NDP MPPs say they will go on a "social assistance diet" as part of a push to double the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works (OW) rates.
Five MPPs say they will eat only what they can buy with $95.21 for two weeks, which works out to an average of $47.60 per week. The effort is meant to draw renewed focus and urgency to addressing "the inadequacy of ODSP and OW rates, and help amplify the experiences and voices of people who live this every day and have been saying this all along."
Participants include Chandra Pasma, NDP critic for Poverty and Homelessness Reduction; Monique Taylor, critic for Community and Social Services; Lise Vaugeois, critic for Persons with Disabilities and Accessibility; MPP Jessica Bell and MPP Joel Harden
“Recipients of ODSP and OW have been clear that the rates are far too low,” said Taylor. “We’re in an affordability crisis: the cost of food was up 9.7 per cent in July, food banks are seeing record usage, and housing costs were up 7.4 percent. An extra $58, if that, is a drop in the bucket.”
The government’s five-per cent increase to ODSP, which comes into effect this month, amounts to an additional $58 per month, at most, per recipient. Meanwhile, Ontario Works recipients have had their rates frozen at $733 per month says an NDP release.
The MPPs say they are inviting the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Merrilee Fullerton, to join them "in experiencing a small part of what it is like to live on social assistance, given her government continues to force hundreds of thousands of recipients to survive on such a small amount."
“Nobody can live a decent, healthy, or dignified life on $733 or $1,227 a month,” Pasma said. “We’re using our platform as MPPs to amplify how Ontario’s social assistance rates are callous, unhealthy, and undignified.”
Yesterday until the 19th, the five MPPs will live on a ‘social assistance diet’ of $95.21 — an approximated two-week grocery budget for assistance recipients. They’ll keep a record of what they spend that money on. The MPPs will try to walk or take transit when picking up groceries when feasible, recognizing that social assistance recipients must often do the same.
“We recognize that we are privileged and that our respective economic and housing situations don’t match the realities people on social assistance live daily,” said Vaugeois. “Our experiences over these two weeks will not match theirs — after this, we’ll return to our regular grocery budgets and diets — a luxury not available to social assistance recipients.”
The MPPs will spend the two weeks speaking to people who are recipients of ODSP and OW.
Until recently, ODSP recipients received $1,169 per month. Rates inched up to $1,227 per month, at most, on Sept. 1, when a five-per-cent increase took effect.
