Bring Your Anger And Voice To City Hall

Join OCAP And Community Groups To Demand Justice For Our Communities

Thursday February 5th
9am (Council begins at 9:30am)
City Hall Front Doors
Nathan Phillips Square
A Lunch will be Served

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty has gathered together an alliance of individuals and community groups who are determined to bring justice to poor communities. On February 5th we will demand the new Mayor address the poverty and brutality that is ripping our communities apart. We believe that a strong and a united voice coming from poor communities across the whole City of Toronto can end the misery we face.

Between 9:30am and 11:15am on Thursday, February 5th we will have the floor of City Council uninterrupted to put forward the demands you see here (below). What will happen next is anybody's guess, but if poverty and brutality continue to not be addressed, we will bring our anger to the welfare offices, police stations, and government offices until it is.
TEN DEMANDS FOR ACTION ON POVERTY

Welfare Policies to Keep People Housed

1. Toronto City Council must set an example in Ontario by refusing to clawback the child tax credit from Ontario Works recipients.

2. Stop handing over information to the police for 'welfare fraud' prosecutions and establish a 2% maximum recovery rate in overpayment situations.

Housing as a Right not an Empty Promise

3. Ensure that enough social, supportive and accessible housing is built to eliminate the waiting list.

4. Freeze all condo development in neighbourhoods where low income housing stock is threatened with displacement.

5. Launch a program to retrofit empty buildings, starting with municipally owned 'surplus housing', and ensure the impending rental unit inspection and repair by-law before city council is implemented effectively and immediately.

6. Inject money into shelters immediately, including shelters for abused women and children. End all seasonal closing of shelter space. Shelter space in this city must be brought up to decent, liveable standards.

The Needs of Communities vs. Law and Order

7. Freeze the Police budget, eliminate Community Action Policing and put the freed up resources into meeting the real needs of poor communities.

8. A strict 'Don't Ask' policy for all city workers towards people without status and no police resources to go into Immigration enforcement in our communities.

9. Repeal all municipal by-laws that are used for 'social cleansing' of neighbourhoods and the persecution of homeless people, such as 'Camp in Park Without Permit'.

Community Needs and Access

10. Abolish user fees and restore cut services in all municipal community centres and settlement agencies