Twenty years ago this month, the founding conference of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) took place. In the two decades that have followed, OCAP has organized and mobilized communities under attack in the context of an advancing agenda of neoliberalism. The present situation is dominated by a world-wide crisis of capitalism and, as a result, an intensified drive to impose austerity on working class populations and the poor in particular. We are in the early stages of this assault but it seems likely that it will dominate the period that lies ahead. On this basis, it makes sense to assess the work of OCAP from the standpoint of building effective resistance to the neoliberal agenda.
special diet allowance
McGuinty's axing of the Special Diet program is a catastrophe to poor and sick Ontarians
Single parents with two children are up by just $10 a month in Ontario, thanks to the McGuinty government's Budget on March 25. This was their response to Dalton McGuinty's re-election campaign promise to reduce poverty in the province -- the raising of social assistance rates by 1 per cent.
McGuinty government rewarding those at the top and squeezing those at the bottom
One of the depressing aspects of the last few decades is the ease with which seemingly normal people walk obliviously past the aching pools of humanity spread out on our sidewalks.
At what point will people start looking up from their iPhones -- at least momentarily -- and think: Something must be done.
That moment should have come with the recent axing of Ontario's "special diet allowance," in which Dalton McGuinty's government literally took food out of the mouths of hungry people, in the name of deficit reduction.
Food Fight: Resisting austerity (Mayworks Festival)
May 9 2012 - 7:00pm
May 9 2012 - 9:00pm
Location
FoodShare
90 Croatia Street
Toronto, ON Canada
43° 39' 29.4012" N, 79° 26' 18.8556" W
See map: Google Maps
Poverty and Health: The Special Diet is a short video on the affects of poverty on health and specifically the provincial social assistance benefit known as the Special Diet Allowance that was recently gutted by the provincial government. It highlights the voices of people on social assistance, as well as frontline workers in the healthcare sector. The video is a joint project produced by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and was made to support the Raise the Rates campaign to demand a raise in welfare (Ontario Works) and disability (ODSP) rates in the province of Ontario.
Contact email:
Nameless and homeless: Affordable housing -- if not now, when?
Remember their names:
Eugene Upper
Erwin Anderson
Mirsalah Aldin-Kompani
and hundreds more who died
on Toronto streets since '97
- From Nameless-Homeless, an unpublished rant in progress
Here's the grim context. Today, it's widely acknowledged that the "deinstitutionalization" of psychiatric survivors has been a total failure and fraud; it was from the very start. Why? Because of government incompetence and negligence, poor urban planning, and public indifference to "discharged" psychiatric survivors and other poor, marginalized and stigmatized people in our communities.
Jane -Finch Action Against Poverty: Raisin the Rates and Restoring the Special Diet Allowance
Dec 14 2010 - 6:30pm
Dec 14 2010 - 8:30pm
Location
Black Creek Community Health Centre
2202 Jane Street Second floor, Yorkgate Mall
TorotoCanada
43° 43' 17.0364" N, 79° 30' 31.4856" W
See map: Google Maps
Social assistance rates are way below the poverty line, and it has remained
virtually unchanged since 1995 where Mike Harris government slashed
assistant rate by almost 22%. People on social assistance are now about 40%
to 50% worse off than those in 1995. In addition, the McGuinty government
has decided to restrict its $250 special diet allowance to social assistance
recipients with a medically verified need for extra money for special diet.
According to the Toronto Star, those with “ineligible” aliments (such as
cardiovascular disease and impaired glucose tolerance) or hungry kids or no
cash left when the rent is paid will be cut off. Thousands of recipients
will be affected by these changes.
Contact email:
Timeline: Ontario eliminates Special Diet Allowance for social assistance recipients
| March 28, 2010