Special Diet Still Being Accessed at Record Numbers!

No spending diet

Cost of special meal ticket for welfare recipients still fat despite promised chompdown on abuse

By SUE-ANN LEVY

Published in the Toronto Sun

The number of Toronto welfare recipients collecting a controversial meal ticket has grown by at least 20% since 2005 -- despite a supposed provincial clampdown on those eligible to receive it.

A report to the yesterday's community services committee -- one of an increasing number of highly politicized staff reports designed to satisfy the socialist agenda -- states approximately 31,000 social assistance recipients (those on both the Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support programs) were cashing in on the special diet allowance in August of this year.

The extra stipend is supposed to buy food like low-fat and unsweetened products for diabetics, or bottled water, cranberry juice and organic vegetables for other specified medical conditions.

Those 31,000 recipients, according to the report, will cost taxpayers $30 million this year. The $30 million compares to $25 million spent on the diet allowance in 2005, when the new, revised provincial rules were put inplace. According to the report, a mere 5,300 individuals (costing taxpayers about $2 million) collected the meal ticket in 2002.

"The fact that the 2007 special diet total expenditure is consistent with 2005 and 2006 levels is further evidence that Toronto Social Services (TSS) has maintained ongoing accessibility to this benefit in light of numerous provincial changes," the report says.

Huh? Is this what we call being accountable to taxpayers?

The province stepped in late in 2005 after the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) -- upset with the low welfare rates -- launched a very public campaign urging recipients to collect what was at the time an obscure diet benefit offered to those with specific medical conditions.

According to provincial rules, only those with medical issues such as congestive heart failure, Crohn's disease, cancers and HIV/AIDS were permitted to collect the diet supplement of up to $250 per month.

But with OCAP's concerted efforts and the buy-in by sympathetic doctors and nurses, the number of welfare recipients collecting the special meal ticket -- whether eligible or not-- swelled in 2005. During an event at City Hall in July 2005, recipients with no medical conditions openly boasted about collecting the benefit for themselves and their entire families.

At the time Mayor David Miller's office not only turned a blind eye to OCAP's antics but intervened when the city's social services officials attempted to crack down on the eligibility requirements.

MANDATED REVIEW

It would appear from yesterday's report virtually nothing has changed.

Despite the provincial tightening of the rules -- specific diets and benefits are now spelled out for each medical condition -- and a mandated review of all cases receiving the special diet allowance (TSS staff reviewed over 20,000 applications between 2005 and 2006), there is no mention in the report of any cases deemed ineligible.

The report only states when issues are identified with respect to "potential misuse" of the special diet -- for instance, a small number of health care professionals authorizing a large number of cases and the authorization of the same condition for multiple family members -- they are referred to provincial staff.

I asked the general manager of social services, Heather MacVicar, whether she could give me an idea of the number of cases red-flagged. "I don't know," she said yesterday.

While she conceded people have been found ineligible as a result of their review, she insisted she couldn't quantify the number. "We don't have that level of detail," she said.

So I asked her why the numbers are still so high, despite an apparent change in the eligibility requirements.

"The report speaks to how we've implemented it but there are also compliance issues," she said, noting there will be always be issues of compliance in the social service area but that doesn't mean there's "rampant abuse by any stretch."

Coun. Doug Holyday, audit committee chairman, said city staff are handling tax dollars and should know all the details of where the money is going and whether it is being used properly.

"I don't think they do," he said. "Judging by the numbers there definitely hasn't been a clampdown and the accountability simply is not there."