Food insecurity means everything from being hungry to not knowing where the next meal is coming from to being chronically malnourished due to poverty. The decision to cut the Special Diet Allowance threatens access to healthy food for tens of thousands of people. The Ontario budget also reduces the real income of people on social assistance because the 1 per cent increase in social assistance does not keep up with the rise in consumer prices.

Many organizations have justly been critical of the recent cut to the Special Diet Allowance, but we want to put it in the context of two things: the systemic impacts on health of food insecurity caused by poverty; and the common resolve of our organizations to work together with our patients, clients, neighbours and fellow Ontario residents to support their rights to a decent, livable income.

Sixteen provincial health and community service organizations have signed a joint statement of concern about the health impacts of food insecurity brought on by poverty. Every day, these organizations work with vulnerable Ontarians across the province. Through these relationships and the evidence gathered from our work we know that living on social assistance often means having to choose between paying the rent or feeding loved ones.

Urgent action is needed because:

• Social assistance rates are dangerously low; they lead to food insecurity and are clearly insufficient for human health and dignity.
• Food insecurity harms health and shortens life expectancy.
• The harm and poor health outcomes of food insecurity disproportionately impact groups of people already dealing with other forms of discrimination.
• Investment in healthy food for people on social assistance will result in cost savings to our health care system and ultimately will improve overall prosperity.

McGuinty’s promise of transforming the social assistance system into one that will allow people to live in health and dignity is sound health policy and consistent with our collective responsibility for human rights. Income is a root determinant of health status. The RNAO, in its report Creating Vibrant Communities says “Where one falls along the income gradient is literally a matter of life and death. There is overwhelming evidence from academic research and our own nursing practice that those who live in poverty and are socially excluded experience a greater burden of disease and die earlier than those who have better access to economic, social and political resources.”

The cancellation of the Special Diet Allowance and meagre increases in social assistance rates are setbacks on any promised path to transform social assistance.

If a person is hungry, it is harder to learn, to work, to avoid depression, to avoid chronic diseases such as diabetes and to “eat right.” Hundreds of thousands of Ontario residents need more healthy food now.

The organizations signing this joint statement call on the Ontario government to:

• Commit to revised social assistance rates based on actual local living costs, including housing and food through a process that includes meeting with stakeholder organizations to collaboratively determine the appropriate level of support to provide social assistance recipients in Ontario.
• Immediately implement as an interim step a healthy food supplement increase of $100 per month for every adult on social assistance.
• Maintain access to healthy food through a nutritional supplement program that retains at least the current Special Diet Allowance budget allocation of $250 million.

The organizations signing this joint statement also commit to work together with our patients, clients, neighbours and fellow Ontario residents in support of their equal rights to an income that provides a life of health and dignity.

Janet Gasparini is president, Social Planning Network of Ontario; Doris Grinspun is president, Registered Nurses Association of Ontario; Adrianna Tetley is executive director, Association of Ontario Health Centres.

The Social Assistance Review Advisory Council Report released Monday morning at Queen’s Park promotes a bold new vision for income security in the long run but is weak on what it asks the Ontario Government to do to help people on social assistance meet their basic daily living necessities now. The Review panel recommends a consultation and system overhaul process that will take 12 to 18 months.

“A bold vision for tomorrow does not put food on the table today,” says Marvyn Novick, retired Professor Emeritus in Social Policy at Ryerson University and contributor to the Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO). “The Ontario Government has ignored the needs of the most vulnerable in the province. It sets up a panel on social assistance and shortly thereafter cuts the Special Diet Allowance, reneges on the dental program for adult recipients, and reduces the woefully inadequate real income of recipients by 1% in the latest budget. While the panel claims to promote long-term reform, the real situation with people on the ground is deteriorating rapidly.”

“Minister Meilleur needs to listen to people like me,” says Nadia, an Ontario Works recipient in Toronto, “who are making the choice every month between paying for my children’s needs and buying healthy food and not listen to those who would trade real change today for promises in the future.”

“The report lacks a sense of urgency because many are in crisis right now and it ignores the short-term recommendation of $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement for those on welfare,” says Tom Pearson, Chair of the Poverty Action for Change Coalition in York Region, “The Healthy Food Supplement would put money in people’s pockets instantly and it is widely supported in communities across the province.”

“The Advisory Council acknowledges the urgency facing single adults with inadequate income support,” says Peter Clutterbuck, SPNO Coordinator. “But it is weak on the immediate measures that could be taken to address that issue. The community would support the panel’s proposal for a well-designed and adequate housing benefit in an overhauled income security system in the long run. But, in the meantime, measures like the Healthy Food Supplement could be easily implemented using the existing social assistance benefit system. People who do not know where their next meal is coming from do not have the luxury of time.”

The SPNO has been working with community partners across the province in the last year on a campaign called Put Food in the Budget. The campaign calls for the immediate introduction of a $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement for people on social assistance as a first step toward setting rates at a level that allows them to live with health and dignity. SPNO and its community partners urged the SARAC panel to make this recommendation to the Minister of Community and Social Services along with proposals for long-term income security reform. They are disappointed in the panel’s failure to do so.

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For further information:

Peter Clutterbuck, SPNO/PFIB
Tel. (416) 653-7947
Cell (416) 738-3228

PDF Version of Media Release

Surviving on Peanut Butter and Tuna

More than 350 people attended The Stop Community Food Centre’s Community Town Hall at the Artscape Wychwood Barns on Tuesday evening, April 13. Ten local celebrities reported on the results of their attempts to live on one week’s supply of food bank provisions.

None could make the food hamper they were given last through the week and several used community dining services provided by churches and charities to make it through the week.

All agreed that it was an eye-opening experience and acknowledged that they had the luxury to return to their normal eating practices, while people on social assistance certainly did not.

Video Overview of April 13 Event

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQRqXeeS2L8

PFIB Campaign – Organizing for Impact

Eighty local leaders from communities across Ontario stretching from Sudbury to Hamilton and Cornwall to Windsor came together in Toronto on Wednesday, April 14 to share experiences and plan further action on the Put Food in the Budget (PFIB) campaign.

The latest update on Do the Math Team visits to local MPPs was released [Full Report; Summary Report] – 40 MPPs have now been met and half have actually done the survey. Several Do the Math Team members reported on their particular experiences with their MPPs (see videos below).

Four workshops were held to share different actions and tactics to use in continuing the cross-community PFIB campaign. All remain committed to advocating for the introduction of the $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement for all adults on social assistance and longer-term adequacy in social assistance rates.

Video Overview of PFIB Campaign Event -- April 14, 2010

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqUeTq5sOVM

Nick Saul from The Stop

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDx3Et9flPY

Nadia Edwards

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlo1aUUKRTo

Danielle Yahalnitsky

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnQOeSwrBhA

Susan Bender

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIcSFTWqG7A

Bronwyn Underhill

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wfnR8yzuc

Rene Adams

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOiF7EXs4oY

“Tom Cherry”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=csvqRtNey8c

If I had a 100 dollars…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcxis3CRa-4

OCAP Protests the Special Diet Cut

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty held a march and rally in Toronto on Thursday, April 15 to protest the cut to the Special Diet Allowance that will severely affect about 170,000 people on social assistance.

Several hundred marchers expressed their anger and disdain for the Ontario Government’s inhumane action in the recent budget against Ontario’s most vulnerable people.

Video Overview of OCAP Event -- April 15, 2010

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kklpkMpX2ws

The 2010 Budget fails the test of a Government committed to a comprehensive poverty reduction plan for Ontarians. An amount of $57 million is designated as an increase to the Basic Needs Allowance for people on social assistance, which is 1%, while inflation is projected to be 2% or higher in 2010.

The Government signalled major cuts to the Special Diet Allowance (SDA), while making no specific provision in the 2010 Budget. Claiming that the SDA was “unsustainable” at current levels, the Government announced that the program will be redesigned and transferred from Social Services to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. Government officials would give no estimates of what would constitute sustainability, but indicated that it would be well below the current $200 million program cost. Clearly, thousands of low income Ontarians now dependent on the SDA for access to a nutritional diet critical to their health will become more subject to debilitating illness and disease, likely even more costly to the healthcare system.

“People with medical conditions can get up to $250 a month for healthy food on the SDA,” says Tom Pearson, Chair of the Poverty Action Coalition for Change in York Region, “While giving a 1% increase across the Board, the Government is not saying clearly that its proposed action on Special Diet will likely mean tens of thousands of recipients will actually get a 15-20% cut in their incomes.”

“Research in Ontario clearly shows that social assistance benefit levels are so low that all recipients are subject to higher incidence of illness and chronic disease,” says Peter Clutterbuck with the Put Food in the Budget Campaign, “The inevitable cut to the SDA puts the most susceptible to these conditions at even greater risk. Rather than considering the PFIB campaign’s recommendation for a $100/month Healthy Food Supplement, the Government is actually about to take a good portion of that amount out of the monthly budgets of Ontario’s most vulnerable people.”

“Further, the Government’s claim that it is increasing rates by 1% and has already increased rates by 11% since 2003 is a charade,” says Clutterbuck, “As the Government’s 2007 Budget document itself stated, these 1-2% increases are cost of living adjustments, made to protect the purchasing power of the existing rates. They are not real rate increases. So, actually for people on social assistance in this province, Premier McGuinty’s Government has done absolutely nothing to begin to reverse the 22% rate cuts instituted by Mr. Harris in 1995.”

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For further information:

Peter Clutterbuck, SPNO/PFIB
416-653-7947
416-738-3228

PDF version of Media Release

• Michelle Gratton, Social Planning Council of Cornwall and Area
• Nadia Edwards, volunteer at The Stop Community Food Centre
• Darren Nesbit, leader in poverty reduction from Sarnia
• Deirdre Pike, organizer with the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton for the 25 in 5 Hamilton Network for Poverty Reduction
• Peter Clutterbuck, Social Planning Network of Ontario

Minister Meilleur listened intently to Nadia and Darren who spoke of their experiences trying to live on current OW and ODSP benefit levels respectively. Michelle presented the Minister with a French translation of the SPNO’s report on Do the Math visits to MPPs across the province and summarized local action in support of poverty reduction and the Healthy Food Supplement in Cornwall. Deirdre summarized the results of the MPP visits and of more than 3,000 respondents to the on-line version of the Do the Math survey that show a difference in the range of $700-800 between what survey respondents calculate as needed for meeting basic monthly necessities and what they would get at the current single employable OW rate.

Peter explained that the two aims of the Put Food in the Budget campaign are:

1. To urge the Government to act now to add a $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement to the Basic Needs Allowance of all OW and ODSP recipients so that they could eat more healthily and close the gap between the cost of monthly necessities and the amount they receive.
2. To ensure that the Terms of Reference for the Social Assistance Review include a commitment to setting social assistance income support benefits at a level that meets the cost of living with health and dignity.

When asked if she would Do the Math survey, Minister Meilleur said that she is familiar with the issues facing people on social assistance so that it is not necessary for her to do the survey. The Minister indicated that she and her Cabinet colleagues recognize the connection between poverty and poor health. She also understands that recipients do not get enough and that she “would love to add a $100 month” to their benefits. She said, however, that it “is costly every time that we moved on requests like this”. All Ministries are being asked to cut their budgets because of the huge deficit brought on by the economic recession, which has meant a severe reduction in tax revenues for the Government.

Minister Meilleur explained that the Government’s priorities remain health and education and getting people back to work so that tax revenues would increase and the demands of the first two priorities could be met. She felt that people on social assistance get access to other supports such as dental and drug benefits which other low income people do not receive. Furthermore, the Government has provided 2% annual increases since 2003 to social assistance recipients, although she acknowledged that this did not restore the income loss enacted by the Harris Government “slash and burn cut” of 22% in 1995.

The Minister made the point that public opinion surveys show support for the Government’s health priority while social assistance is “not on their radar”. The PFIB representatives replied that the Healthy Food Supplement is completely consistent with the Government’s health priority since studies show the clear link between poor health, low income and high costs to the healthcare system. A 2008 University of Toronto study (Poverty is Making Us Sick) found that people in the bottom 20% of incomes in Ontario are more likely to have two chronic health conditions and that a $1,000 change in annual income in the bottom fifth of the population would produce 10,000 fewer chronic conditions and 6,600 fewer disability days over a two week period.

PFIB offered to support the Minister in making these points to the public to help build support for the Healthy Food Supplement.

The PFIB delegation also asked the Minister to support the inclusion of income adequacy in the Terms of Reference for the Social Assistance Review. The Minister’s staff suggested that PFIB should carry these recommendations to the Advisory Committee just set up to define the Terms of Reference. The PFIB representatives indicated that they would do so but also recognized that, in the end, it is the Minister’s decision about what the Terms of Reference will include, which Minister Meilleur strongly confirmed.

When the PFIB delegates referred to the Social Audit process being organized across the province by the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition, the Minister and her staff indicated that this information would also be taken into consideration in the Review.

The meeting concluded with the Minister’s agreement that she and her staff will meet again with PFIB representatives to carry on the discussion.

Peter Clutterbuck
Social Planning Network of Ontario
January 21, 2010