HUMOUR:

MOTIVATION ?:

CANADIAN LABOUR SASKATCHEWAN:

RALLY TO SAVE REGINA WELFARE RIGHTS CENTRE:

You can be assured that something like a 'Welfare Rights Centre' wouldn't be of top of the popularity list of people such as Saskatchewan Party (conservative) Premier Brad Wall. After all the idea that anybody on welfare has "rights" is enough to double the necessary dose of blood pressure meds for such as these. That's all fine and good, but then the employees of this centre had the effrontery to actually unionize in Local 4973 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). When a campaign of harassment and selective dismissals failed to bend the workers involved it was time to close the centre entirely which is happening this month. What follows is a news story from CUPE about a demonstration held on the 24th of January to demand the centre stay open.

The government has replied to a continued campaign for the centre with a stony silence, but no doubt there is a certain amount of smug glee amongst conservative ideologues in Molly's old home province. After 35 years of operation there is suddenly no longer any need for an ombudsman-like agency to advocate for the poor ? Now that a bright new day of free enterprise has dawned the poor are at last free to go out and get jobs...or perhaps free to starve to death silently.

Now I must say that I am not a great fan of the welfare system. Even without some almost miraculous change to a new and freer society, however, there are better ways to handle the actual problems than what has been created by decades of bureaucratic empire building. Better for both the recipients and for society in general. If, however, we are stuck with the system as it is, or with only minor tinkering with it, then the existence of an outside advocate for people trapped in the system is essential. It's the old "division of power" and "checks and balances" idea that is actually one of the better inventions to come about in politics. Without such an advocate welfare recipients are reduced to little more than helpless toys in the hands of a bureaucracy.

But enough editorializing. Here's the story. You can follow the story more as it develops at the website of the Saskatchewan division of CUPE or at the 'Support Welfare Rights Workers' Facebook page.

WRWRWRWRWR

Regina Welfare Rights rally

“Who is going to care for our clients? How will they cope?” asks Theresa Poness, a staff member at the Welfare Rights Centre in Regina.

Speaking at a rally in downtown Regina on January 24, Poness said she and her co-workers, members of CUPE 4973, are worried about how Regina’s most vulnerable citizens will manage when the Centre’s doors close next month.

The Welfare Rights Centre has provided advocacy and support services for people on low incomes for 35 years. But the government plans to terminate the Centre’s funding on February 25.

That doesn’t sit well with CUPE and anti-poverty activists. They have been trying to arrange a meeting with Social Services Minister June Draude for months, but have received no response. Yesterday, they took their concerns to the front door of the Social Services building.

“Silence is not an appropriate response from a Minister,” CUPE National President Paul Moist told the rally. Moist attended the rally with National Secretary-Treasurer Claude Généreux and CUPE staff. “People on low-incomes in this city need these services and our members need these jobs.” He urged the Minister to arrange a meeting.

Anti-poverty activist Peter Gilmer told the crowd, “The city desperately needs to maintain the valuable work of the Welfare Rights Centre,” noting other anti-poverty groups don’t have the capacity to handle the extra workload.

“Advocacy is a critically important service,” Gilmer said. “Those with wealth and power can protect their own interests. We need more people, not less, to defend those who cannot. We must ensure these services continue,” he told the rally.

For more information, check out CUPE’s facebook page Support Welfare Rights Workers

CANADIAN ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-TORONTO:

TORONTO WELFARE OFFICE OCCUPIED:

The following story and appeal for assistance comes from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). If you're down Toronto way see if you can't drop by and lend a hand.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

URGENT: Angry Occupation of Metro Hall Happening Now:‏
December 8, 2009 11:11:04 AM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

More Than 150 Angry Social Assistance Recipients Storm and Occupy

Municipal Welfare Offices

OCCUPATION HAPPENING NOW:

Metro Hall

55 John Street

South-east corner of King and John (two blocks east of Spadina)

COME OUT AND SUPPORT THE ONGOING OCCUPATION. DEMAND THE CITY RELEASE MONEY PEOPLE NEED TO SURVIVE.

December 8th, 2009 - Members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and more than 150 people struggling to survive on Ontario Works and ODSP are presently occupying the 12th floor of Toronto's Metro Hall.

The group is refusing to leave until they receive the Special Diet Benefit that they are entitled to.

The City is responsible for administering social assistance in Toronto, and people are currently being denied their right to the Special Diet Benefit. More people than ever are being forced to live on welfare in Ontario. They face two major problems. First of all, the income they receive does not let them pay their rent and feed their families properly.

Secondly, welfare offices do all they can to deny even the small benefits people are supposed to get. When they apply for Special Diet, Community Start Up and other benefits, they are denied their rights. This must stop.

COME OUT AND SUPPORT THE ONGOING OCCUPATION. DEMAND THE CITY RELEASE MONEY PEOPLE NEED TO SURVIVE.

OCCUPATION HAPPENING NOW:

Metro Hall

55 John Street

South-east corner of King and John (two blocks east of Spadina)

**

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty

10 Britain St.

Toronto, ON

M5A 1R6

416-925-6939

ocap@tao.ca

www.ocap.ca

**

CANADIAN POLITICS-TORONTO:

OCAP'S FALL FIGHT BACK:
The following event notices are from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).
@@@@@@@@@@
[ocap] Fall Fight Back - October 23rd and November 5th:
JOIN US!‏:
Fall Fight Back
1) October 23rd: Mass OW/ODSP case action
2) November 5th Meal and March on the Financial District.
All Details are below.
GET INVOLVED!
OCAP Meets every other Monday - contact the office to meet up and get involved for these two important actions and beyond.
________________
1) Mass Case Action:
Come out and defend people on social assistance. Friday, October 23rd
From Downtown:
11:45 Meeting at Kipling Station
*Tokens Available through the Office
Atwell:
12.30 PM
North East Corner of Atwell and Dixon
Coming from downtown: meet inside Kipling Station at 11:45am (tokens provided)
Wilson:
Get on the bus at 2pm at:
- Jane and Finch
- Jane and Sheppard
- Falstaff
or, the corner of Jane & Wilson at 2:30pm




As a lead up to the November 5th Campaign for a Poverty Free Ontario Province-Wide Day of Action, OCAP, Jane Finch Action Against Poverty and a number of people on social assistance will be conducting 2 mass case actions on October 23rd at two of the most notoriously bad welfare offices in Toronto: Atwell and Wilson.




Today, more people than ever are being forced to live on welfare in Ontario. They face two major problems. First of all, the income they receive does not let them pay their rent and feed their families properly. Secondly, welfare offices like Atwell and Wilson do all they can to deny even the small benefits people are supposed to get. When they apply for Special Diet, Community Start Up and other benefits, they are denied their rights.
This must stop.
To the Government, we say "Raise Welfare Rates by 40% Right Now!"
To Toronto Social Services and its Atwell and Wilson Offices, we say, "Give people all they are entitled to and treat us with dignity and respect".
Come out and help us deliver this message and build an organization in our community that can force the Atwell and Wilson offices to stop the abuses it presently gets away with.
For more info contact the Ocap office: 416-925-6939
__________________
2) No More Band-Aids or Bail-Outs for the Rich
OCAP Meal and March on Financial District As part of the Campaign for a Poverty Free Ontario
Province-Wide Day of Action
___________________
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
1:30 pm
St. James Park (King St. East and Jarvis St.)
__________________
For years, they have been telling us no money exists for decent wages, proper housing, childcare, education or health care and, certainly, no money to ensure that poor people on assistance can pay the rent and eat properly. Yet when the banks and corporations ask for help, public money suddenly becomes available to them. Money that lines the pockets of CEO's while thousands are laid off, forced in to precarious work,or living in total poverty.




For poor people in Ontario, this economic crisis has rubbed salt in our wounds. We've been living with too little for far too long. This downturn is unfolding in a context where social supports have already been cut back and devastated. All three levels of government have made clear they will not put resources into social programs crucial to our survival. In fact, as the downturn cuts into revenues, governments will likely try to cut vital programs in order to balance their books. As this system moves into crisis, those in power move to profit once again at our expense.




This is capitalism's crisis - they broke it, and we’re not paying to fix it!




For the needs of poor and working class people, nothing will be provided unless we fight together. We should not wait for a corrupt and brutal system to fix itself, we should organize and fight to win real and just demands.




Join us on Thursday, November 5th!
We demand:
-Affordable and Accessible Housing: immediate increase to social housing and access to proper shelter supports
-Decent Income: immediate increase to Social Assistance by 40%, immediate increase to (Un)Employment Insurance and Minimum Wage
-Status for all immigrants and refugees: access to services without fear
-Justice For First Nations: stop economic warfare and recognize sovereignty
-Affordable and Accessible Education
<><><><><><><><><>
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
416-925-6939
www.ocap.ca
<><><><><><><><><>

CANADIAN POLITICS-ONTARIO:

ONTARIO'S 'POVERTY REDUCTION' STRATEGY HEADING FOR CRISIS:

As economic hard times take hold, especially in the province of Ontario, so dependant upon manufacturing jobs that are fast disappearing, the present Liberal government of that province holds fast to its outdated strategy to deal with poverty. The following article from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) tells how this is a losing strategy.

................................

The Economic Crisis Will Lead To A Social Assistance Crisis:

How Ontario's Poverty Reduction Strategy Will Fail‏:
As more plants close and the markets continue to fall, there is consensus on the economic future for the province of Ontario: more job losses and recession. Ontario’s last recession took place in the early 1990s -thousands of people from across the province migrated to Toronto in search of work and services that smaller communities offer little of, such as shelters, drop-in centres, meal programs, and outreach workers. Most people who came to Toronto found shelters well beyond capacity, social services over-taxed, and a stingy, overloaded welfare bureaucracy staggering under a caseload of 100,000.

City Councillor Joe Mihevc, who until recently oversaw the committee responsible for welfare, has said of Toronto: “We're not Oshawa. We're not Windsor. A lot of our employment seems to be holding, so we may dodge this.” This position is a pathetic attempt to downplay the looming crisis. Some manufacturing workers who live in Toronto and work in Oshawa have already lost their jobs. With layoffs in the works for the Big Three auto-makers, as well as their parts manufacturers, many more people in this city will soon be unemployed. But this crisis isn't just about cars and parts - Toronto is the financial capital of the country and if the economy gets worse, we will face massive unemployment. We aren't saying that brokers and bankers will end up on welfare – government bailouts and generous bonuses and severances will ensure that won't happen. But we are saying that their assistants, support staff, janitors, waiters, hairdressers and nannies may well find themselves in need of social assistance. From Bay Street, the crisis will ripple outwards across the City.

Massive unemployment and an influx of poor people forced into the city will fill our shelters – shelters that are already overcrowded. We could also see an increase in the welfare caseload of thousands of people, or more likely, tens of thousands. Five years ago, the City could have weathered this economic storm by relying upon the welfare reserve fund – a pot of money kept aside to deal with dramatic increases in welfare rolls.

However, since David Miller came to power, this fund has decreased from $94.4 million to about $8 million. The reserve fund will last for one month with an increased caseload of 14,000 single people. Joe Mihevc has conceded that there is “a potential ticking time bomb within the operating budget”, if the City doesn’t successfully “dodge this”.

Given the current economic situation, we are likely to see that time bomb explode. If the reserve fund only lasts for a brief period, it will be devastating for many people on welfare in Toronto. The City will go out of its way to make it difficult or impossible to get on welfare. People will be cut off for the smallest violations and for not looking for work hard enough in a City where there is no work. Discretionary benefits, currently paid for by the City but which they are not obligated to cover, will be immediately cut. This means, for example, that transportation money for volunteering on which thousands of people on welfare and ODSP already rely will be eliminated. The welfare bureaucracy will also turn its passive campaign to deny people the Special Diet Benefit, a provision that currently pours a much-needed $30 million a year into poor people’s pockets in Toronto,into an overt policy of refusal.

Already, workers are refusing to issue or accept Special Diet forms, forcing people to turn over access of their private medical files, and denying the benefit on illegal grounds. But don't worry, the Province's new “Poverty Reduction Strategy” will ensure that none of this actually happens right? Wrong. The Poverty Reduction Strategy announced this week has been scaled down from a “poverty reduction strategy” to a “child poverty reduction strategy”.

Single people on welfare and disability will see no benefit whatsoever from the new plan. The strategy claims it will reduce child poverty by 25% in 5 years but, people on social assistance will continue to get poorer. The Province has also announced a review of social assistance, and we do not yet know what changes could come down the road. Already, parents on ODSP and Ontario Works get almost no extra money through the Ontario Child Benefit, although for parents forced to work minimum wage jobs, the OCB can make a financial difference. The OCB provides a top up to the worst employers by providing a child benefit for the working poor out of the tax base so the employers can avoid paying living wages.

In addition, the gap between the welfare poor and working poor will be increased to pressure more people into low paying jobs. But this deeply flawed child poverty reduction plan will never work if it revolves around the premise that parents on social assistance will get jobs - we are in a recession and no one is hiring. Rather than, in the words of some co-opted poverty advocates, “turning a corner on poverty,” the Provincial government has itself acknowledged that the Reduction Strategy will fail in the current economic climate:

“Ontario will undertake to meet this target. However, we cannot meet this goal without a strong federal partner and a growing economy.” The Poverty Reduction Strategy offers almost no new money, acknowledges that it will not be successful given the current economic situation and does nothing for people living in poverty who are not parents. In fact, a number of the “new” programs outlined have already been announced or implemented, and others, like the $970 million in funding for construction and equipment in post-secondary institutions, do nothing to address poverty reduction.

Investing in kids to “break the cycle of poverty” in fifteen or twenty years is not enough. A real poverty reduction strategy would also put real money in people's hands immediately. Those of us on assistance, or who will be on assistance when their EI runs out, cannot afford to simply cross our fingers and hope that the economic crisis will lead to enough deflation to make up for the 21.6% cut and a decade of inflation.

We need action now. We need a 40% increase in welfare and ODSP. We need an immediate $10 minimum wage and for it to continue to increase. We need decent, affordable, accessible housing. We need a real anti-poverty strategy, one that that benefits all poor people.