Special Diet Clinics Resume - Raise The Rates 40%

A little over a year ago the McGuinty Government cut the Special Diet Policy under which huge numbers were obtaining relief from poverty and hunger. The Liberals introduced a new policy, determined to shut down the OCAP initiated community clinics where thousands of poor people were obtaining the $250 a month the policy entitled them to. Last year alone $40 million extra was paid out through the special diet to people on welfare and disability. Several months after the cut, the Liberal government raised over all assistance rates by 2%. This is 38% short of what it would take for rates to be brought up to what they were before the Harris Government cuts.

In the year since the cut took place huge numbers of people have been robbed of the income they needed to eat properly and provide for their children. But the Special Diet Campaign has created a new sense of entitlement and a new feeling of hope for people which the government can't cut or revise. People are simply not ready to go back to the old choice between eating properly and paying the rent. Hundreds of poor people joined the fight for the right to decent income and Doctor’s offices and health centres have seen an ongoing flow of patients on welfare seeking any help they and their families might obtain under the food allowance. This initiative by poor people enabled progressive health providers to understand that the new Special Diet form, while it made things much harder, did not totally prevent the Policy from being used as a tool to protect the health of low income patients.

As soon as Health Providers Against Poverty (HPAP) came to the conclusion that Special Diet clinics were still an option, OCAP enthusiastically started running them again. At the time of writing, five clinics have been organized and hundreds of people have accessed the money. Welfare and ODSP offices are responding by trying to cheat people out of benefits their own rules say should be available. Just as in 2005, we are having to confront the welfare bureaucracy and its political controllers to ensure that this abuse is prevented.

We are aware that the Province is preparing another major revision of the Special Diet form to be released early in the New Year. We have no way of predicting what this change will look like but we wish to use the time now available to organize as many people as possible to get their special diet money.

We are faced right now, as we have been for more than a decade, with 760,000 people living on welfare and disability; hungry, unable to get by on assistance with a government that refuses to raise overall assistance rates by any meaningful amount. In this context the special diet allows people money to provide for themselves. It also begins the recovery of the 40% we are owed by the government.

We are doing all we can to push back the limits of hunger and poverty. This is a Government that willfully inflicts misery and suffering on poor communities. It is a Government that needs to be fought.

We are appealing to all our allies to support us in this fight and to help us achieve as much as we possibly can through our present round of community clinics.

• If you are a health provider, contribute your time and skills to help out at a Special Diet Clinic.
• If you can, contribute TTC tokens or cash to help us ensure low income people can attend our clinics
• When welfare officialdom tries to deny people their legitimate benefits, we need to put pressure on them, through call-ins and public delegations. If you can help with this activity, let us know.