United We Eat, Divided We Starve: OCAP's Raise the Rates Campaign

Film Screening & Panel Discussion
Part of the PMUS Poverty & Health series

Join in a community discussion of why we must all fight for increased social assistance rates and a decent income for all!

Tuesday, February 28th
7pm-9pm
43 Queen Street South, Kitchener
Queen Street Commons Café

* Free event. All welcome.
* Free snacks & refreshments provided
* Child friendly space
* Wheelchair accessible

Featured Panel Speakers include:
Liisa Schofield & John Clarke - Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)
Representative of CUPE Ontario (Partner in the Raise the Rates Campaign)
Representative of KW Food Not Bombs
Facilitated by: Poverty Makes Us Sick

Film Screening of “Raise the Rates & the Special Diet”
A joint project between OCAP & Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (CUPE-Ontario) on ‘Raise the Rates and the Special Diet’. Through first-hand accounts with women on social assistance and health care providers, this video highlights the chronic inadequacy of welfare and disability rates in Ontario and the recent cut to the Special Diet Allowance under the McGuinty Government. It examines the many layers of poverty and the long-term effects on the health and well-being of those forced to live on inadequate incomes in Ontario. It is a powerful rallying call for real action on poverty!

Background:
It has been more than 16 years since Mike Harris cut welfare and froze disability. The McGuinty Liberals have been in power for half that time and, despite their anti-poverty rhetoric, have done nothing to effectively deal with poverty. In fact people are worse off today. On December 1st assistance rates increased by a miserable 1%, well below the inflation rate – continuing to worsen the depth of poverty of people living on OW and ODSP. In fact It would now take a 55% increase in social assistance rates to bring benefits to pre-Harris levels. If benefit levels were restored to the same level of spending power as in 1994, a single person on Ontario Works would receive $904 a month instead of the $593 now being issued. The fight for a decent income and 55% increase in social assistance rates is one that we all need to be involved in. Come find out how you can get involved.

For more information:
Raise the Rates Campaign - http://update.ocap.ca/rtr
Special Diet Allowance - www.specialdiet.ca/
Facebook event page - http://www.facebook.com/events/167583706688706/

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) is a direct-action anti-poverty organization based in Toronto that mounts campaigns against regressive government policies as they affect poor and working people. In addition, they provide direct action advocacy for individuals against welfare and ODSP, public housing and others who deny poor people what they are entitled to. OCAP believes in the power of people to organize themselves and in the power of resistance.

Poverty Makes Us Sick (PMUS) is a local grassroots anti-poverty group that has been organizing around issues of economic justice for those living on social assistance - Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) - since 2010. The group was launched in response to the Ontario government's proposed cuts to the Special Diet Allowance and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty's (OCAP) Raise the Rates campaign. The group engages in public education, resource redistribution and other forms of direct action.

GET IN TOUCH: Ontario Coalition Against Poverty

Email: ocap@tao.ca
Phone: 416-925-6939
Web: OCAP.ca
Facebook: OCAP
Twitter: @OCAPtoronto