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!

On March 16, 2012 FIGHT POVERTY AND DEMAND: A LIVING INCOME! HOUSING! QUALITY PUBLIC SERVICES FOR ALL!

Important March 16 news and information update here!

(DOWNLOAD POSTER & FLYER AT BOTTOM OF PAGE)

-Solidarity Against Austerity-
Friday, March 16, 2012
Rally and March
12noon
College and Bay St, Toronto (Outside the Ministry of Housing)

Join the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and allies for a march and rally on Friday, March 16th, in the lead up to the 2012 Provincial Budget. The McGuinty government has hired former head of the TD bank, Don Drummond, to propose and provide the basis for massive social cutbacks in their 2012 budget. It is being drafted as the Provincial component of the austerity agenda that is gathering force across Canada and internationally. City Hall, Queen`s Park and Ottawa are delivering austerity, but clearly it is being cooked-up on Bay Street by bankers like Drummond to the benefit of their rich friends.

We have to stop the cuts and fight for what poor and working people need!

McGuinty Ensures Poverty: One per cent for the poor from the one per cent in Ontario
December 1, 2011

Published on rabble.ca (http://rabble.ca)

There is generally little focus in mainstream media on social assistance rates. Last week, Carol Goar took on the issues in an editorial entitled "Queen's Park offers crumbs to Ontario's poor"[2]. The article brought attention to the issue of social assistance rates, but it misses some major points on the fight to raise welfare and disability rates in Ontario. As Marian Kramer of the National Welfare Rights Organization in the U.S would say, "the media covers the plight but not the fight of the poor." So let us fill in the blanks.

Assistance rates 55 per cent lower than in 1994

On Dec. 1 social assistance rates will increase by an insulting 1 %. This increase is well below the rate of inflation which is estimated at three per cent this year. With inflation factored in, what McGuinty calls a one per cent raise, is, in reality a two per cent cut. This cut is a loss of real income for the poor, which, when coupled with the major cut to the Special Diet Program, means a dramatic deepening of poverty in 2012 and beyond.

On August 20, dozens of OCAP members and supporters entered an upscale
Loblaws grocery store. We loaded each of our carts with roughly $250
worth of groceries and took them to check outs. After they were rung
through, we produced Dalton McGuinty I.O.U coupons that, we insisted, were
worth the $250 people were losing as a result of his Governments massive
cut to the Special Diet program. We suggested to the managers that they
should give us the food and send the bill to the Liberal Government.

As you can see from this video, the operators of the store did not see
things our way but, in front of hundreds of shoppers, OCAP put its demands
forward and a major business profiting from McGunity’s tax breaks to
corporations had its operations disrupted by our action.