Ontario government posed to slash special diet supplement

north america / mexico | community struggles | press release Thursday October 13, 2005 08:06 by scap hcoc at riseup dot net

Key Fight Will Be Decided Over Next Few Weeks

A history of the Special diets campaign and a call for support in our miltiant fight against the government of ontario. Poor people and there supporters need to coem together and reverse this deplorable trend to leave those most vulnerable alone and dispossessed.

THE McGUINTY GOVERNMENT IS POISED TO SLASH THE SPECIAL DIET SUPPLEMENT!

Key Fight Will Be Decided Over Next Few Weeks

The Liberals at Queen’s Park are desperate to contain an outbreak of
decent income and adequate nutrition amongst people on social assistance
that threatens their whole political and social agenda. Access to the
Special Diet Supplement, already dangerously widespread and accelerating,
means that poor people are under less pressure to accept sub poverty wages
and abusive working conditions. Dalton McGuinty knows that the banks and
corporations would never forgive him if he allowed such vital weapons as
poverty and hunger to be blunted during his term of office. This month,
his Social Services Minister plans a major attack on the Supplement that
will, she hopes, get the problem under control before it becomes a full
scale epidemic.

Let’s begin by putting this whole issue in a little bit of context.
>From 1995, the Harris Tories presided over a quantum leap in the
implementation of a neoliberal agenda in Ontario. Wealth was massively
transferred from poor and working people to the very richest. A $1
million a year CEO in this Province now enjoys a yearly tax break that
is equal to the amount of money cut from the welfare cheques of
seventeen single parent families. But these tax breaks were only a kind
of icing on the cake. The main mechanisms employed to make the rich
richer at the expense of everyone else consisted of removing barriers
to the ‘natural’ processes of profit making. The budget of the
Ministry of Labour was cut massively to remove any risk that weak
‘employment standards’ might actually get enforced. ‘Labour relations’
legislation was vigorously tilted in favour of the employers. Welfare
rates were slashed and eligibility rules toughened to ensure that the
worst jobs on offer suddenly became harder to refuse.

When the Tories had run their course and done the main body of
destructive work they set out to do, a period of consolidation was needed.
So, in came McGuinty with a nebulous pledge to do things
differently. When it came to poverty, hunger and social assistance rates,
the Liberals’ goal was to ensure that the losses for the poor since 1995
were not recovered. They have broken their promise to index the rates to
inflation and opted for a wretched one time 3% increase that must be
measured against the 40% reduction in spending power that has taken place
over the last ten years.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) responded to this outrage
with a campaign to ‘Raise the Rates!’ to 1995 real levels. As part of
this, we began looking at ways we could push for ‘full entitlement’ under
the system as it is presently structured. We encountered the Special
Diet Supplement. This provision ensures that up to $250 a month per
person on assistance is available if a medical provider deems it
necessary. Of course, it had been assumed that this would be an obscure
backwater of social entitlement that few would come across and that
welfare offices would almost always deny. But what if, we asked
ourselves, the existence of the Supplement were suddenly trumpeted from
the roof tops? What if clinics were organized to bring providers and
people in need into contact with each other? What if applicants for the
Supplement didn’t have to deal with the welfare bureaucracy as individuals
but came together to press their claims and demand they be taken
seriously?

The Special Diet Campaign was set in motion to find out the answers to
these questions and they have, generally, been to our liking. In Toronto,
we have held dozens of clinics with progressive medical providers
diagnosing the need for the full $250 for all individuals and family
members they have seen. Huge numbers of people outside of this process
have learned of the Supplement through our efforts and organizations in
other cities, especially those operating under the banner of the Ontario
Common Front, have worked along the same lines that we have. Some months
ago, the media was reporting that, in Toronto, the number of Ontario Works
(welfare) recipients getting the Supplement had gone from 6,000 to 10,000.

This understates things in that it is a dated figure, does not include
those on the Ontario Disability Support Plan or people outside of this
City and that it fails to take into account that almost all we have signed
up have got the full entitlement. On October 3, we held a mass Hunger
Clinic (the name taken from Belleville’s Tenant Action Group with their
kind permission) on the lawns of the Ontario Legislature where 37 medical
providers diagnosed over 1,000 poor people as being in need of the
Supplement. In a little over three hours, more than $3 million in
additional benefits were obtained.

The General Manager of Toronto’s Social Services Division and the
Provincial Minister of Community and Social Services have expressed the
view that our campaign is somehow an ‘abuse’ of the Supplement policy or
that we are ‘exploiting a loophole’. In fact, we have simply facilitated
access to an available social benefit. Ten years of cutbacks and rate
freezes have produced a situation where not one of the 760,000 on
assistance in Ontario can afford what the Provincial Ministry of Health
tells us is needed to maintain a nutritious diet. The health implications
of this situation require medical providers to intervene and prescribe a
benefit that will ensure adequate diet.

The City of Toronto’s Welfare offices have worked relentlessly to try and
deny applications for the Special Diet and their Head Office has twisted
itself into knots to try and find policy changes that will block us. We
have been able to overcome their efforts because communities under attack
have come out in unprecedented numbers to defend their right to eat
properly. Mass delegations to City Hall and takeovers of welfare
facilities have been large and powerful and have shaken those in decision
making authority. It must be said that the Somali communities in the west
and north ends of the City have been the backbone of the struggle and have
turned out time and time again with a dogged determination that has paid
off.

Now, the Provincial Government is about to intervene and, within weeks, a
decisive confrontation will take place. Social Services Minister, Sandra
Pupatello, will soon attempt to impose a change in the Special Diet policy
under which, medical providers will have to state that their patients are
suffering from one of a list of medical conditions. The Supplement will
soon cease to exist as a widespread means of ensuring health and adequate
income. That is, unless the Government can be defeated in its attempt.

The McGuinty Government does have a lot on its side but they are not
unstoppable. They came to power on a promise of ‘change’ and they are
about to take a measure that will, literally, take food away from
families. They won’t be as comfortable with such a role as the last
Government. Moreover, even in leading circles there are misgivings about
how low welfare rates should be driven down.

The Liberals will also find that a fairly big grouping of those active in
areas of public health will be opposed to them. Even the Toronto Board of
Health has just passed a resolution in support of the Supplement and
calling for it to be given to everyone on social assistance. A host of
professional bodies will likely come out against this attack and will have
considerable expertise and evidence around poverty as a health determinant
to throw back at the Government. More than anything, however, this
Campaign has made a difference in thousands of lives and very many more
people and families are hoping to obtain the Supplement in the near
future. Closing the door on new applicants and taking it back from those
who have it will not happen without a considerable fight. OCAP will
mobilize around this issue like never before. People in other cities will
join us in demanding “40% or the Supplement!” We will confront the
Liberals in a way they have not experienced since they took Office and
we’ll stake everything on mobilizing communities under attack to resist.

We very much hope that this impending struggle will see maximum support
from a wide range of allies. We’ll ask for public endorsements of our
campaign, direct participation in our actions and help with the resources
vital to carrying on this fight. We will need to transport people in big
numbers, to feed large crowds and to have our organizers and spokespersons
able to visit lots of different communities. None of this can be done
without significant financial costs. When charities ask you to donate,
they frequently inform you that most of every dollar you give goes to the
beneficiaries. We can tell you that our Special Diet Campaign has won
enough in benefits for poor people to pay OCAP’s operating budget for the
next eighty six years!

Let’s face it. Social movements over the last decade have spent a lot of
time protesting regressive measures that governments were confident they
would be able to implement regardless. The Special Diet Campaign has been
a unique means of taking some of what was being demanded. It has driven
hunger from the lives of thousands and offered a way forward to many
others. The next few weeks will decide whether we won only a too brief
respite for a minority of the poor or if we have got a foot in the door
for a much more substantial victory. A major increase in social
assistance rates is possible and that would prove to be a very infectious
kind of victory. We appeal for all support and solidarity in the weeks
ahead.

OCAP
10 Britain St
Toronto, ON
M5A 1R6
416 925 6939
ocap@tao.ca


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