, homophobic, or other oppressive behaviour.
6) Stay sanitary. Wash your hands and clean up after yourself.
7) Help out with the tasks that are needed including cooking, cleaning, etc.
8) Children under age 16 need an adult supervisor.
10) We ask that you not cover your face or wear camouflage at this event.
11) You are at a public action intended to draw public attention. If you don’t want your image photographed or on video, please turn away or politely ask the photographer to stop.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Closed doors, closed minds, justice denied
The Liberals are certainly no friends of poor, low-income people and anti-poverty activists in this province. After 4 years in office, they have kept social assistance at dangerous subpoverty levels, raising the rates by a paltry 2 or 3% while feeding themselves a hefty 25% raise. The Harris Tories made the first devastating cut to welfare in 1995, but the McGuinty Liberals are to blame for failing to return this stolen 22% to the people.
The Liberals’ recent provincial “poverty tour” is simply more of the same - an expensive public relations exercise to cover up their continued violent inaction. Even worse, the heavily policed, closed door meeting/photo-op at the Evinrude Centre on May 5th was designed to shut out the voices of people who are poor, low-income or anti-poverty activists.
PCAP and allies showed up to expose this shameful hypocrisy. Instead of listening to our reasonable demand to open the meeting to the public, Liberal mouthpiece Deb Matthews and her sidekick Jeff Leal ordered the doors locked and allowed rent-a-cops to assault at least three people.
It is unacceptable for Peterborough City Council to participate in this Liberal charade, and their complicity in this assault on the people of Peterborough is a serious breach of public responsibility. Mayor Ayotte’s comments to the Examiner clearly show that he thinks that poor people and anti-poverty activists are the main barrier, not the police or the Liberals who hired them to shut us out of the dialogue. Shame!
So far, only one right-thinking Councillor has publicly denounced the Liberals’ exclusionary process. We applaud Councillor Peacock for standing on the side of justice and for acting in the broader interests of his constituency. But one is not enough. The rest of Council now needs to follow his lead and become fully accountable to all poor and low income people in this city.
Mayor Ayotte has clearly abandoned all leadership on this issue and fully revealed his betrayal of the public trust last week. He failed to denounce both the closed meeting and the “police” violence at the event, and then conveniently blamed PCAP and dismissed us as “yelling” activists. And he is the City’s model for poverty reduction?
Let’s be clear. The Mayor has never wanted to hear from anti-poverty activists, yelling or not, and will only hear poor and low-income people of this City when forced to do so. Thanks to the leadership taken by people living in poverty, the Mayor had to broaden representation on the Action Committee. Recall that he originally wanted to exclude low-income people from the “poverty” roundtable!
Raising our voices was the only appropriate response to the Liberals’ public relations machine in action. Our demand was simple and non-controversial, and in line with the broadest anti-poverty coalition in the province. The 25-in-5 coalition of 60+ organizations and prominent people (like Stephen Lewis and Frances Lankin) are demanding that the Liberals “move beyond closed sessions” and hold a “bold public consultation process”.
Mayor Ayotte suggests that PCAP should learn how to contribute to the community “by helping other organizations”. Council ought to be embarrassed by this statement because it clearly shows how clueless their “leader” is about what happens in this city. Mayor Ayotte clearly needs a lesson in the real meaning of “community relations”, so here’s a reality check.
PCAP’s record of contributions to this community is clear and solid. For over seven years we have worked with countless organizations and groups (the Legal Centre, Homegrown Homes, churches, unions, the PCSJ, E-Fry, Food Not Bombs, the New Canadians Centre, the Community Race Relations Committee, students and teachers, workers at agencies like Ontario Works, Housing Resource Centre, Whitepath, OPIRG, the media, etc.). We hold Special Diets Clinics, educational meetings, film screenings, provide workshops, and attend community meetings. We participated in the Mayor’s Task force and stay in regular contact with some of its members. And, most importantly, PCAP works everyday with all the fine people of this city who are forced to live in poverty. We constantly struggle, on the ground, with those who access our advocacy services and keep us informed and whose enormous work in the community is simply ignored by Council.
Mr. Ayotte needs to start paying attention. He could learn a thing or two from PCAP about democratic participation, respect, equal treatment and real dialogue. We hold weekly open meetings – no token representatives, no locked doors, no rent-a-cops. If you have something to say about the systems that create wealth for the few by making the poor pay we will discuss and debate the idea as equals. Just show up and take a seat. And, unlike City Hall, we take real action to challenge attacks on the poor and confront issues of poverty all the time.
PCAP’s goals and intentions are clear, and we’re loud and proud about these. We will continue to raise our voices, make demands, disrupt elite meetings and expose the dirt beneath shiny public relations campaigns. We have no interest in making the Liberals or any politician, political party or Council look good as their policies create more poverty and let the rich get richer.
What we want to know from City Council is what side of the poverty line are you really on?
Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP)
May 15, 2008
The Liberals’ recent provincial “poverty tour” is simply more of the same - an expensive public relations exercise to cover up their continued violent inaction. Even worse, the heavily policed, closed door meeting/photo-op at the Evinrude Centre on May 5th was designed to shut out the voices of people who are poor, low-income or anti-poverty activists.
PCAP and allies showed up to expose this shameful hypocrisy. Instead of listening to our reasonable demand to open the meeting to the public, Liberal mouthpiece Deb Matthews and her sidekick Jeff Leal ordered the doors locked and allowed rent-a-cops to assault at least three people.
It is unacceptable for Peterborough City Council to participate in this Liberal charade, and their complicity in this assault on the people of Peterborough is a serious breach of public responsibility. Mayor Ayotte’s comments to the Examiner clearly show that he thinks that poor people and anti-poverty activists are the main barrier, not the police or the Liberals who hired them to shut us out of the dialogue. Shame!
So far, only one right-thinking Councillor has publicly denounced the Liberals’ exclusionary process. We applaud Councillor Peacock for standing on the side of justice and for acting in the broader interests of his constituency. But one is not enough. The rest of Council now needs to follow his lead and become fully accountable to all poor and low income people in this city.
Mayor Ayotte has clearly abandoned all leadership on this issue and fully revealed his betrayal of the public trust last week. He failed to denounce both the closed meeting and the “police” violence at the event, and then conveniently blamed PCAP and dismissed us as “yelling” activists. And he is the City’s model for poverty reduction?
Let’s be clear. The Mayor has never wanted to hear from anti-poverty activists, yelling or not, and will only hear poor and low-income people of this City when forced to do so. Thanks to the leadership taken by people living in poverty, the Mayor had to broaden representation on the Action Committee. Recall that he originally wanted to exclude low-income people from the “poverty” roundtable!
Raising our voices was the only appropriate response to the Liberals’ public relations machine in action. Our demand was simple and non-controversial, and in line with the broadest anti-poverty coalition in the province. The 25-in-5 coalition of 60+ organizations and prominent people (like Stephen Lewis and Frances Lankin) are demanding that the Liberals “move beyond closed sessions” and hold a “bold public consultation process”.
Mayor Ayotte suggests that PCAP should learn how to contribute to the community “by helping other organizations”. Council ought to be embarrassed by this statement because it clearly shows how clueless their “leader” is about what happens in this city. Mayor Ayotte clearly needs a lesson in the real meaning of “community relations”, so here’s a reality check.
PCAP’s record of contributions to this community is clear and solid. For over seven years we have worked with countless organizations and groups (the Legal Centre, Homegrown Homes, churches, unions, the PCSJ, E-Fry, Food Not Bombs, the New Canadians Centre, the Community Race Relations Committee, students and teachers, workers at agencies like Ontario Works, Housing Resource Centre, Whitepath, OPIRG, the media, etc.). We hold Special Diets Clinics, educational meetings, film screenings, provide workshops, and attend community meetings. We participated in the Mayor’s Task force and stay in regular contact with some of its members. And, most importantly, PCAP works everyday with all the fine people of this city who are forced to live in poverty. We constantly struggle, on the ground, with those who access our advocacy services and keep us informed and whose enormous work in the community is simply ignored by Council.
Mr. Ayotte needs to start paying attention. He could learn a thing or two from PCAP about democratic participation, respect, equal treatment and real dialogue. We hold weekly open meetings – no token representatives, no locked doors, no rent-a-cops. If you have something to say about the systems that create wealth for the few by making the poor pay we will discuss and debate the idea as equals. Just show up and take a seat. And, unlike City Hall, we take real action to challenge attacks on the poor and confront issues of poverty all the time.
PCAP’s goals and intentions are clear, and we’re loud and proud about these. We will continue to raise our voices, make demands, disrupt elite meetings and expose the dirt beneath shiny public relations campaigns. We have no interest in making the Liberals or any politician, political party or Council look good as their policies create more poverty and let the rich get richer.
What we want to know from City Council is what side of the poverty line are you really on?
Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP)
May 15, 2008
Saturday, May 10, 2008
THE ONTARIO LIBERALS AND ‘POVERTY REDUCTION’
OCAP Statement:
Are they Trying or Lying?
The McGuinty Liberals have jumped onto the very overcrowded bandwagon of ‘Poverty Reduction’. They have set up a process of highly selective consultation to ‘define the problem’. Then, they tell us, they will ‘set targets’ to reduce poverty and implement a package of reforms to that effect. Implied in all this is an expectation that we should accept it as a good faith initiative. In fact, we are expected to play
along and wait patiently for the eventual benefits that will, supposedly, flow from it.
The first thing that needs to be said is that an uncritical acceptance of this undertaking would be an act of extraordinary naiveté. This is the second term for the Liberals and everything they have done to date consolidates the Harris Common Sense Revolution while smoothing over social divisions with token gestures.
Perhaps we should just take a glimpse at how the Liberals have dealt with the poor over the last few years. They campaigned the first time they were elected on a platform that included repealing the Safe Streets Act that Harris used to set the cops on the homeless. To-day, that law is still in effect, being used on a scale far greater than when the Tories held power. In Toronto, over the last three years, there has been a nearly 300% increase in the number of Safe Streets tickets being issued. The Liberal Attorney General has sent his people into Court to oppose legal challenges to the Act and his prosecutors are seeking and obtaining jail time for people convicted of panhandling.
While an oversupply of upscale housing crowds out the skyline, decent and truly affordable housing remains a dream for the poor. Toronto Community Housing says it needs $300 million to repair and preserve its buildings. Less than 10% of that has been provided by Queen’s Park and 180,000 public housing tenants in Toronto are living in units that are, literally, falling apart.
Under pressure, modest increases to the minimum wage have occurred but welfare and disability rates have lost ground against inflation under the Liberals. More people than ever are being evicted from their housing for lack of income. Attempts to use the ‘Special Diet’ policy within the welfare system to actually provide people with enough to eat have been fought tooth and nail by the Liberals. Now, the new Ontario
Child Benefit, their first step towards ‘poverty reduction’, will not even be the promised $50 a month for those on assistance and will be reduced even further through the elimination of clothing allowances.
A 40% reduction in real income for people on welfare still casts its shadow over the lives of hundreds of thousands in this Province years after McGuinty first took office on a platform of ‘change’. Meanwhile, Deb Matthews, the Minister who will be handling his belated conversion to ‘poverty reduction’, has promised to leave intact the Harris tax cuts that made the rich richer and the poor poorer. But these were
paid for in large measure by the people and families on assistance who had their income slashed. If that is not be reversed, then we are talking about a process of reform that is denied the resources it would need to be meaningful.
If this poverty reduction initiative, then, is lacking in sincerity, we may ask ourselves what it is about. In fact, it has several aspects to it and is part of a process that goes well beyond Ontario.
There is actually a wing of the corporate structure that has become nervous about overly crude methods when it comes to reducing social provision. The Toronto Star with its present ‘war on poverty’ is perhaps the best example of such timid, post Harris ‘social engineering’. It worries about the impact of outright social
abandonment and the damage done by earlier cutbacks. There’s no nostalgia for the post war social infrastructure, of course, but measures to deal with the worst excesses of poverty are something to look at, provided they don’t go too far.
The above consideration, very limited as it is, is the only element of the ‘poverty reduction’ process that has any genuine quality about it. We may also anticipate that a great deal of what Ms. Matthews wants to develop would be highly regressive in nature. Even with the brutality of the Harris cuts to social assistance, the system can still be redesigned in ways that make it more effective in forcing the poor into
low wage employment. By separating the benefits for children from those of their parents, a classical use of the division between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor is to be seen. Once a mythical adequacy has been developed for children, welfare can become an even better tool for driving adults into the most exploitative jobs. Even at this early stage, Matthews is fixating on children as if she actually believes their poverty can be considered as something apart from that of their parents or that the poverty of single adults is of secondary importance.
The roots of the new religion of ‘poverty reduction’ are actually to be found in the neo liberal assault on poor countries. Structural adjustment programs have removed limited protections for poor people and driven vast sections of the population from rural self sufficiency into huge and expanding mega cities, where they are warehoused in squalor on the fringes of economic life. Abandoned people in their abandoned communities are then told that they can be ‘empowered’ and become ‘self sufficient’ through community economic development. The World Bank and IMF, having inflicted misery on billions of people, now offer them such preposterous ‘solutions’ in place of the resources they need.
It was striking that ideas drawn from the international ‘poverty reduction’ industry were present in Matthews’ comments on how she sees her work. She stressed that reducing peoples’ poverty was only to a limited degree about resources. (This is very convenient since the rich have taken those resources and don’t intend to give them back). No, in fact, a large part of dealing with poverty is about giving people ‘opportunities’. Notions of ‘personal responsibility’ and measures of ‘tough love’ are not very far away and give us another warning that there is an actively regressive element to this process.
Of course, the main models of poverty reduction being pointed to are those that have emerged in other ‘developed countries’. Ireland and the UK are held up a great deal. The achievements in those countries were, actually, much more limited and contradictory than they would like to acknowledge but they also took place in a very different context to that facing Ontario to-day. Especially in the case of Ireland, the twenty six county republic was experiencing an unheard of expansion and industrialization. With recessionary storm clouds gathering here and, with the industrial base massively eroded ahead of time, we would be overly trusting to expect that the McGuinty Government will charge uphill for social justice. If this process and its directions remain in their hands, the prospects for any progress in the fight against poverty are bleak indeed.
As Matthews moves from community to community with her little circus, we should note that we are seeing here a specialty of the Liberal Party at work. That body is, after all, the main political mechanism for demobilizing communities and channeling grievances into blind allies of ‘dialogue’ and consultation. They plan to give the poor very little in terms of concessions and to include in their reform package measures that make things worse. The question, then, has to be will this thing unfold as a safe and controlled exercise with the results mapped out by the Government ahead of time or will the demands and the anger of poor people and their communities break through and dominate the process?
If the Liberals lose control of this, it would not be the first time that an attempt to divert community anger has, instead, provided a focus for it. In the early 1970s, the Senate Committee on Poverty became a lightning rod for community anger. The Social Assistance Review Committee in the Ontario of the late 80s did not at all divert poor people from mobilizing. Matthews is trying to prevent this by holding controlled, invitation only consultations. Already indignant voices are being raised and communities are starting to challenge her attempt to keep the anger of poor people from intruding on her sanitized deliberations.
We have been warned against ‘simplistic’ solutions and told that we can’t tackle the complexities of poverty until we ‘define the problem’. We should have very limited patience with a notion that works so well for those wanting to do as little as possible for as long as they can. If Matthews wants a definition of poverty, the amount of money people get from her Government’s welfare system is a good definition. So is the wage people bring home at the legislated minimum her Government sets. When you have to make a choice between paying the rent and eating decent food, that is poverty and it is created and maintained by the Government Matthews is part of. She and her ‘Cabinet colleagues’ need to hear that from the poor and their allies.
Our demands for living income, decent housing and other vital community needs must force their way to the forefront. The Liberal’s circus of consultation needs a large measure of truth and big dose of reality.
-------
The Urgent Need for Anti-Poverty Action!
By Gary Kinsman
Submitted to Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Roundtable meeting in Sudbury, Monday, May 26, 2008.
The situation for people living in poverty in Ontario is worse than it has been in a long-time. People living in poverty have still not recovered from the previous Harris/Tory government war on the poor and unfortunately the Liberal government continues to maintain key features of this war on the poor. The most urgent action needed by the provincial government today is the raising of social assistance rates by 40% but even this will only bring people living on social assistance back to the
place they were before the Harris government attacks began. This is especially important in Sudbury where Kimberly Rogers died in the context of the Tory war on the poor and where Sara Anderson was forced to go on a hunger strike to try to get some justice from the Liberal government and social assistance bureaucracy. We also need to remember that poverty in the Sudbury area is highly racialized with a major
impact on indigenous people.
Listen to the voices of people living in poverty
The people who are the experts about living in poverty in this province are people living in poverty in all their diversity. If the provincial government was really interested in addressing the roots of poverty they would be organizing meetings with people living in poverty all across this province in which people living in poverty would set the agenda. Instead with the roundtable discussions the agenda is already set by the government around particular questions and topics and only a few hand-picked representatives of groups of people living in poverty get invited to these private sessions. Unions like CUPE have correctly criticized the meetings for excluding most of those who live in poverty from their roundtable discussions. And even when more people living in poverty manage to get invited because they were picketing outside, as happened in Hamilton, Maggie Hughes from the radio show the Other Side at 93.3 CFMU FM reports that: “Those that knew poverty, were essentially being shut out of the process again, even though they were in the room and at the table, they were unable to have their voice.”
‘Poverty Reduction’ or Getting Rid of Poverty?
The roundtable discussions are focused on ‘poverty reduction.’ We are no longer talking about getting rid of poverty but our sights have been lowered to living with poverty for a long time. For many people living in poverty this is unacceptable and this does not meet their needs. Think about it this way - do we simply want to reduce racism or sexism or do we wish to get rid of them. We wish to get rid of them! ‘Poverty reduction’ strategies never get to the root of the problem since they do not address the social relations and policies that consistently produce poverty in a society marked by major class, gender, racial and other forms of social power and inequality.
Prioritizing Child Poverty Over Other People Living in Poverty
Poverty impacts on the lives of young people in especially devastating ways but the roundtable ‘poverty reduction’ strategy repeats the problems of earlier anti-poverty initiatives that suggested that somehow child poverty could be addressed without addressing the problems of people living in poverty more generally. The reasons why children are in poverty have to do with the relations of poverty that their parents and families have been pushed into. Without addressing how and why adults are poor no major progress is going to be made in addressing child poverty. It is almost as if a new moral division between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor is now being
introduced and children are identified as the only ‘deserving’ poor. But as anti-poverty activist groups point out all people living in poverty are deserving, and this includes single adults.
The Six Questions
In the context of the above problems with the roundtable ‘poverty reduction’ strategy those of us invited have been asked to focus on “six questions that will help frame our discussion” to be found at the end of “Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Plan.” This sets the agenda for and clearly restricts the discussion moving it in certain directions and away from others.
The first question focusses on children and asks what we can do with “existing resources.” While there are ways that existing resources can be allocated more effectively for fighting poverty in ways that do not stigmatize people living in poverty to really address poverty requires the allocation of new resources including the major raise to social assistance rates mentioned earlier, and the creation of
more affordable and quality housing. Another area requiring more resources is support for early child and youth education and to provide easier access to post-secondary education for young people. Too often young people have to give up on their dreams of higher education because they cannot afford it with escalating tuition fees. Another area requiring more resources is creating more access to quality not-for-profit childcare for all who need it. One place to look for these needed resources is in the Harris governments tax cuts that made the rich richer and the poor poorer and that the Liberal government has maintained. These tax cuts were paid for in part by the people and families on assistance who had their incomes slashed.
But there are also steps that can be taken without new financial resources. The minimum wage needs to be raised immediately to at least $10 an hour for people working for wages who are living in poverty and labour legislation needs to be altered to make it easier for low-wage workers to organize and secure higher wages and better working
conditions.
The second question also focusses on children and existing supports. The above points are all relevant here but we also need to get rid of the anti-poor, anti-working class and white-focussed curriculum that permeates the schools (including the formal and informal curriculums) and the racism that limits so many indigenous students. The ways that the school systems reproduce class and racial hierarchies in our society
still need to be addressed.
The third question focusses on what is working in communities to support “children, youth and their families.” While there are major projects, programs and initiatives that are crucial in our community including street outreach, the Corner Clinic and many others that suffer from a lack of funding we also need new projects and resources to assist and house the homeless and to create safe homes for young people. What
is also missing is support for community-based activist groups against poverty that can undertake support and advocacy work for persons living in poverty.
The fourth question talks about the need to integrate the work of various groups including those in the “not-for-profits, the private sector ... and all levels of government.” The question that can be asked is integration for whom? Is this integration to meet the needs of people living in poverty? Again the groups and organizations of people living with poverty are not mentioned as part of the solution. It is the policies of governments and corporations who produce the relations of poverty so it is far better to look for solutions from community-based groups and those who do direct street-level support work.
It is only with the fifth question that the concerns of other people living in poverty aside from children are raised. One immediate goal which has a major impact on the lives of many children living in poverty is to immediately raise social assistance rates by 40%. The restrictions imposed by the Liberal government on OW and ODSP recipients accessing the Special Dietary Supplement which are preventing people from getting enough funds for good nutrition and health need to be removed. Another is raising the minimum wage immediately to $10 an hour. The minimum wage and social assistance rates need to be raised consistently to keep up with the rising cost of living. Another is to make it easier under labour legislation for low-wage workers to unionize and organize for better wages and working conditions. More affordable quality housing needs to be built and made available to homeless and poor people as soon
as possible.
Another is to get rid of the Harris Tory legislation criminalizing people living in poverty which played an important part in the war on the poor by demonizing and stigmatizing people living in poverty like the so-called ‘Safe Streets Act’ that Harris used to set the cops on the homeless. To-day, that law is still in effect, and being used on a scale far greater than when the Tories were in government. The Liberal
Attorney General has sent his people into Court to oppose legal challenges to the Act and his prosecutors are seeking and obtaining jail time for people convicted of panhandling. And here in Sudbury the Greater Sudbury Police are telling people to not give money to panhandlers but instead to report them to the police so that action can
be taken against them under the ‘Safe Streets Act’ (Sudbury Star, May 22, 2008, p. 3).
The final question asks about how to measure progress on ‘poverty reduction’ and not the elimination of poverty. One major way of signalling a real beginning for a campaign to eliminate poverty would be for the Liberal government to immediately repeal all the remaining policies and regulations stemming from the Tory war on the poor. This would include repealing the ‘Safe Streets Act,’ raising social assistance rates by 40%, raising the minimum wage rate, and getting rid of all anti-union legislation inherited from the Tories. This would only be a beginning but a beginning point that would ensure the people living in poverty were at least back to where they were before the Tory war on the poor started.
The Need for an Integrated Anti-Poverty Approach
It is also crucial to recognize that the social organization of poverty is tied up with racism, sexism, class exploitation, and the oppression of people with disabilities. Justice for indigenous people, including in their crucial land claims struggle is an important aspect of fighting against poverty. Recognizing that the work that women (most often) do in the home raising children - often in very difficult situations with a lack of social support - is vital socially necessary work is another. Related to this we need to recognize that for all too many women leaving their male partners because of violence and abuse means getting forced into relations of poverty. This needs to be addressed as part of any anti-poverty strategy. Allowing working class people the ability to more freely organize unions and to secure higher wages is another part of such a strategy. Making a society that does not have systematic barriers for and exclusions of people living with disabilities is another. And this just gets us going if we are serious about ending poverty.
Gary Kinsman was involved in the Sudbury Coalition for Social Justice and the Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty and is a supporter of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. He teaches Sociology at Laurentian University.
Are they Trying or Lying?
The McGuinty Liberals have jumped onto the very overcrowded bandwagon of ‘Poverty Reduction’. They have set up a process of highly selective consultation to ‘define the problem’. Then, they tell us, they will ‘set targets’ to reduce poverty and implement a package of reforms to that effect. Implied in all this is an expectation that we should accept it as a good faith initiative. In fact, we are expected to play
along and wait patiently for the eventual benefits that will, supposedly, flow from it.
The first thing that needs to be said is that an uncritical acceptance of this undertaking would be an act of extraordinary naiveté. This is the second term for the Liberals and everything they have done to date consolidates the Harris Common Sense Revolution while smoothing over social divisions with token gestures.
Perhaps we should just take a glimpse at how the Liberals have dealt with the poor over the last few years. They campaigned the first time they were elected on a platform that included repealing the Safe Streets Act that Harris used to set the cops on the homeless. To-day, that law is still in effect, being used on a scale far greater than when the Tories held power. In Toronto, over the last three years, there has been a nearly 300% increase in the number of Safe Streets tickets being issued. The Liberal Attorney General has sent his people into Court to oppose legal challenges to the Act and his prosecutors are seeking and obtaining jail time for people convicted of panhandling.
While an oversupply of upscale housing crowds out the skyline, decent and truly affordable housing remains a dream for the poor. Toronto Community Housing says it needs $300 million to repair and preserve its buildings. Less than 10% of that has been provided by Queen’s Park and 180,000 public housing tenants in Toronto are living in units that are, literally, falling apart.
Under pressure, modest increases to the minimum wage have occurred but welfare and disability rates have lost ground against inflation under the Liberals. More people than ever are being evicted from their housing for lack of income. Attempts to use the ‘Special Diet’ policy within the welfare system to actually provide people with enough to eat have been fought tooth and nail by the Liberals. Now, the new Ontario
Child Benefit, their first step towards ‘poverty reduction’, will not even be the promised $50 a month for those on assistance and will be reduced even further through the elimination of clothing allowances.
A 40% reduction in real income for people on welfare still casts its shadow over the lives of hundreds of thousands in this Province years after McGuinty first took office on a platform of ‘change’. Meanwhile, Deb Matthews, the Minister who will be handling his belated conversion to ‘poverty reduction’, has promised to leave intact the Harris tax cuts that made the rich richer and the poor poorer. But these were
paid for in large measure by the people and families on assistance who had their income slashed. If that is not be reversed, then we are talking about a process of reform that is denied the resources it would need to be meaningful.
If this poverty reduction initiative, then, is lacking in sincerity, we may ask ourselves what it is about. In fact, it has several aspects to it and is part of a process that goes well beyond Ontario.
There is actually a wing of the corporate structure that has become nervous about overly crude methods when it comes to reducing social provision. The Toronto Star with its present ‘war on poverty’ is perhaps the best example of such timid, post Harris ‘social engineering’. It worries about the impact of outright social
abandonment and the damage done by earlier cutbacks. There’s no nostalgia for the post war social infrastructure, of course, but measures to deal with the worst excesses of poverty are something to look at, provided they don’t go too far.
The above consideration, very limited as it is, is the only element of the ‘poverty reduction’ process that has any genuine quality about it. We may also anticipate that a great deal of what Ms. Matthews wants to develop would be highly regressive in nature. Even with the brutality of the Harris cuts to social assistance, the system can still be redesigned in ways that make it more effective in forcing the poor into
low wage employment. By separating the benefits for children from those of their parents, a classical use of the division between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor is to be seen. Once a mythical adequacy has been developed for children, welfare can become an even better tool for driving adults into the most exploitative jobs. Even at this early stage, Matthews is fixating on children as if she actually believes their poverty can be considered as something apart from that of their parents or that the poverty of single adults is of secondary importance.
The roots of the new religion of ‘poverty reduction’ are actually to be found in the neo liberal assault on poor countries. Structural adjustment programs have removed limited protections for poor people and driven vast sections of the population from rural self sufficiency into huge and expanding mega cities, where they are warehoused in squalor on the fringes of economic life. Abandoned people in their abandoned communities are then told that they can be ‘empowered’ and become ‘self sufficient’ through community economic development. The World Bank and IMF, having inflicted misery on billions of people, now offer them such preposterous ‘solutions’ in place of the resources they need.
It was striking that ideas drawn from the international ‘poverty reduction’ industry were present in Matthews’ comments on how she sees her work. She stressed that reducing peoples’ poverty was only to a limited degree about resources. (This is very convenient since the rich have taken those resources and don’t intend to give them back). No, in fact, a large part of dealing with poverty is about giving people ‘opportunities’. Notions of ‘personal responsibility’ and measures of ‘tough love’ are not very far away and give us another warning that there is an actively regressive element to this process.
Of course, the main models of poverty reduction being pointed to are those that have emerged in other ‘developed countries’. Ireland and the UK are held up a great deal. The achievements in those countries were, actually, much more limited and contradictory than they would like to acknowledge but they also took place in a very different context to that facing Ontario to-day. Especially in the case of Ireland, the twenty six county republic was experiencing an unheard of expansion and industrialization. With recessionary storm clouds gathering here and, with the industrial base massively eroded ahead of time, we would be overly trusting to expect that the McGuinty Government will charge uphill for social justice. If this process and its directions remain in their hands, the prospects for any progress in the fight against poverty are bleak indeed.
As Matthews moves from community to community with her little circus, we should note that we are seeing here a specialty of the Liberal Party at work. That body is, after all, the main political mechanism for demobilizing communities and channeling grievances into blind allies of ‘dialogue’ and consultation. They plan to give the poor very little in terms of concessions and to include in their reform package measures that make things worse. The question, then, has to be will this thing unfold as a safe and controlled exercise with the results mapped out by the Government ahead of time or will the demands and the anger of poor people and their communities break through and dominate the process?
If the Liberals lose control of this, it would not be the first time that an attempt to divert community anger has, instead, provided a focus for it. In the early 1970s, the Senate Committee on Poverty became a lightning rod for community anger. The Social Assistance Review Committee in the Ontario of the late 80s did not at all divert poor people from mobilizing. Matthews is trying to prevent this by holding controlled, invitation only consultations. Already indignant voices are being raised and communities are starting to challenge her attempt to keep the anger of poor people from intruding on her sanitized deliberations.
We have been warned against ‘simplistic’ solutions and told that we can’t tackle the complexities of poverty until we ‘define the problem’. We should have very limited patience with a notion that works so well for those wanting to do as little as possible for as long as they can. If Matthews wants a definition of poverty, the amount of money people get from her Government’s welfare system is a good definition. So is the wage people bring home at the legislated minimum her Government sets. When you have to make a choice between paying the rent and eating decent food, that is poverty and it is created and maintained by the Government Matthews is part of. She and her ‘Cabinet colleagues’ need to hear that from the poor and their allies.
Our demands for living income, decent housing and other vital community needs must force their way to the forefront. The Liberal’s circus of consultation needs a large measure of truth and big dose of reality.
-------
The Urgent Need for Anti-Poverty Action!
By Gary Kinsman
Submitted to Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Roundtable meeting in Sudbury, Monday, May 26, 2008.
The situation for people living in poverty in Ontario is worse than it has been in a long-time. People living in poverty have still not recovered from the previous Harris/Tory government war on the poor and unfortunately the Liberal government continues to maintain key features of this war on the poor. The most urgent action needed by the provincial government today is the raising of social assistance rates by 40% but even this will only bring people living on social assistance back to the
place they were before the Harris government attacks began. This is especially important in Sudbury where Kimberly Rogers died in the context of the Tory war on the poor and where Sara Anderson was forced to go on a hunger strike to try to get some justice from the Liberal government and social assistance bureaucracy. We also need to remember that poverty in the Sudbury area is highly racialized with a major
impact on indigenous people.
Listen to the voices of people living in poverty
The people who are the experts about living in poverty in this province are people living in poverty in all their diversity. If the provincial government was really interested in addressing the roots of poverty they would be organizing meetings with people living in poverty all across this province in which people living in poverty would set the agenda. Instead with the roundtable discussions the agenda is already set by the government around particular questions and topics and only a few hand-picked representatives of groups of people living in poverty get invited to these private sessions. Unions like CUPE have correctly criticized the meetings for excluding most of those who live in poverty from their roundtable discussions. And even when more people living in poverty manage to get invited because they were picketing outside, as happened in Hamilton, Maggie Hughes from the radio show the Other Side at 93.3 CFMU FM reports that: “Those that knew poverty, were essentially being shut out of the process again, even though they were in the room and at the table, they were unable to have their voice.”
‘Poverty Reduction’ or Getting Rid of Poverty?
The roundtable discussions are focused on ‘poverty reduction.’ We are no longer talking about getting rid of poverty but our sights have been lowered to living with poverty for a long time. For many people living in poverty this is unacceptable and this does not meet their needs. Think about it this way - do we simply want to reduce racism or sexism or do we wish to get rid of them. We wish to get rid of them! ‘Poverty reduction’ strategies never get to the root of the problem since they do not address the social relations and policies that consistently produce poverty in a society marked by major class, gender, racial and other forms of social power and inequality.
Prioritizing Child Poverty Over Other People Living in Poverty
Poverty impacts on the lives of young people in especially devastating ways but the roundtable ‘poverty reduction’ strategy repeats the problems of earlier anti-poverty initiatives that suggested that somehow child poverty could be addressed without addressing the problems of people living in poverty more generally. The reasons why children are in poverty have to do with the relations of poverty that their parents and families have been pushed into. Without addressing how and why adults are poor no major progress is going to be made in addressing child poverty. It is almost as if a new moral division between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor is now being
introduced and children are identified as the only ‘deserving’ poor. But as anti-poverty activist groups point out all people living in poverty are deserving, and this includes single adults.
The Six Questions
In the context of the above problems with the roundtable ‘poverty reduction’ strategy those of us invited have been asked to focus on “six questions that will help frame our discussion” to be found at the end of “Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Plan.” This sets the agenda for and clearly restricts the discussion moving it in certain directions and away from others.
The first question focusses on children and asks what we can do with “existing resources.” While there are ways that existing resources can be allocated more effectively for fighting poverty in ways that do not stigmatize people living in poverty to really address poverty requires the allocation of new resources including the major raise to social assistance rates mentioned earlier, and the creation of
more affordable and quality housing. Another area requiring more resources is support for early child and youth education and to provide easier access to post-secondary education for young people. Too often young people have to give up on their dreams of higher education because they cannot afford it with escalating tuition fees. Another area requiring more resources is creating more access to quality not-for-profit childcare for all who need it. One place to look for these needed resources is in the Harris governments tax cuts that made the rich richer and the poor poorer and that the Liberal government has maintained. These tax cuts were paid for in part by the people and families on assistance who had their incomes slashed.
But there are also steps that can be taken without new financial resources. The minimum wage needs to be raised immediately to at least $10 an hour for people working for wages who are living in poverty and labour legislation needs to be altered to make it easier for low-wage workers to organize and secure higher wages and better working
conditions.
The second question also focusses on children and existing supports. The above points are all relevant here but we also need to get rid of the anti-poor, anti-working class and white-focussed curriculum that permeates the schools (including the formal and informal curriculums) and the racism that limits so many indigenous students. The ways that the school systems reproduce class and racial hierarchies in our society
still need to be addressed.
The third question focusses on what is working in communities to support “children, youth and their families.” While there are major projects, programs and initiatives that are crucial in our community including street outreach, the Corner Clinic and many others that suffer from a lack of funding we also need new projects and resources to assist and house the homeless and to create safe homes for young people. What
is also missing is support for community-based activist groups against poverty that can undertake support and advocacy work for persons living in poverty.
The fourth question talks about the need to integrate the work of various groups including those in the “not-for-profits, the private sector ... and all levels of government.” The question that can be asked is integration for whom? Is this integration to meet the needs of people living in poverty? Again the groups and organizations of people living with poverty are not mentioned as part of the solution. It is the policies of governments and corporations who produce the relations of poverty so it is far better to look for solutions from community-based groups and those who do direct street-level support work.
It is only with the fifth question that the concerns of other people living in poverty aside from children are raised. One immediate goal which has a major impact on the lives of many children living in poverty is to immediately raise social assistance rates by 40%. The restrictions imposed by the Liberal government on OW and ODSP recipients accessing the Special Dietary Supplement which are preventing people from getting enough funds for good nutrition and health need to be removed. Another is raising the minimum wage immediately to $10 an hour. The minimum wage and social assistance rates need to be raised consistently to keep up with the rising cost of living. Another is to make it easier under labour legislation for low-wage workers to unionize and organize for better wages and working conditions. More affordable quality housing needs to be built and made available to homeless and poor people as soon
as possible.
Another is to get rid of the Harris Tory legislation criminalizing people living in poverty which played an important part in the war on the poor by demonizing and stigmatizing people living in poverty like the so-called ‘Safe Streets Act’ that Harris used to set the cops on the homeless. To-day, that law is still in effect, and being used on a scale far greater than when the Tories were in government. The Liberal
Attorney General has sent his people into Court to oppose legal challenges to the Act and his prosecutors are seeking and obtaining jail time for people convicted of panhandling. And here in Sudbury the Greater Sudbury Police are telling people to not give money to panhandlers but instead to report them to the police so that action can
be taken against them under the ‘Safe Streets Act’ (Sudbury Star, May 22, 2008, p. 3).
The final question asks about how to measure progress on ‘poverty reduction’ and not the elimination of poverty. One major way of signalling a real beginning for a campaign to eliminate poverty would be for the Liberal government to immediately repeal all the remaining policies and regulations stemming from the Tory war on the poor. This would include repealing the ‘Safe Streets Act,’ raising social assistance rates by 40%, raising the minimum wage rate, and getting rid of all anti-union legislation inherited from the Tories. This would only be a beginning but a beginning point that would ensure the people living in poverty were at least back to where they were before the Tory war on the poor started.
The Need for an Integrated Anti-Poverty Approach
It is also crucial to recognize that the social organization of poverty is tied up with racism, sexism, class exploitation, and the oppression of people with disabilities. Justice for indigenous people, including in their crucial land claims struggle is an important aspect of fighting against poverty. Recognizing that the work that women (most often) do in the home raising children - often in very difficult situations with a lack of social support - is vital socially necessary work is another. Related to this we need to recognize that for all too many women leaving their male partners because of violence and abuse means getting forced into relations of poverty. This needs to be addressed as part of any anti-poverty strategy. Allowing working class people the ability to more freely organize unions and to secure higher wages is another part of such a strategy. Making a society that does not have systematic barriers for and exclusions of people living with disabilities is another. And this just gets us going if we are serious about ending poverty.
Gary Kinsman was involved in the Sudbury Coalition for Social Justice and the Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty and is a supporter of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. He teaches Sociology at Laurentian University.
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