STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMITÉ PERMANENT DES
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AFFAIRES SOCIALES
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE REFORM ACT, 1997/LOI DE 1997 SUR LA RÉFORME DE L'AIDE SOCIALE
CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 2191
NIAGARA SOUTH SOCIAL SAFETY NETWORK
CANADIAN MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION ONTARIO DIVISION
COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES OF NIAGARA SOUTH
SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY OF ONTARIO
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
NIAGARA MENTAL HEALTH SURVIVORS NETWORK
CONTENTS
Thursday 23 October 1997
Social Assistance Reform Act, 1997, Bill 142, Mrs Ecker /Loi de 1997 sur la réforme de l'aide sociale, projet de loi 142, Mme Ecker
Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 2191
Mr Fred Hahn
Niagara SARC Network
Ms Gracia Janes
Ms Mary Potter
Mr Gerald Diffin
Project SHARE
Ms Roxanne Felice,
Ms Anne Smellie
Ms Tanya Buckaway
`Ms Tracy Ross
Niagara South Social Safety Network
Ms Barbara DeRuiter
Ms Lynne Prine
United Disabled Consumers
Mr Geoff Langhorne
Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario Division
Mr John Kelly
Ms Lisa McDonald
Community Legal Services of Niagara South
Ms Lynne Prine
Ms Mary Beth Anger-Sheffield
Canadian Hearing Society
Mr Phil Kyre
Mr Donald Prong
Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth Council;
Regional Advisory Committee for Persons with Physical Disabilities
Mr Ted McMeekin
Mr Graeme Aitken
Mr Michael Schuster
Hamilton Against Poverty
Ms Julie Gordon
Mr Wendell Fields
McQuesten Legal and Community Services;
Church in Society Network, Hamilton Conference, United Church of Canada;
Brant County Community Legal Clinic
Mr Mike Ollier
Mr Vaughn Stewart
Ms Jay Sengupta
Schizophrenia Society of Ontario
Ms Selina Volpatti
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Mr Jim Tait
Niagara Mental Health Survivors Network
Ms Angela Browne
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Présidente
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William L)
Mr John R. O'Toole (Durham East / -Est PC)
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls PC)
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand PC)
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich L)
Mr Frank Sheehan (Lincoln PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel
Ms Alison Drummond, research officer, Legislative Research Service
STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMITÉ PERMANENT DES
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AFFAIRES SOCIALES
Thursday 23 October 1997 Jeudi 23 octobre 1997
The committee met at 0902 in the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel, Niagara Falls.
SOCIAL ASSISTANCE REFORM ACT, 1997/LOI DE 1997 SUR LA RÉFORME DE L'AIDE SOCIALE
Consideration of Bill 142, An Act to revise the law related to Social Assistance by enacting the Ontario Works Act and the Ontario Disability Support Program Act, by repealing the Family Benefits Act, the Vocational Rehabilitation Services Act and the General Welfare Assistance Act and by amending several other Statutes / Projet de loi 142, Loi révisant la loi relative à l'aide sociale en édictant la Loi sur le programme Ontario au travail et la Loi sur le Programme ontarien de soutien aux personnes handicapées, en abrogeant la Loi sur les prestations familiales, la Loi sur les services de réadaptation professionnelle et la Loi sur l'aide sociale générale et en modifiant plusieurs autres lois.
CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 2191
The Chair (Mrs Annamarie Castrilli): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this, our last day of hearings on Bill 142. We're going to get started promptly. I ask Fred Hahn of CUPE Local 2191 to come forward. Thank you very much, Mr Hahn. We appreciate having you here. I notice you have someone with you. I'd ask you to introduce her. You then have 20 minutes to make your presentation, which you can use in any way you wish. If any time remains, the committee will ask you some questions.
Mr Fred Hahn: I'll start by introducing myself. My name is Fred Hahn. I'm the president of CUPE Local 2191. We have members who are employed with the Metropolitan Toronto Association for Community Living. We're one of the largest social service locals in the province of Ontario. I just want to be clear too that I am not a representative of our agency. I am a representative of the members of our local. It's my pleasure to introduce Michele Hamilton, who is also a member of our local. She is also currently a law student doing an intensive program at Parkdale legal clinic in Toronto.
I wanted to start out by letting the committee know that I did ask to make a presentation in Toronto but was told there wasn't sufficient space. After some discussion, I asked to be put on lists for other hearings. I was informed late on Tuesday morning that I would be allowed to come and speak to you here today and, consequently, wasn't able to fully prepare a written submission. I'd like to formally ask to be allowed to submit a written submission at a later date.
The Chair: Thank you. That's perfectly all right. It will form part of the formal proceedings.
Mr Hahn: Great. Thank you. I also wanted to start out by just asking briefly -- I know that you are a rather large committee and I don't want to take up too much time -- if any of you have had any particular experience in the social service delivery field?
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): Yes.
Mr Hahn: Were you a social services worker?
Mr Preston: No, it was my home for hard-to-serve boys.
Mr Hahn: You were the administrator?
Mr Preston: No, it's my home.
Mr Hahn: Oh, it's your home. I see. No one else has any particular experience in social services? Okay.
The Chair: Be gentle with us.
Mr Hahn: I wanted to know because of some of the comments I was hoping to make. I was hoping to have some common understanding in terms of people who understand the culture of social work. I'm glad to hear that someone has some experience.
Finally, in terms of starting, I wanted to talk a little bit about process because, as a social service worker, process is a very important part of the work that we do. Essentially in social services there seems to be a concept that if one understands the process that they're engaged in or that they must go through, then there can be a clear understanding of some of the outcomes that need to be a result of the actions that we take.
In relation to the process around these public hearings, I wanted to start by saying that I was concerned about the way they were announced and the amount of time allotted for the public hearings, simply because of course, as I'll go into in my presentation, there are a number of very fundamental changes to social service delivery proposed in these various acts and it's a little disturbing that there won't be sufficient time, in my view and in our members' view, to have feedback from the public.
As well, one of the tragedies, I think, is that the people who are going to be most directly impacted by this change in legislation, people receiving social service assistance, are most likely not going to be able to make presentations to committees like this. Often, of course, this group of individuals is disempowered and disfranchised, doesn't have the resources that, for example, unions or professional advocacy groups have to pull together presentations and actually gather the courage to come and talk to formal committees like yourselves.
Bill 142 proposes radical changes to social service delivery in the largest province in Canada. If reforms are needed, the reforms proposed here are absolutely massive and they could seriously and adversely affect what seems to be the intended goal in this legislation, which is to get people off of social service assistance. One of the first requests our local would like to make is that the process, in terms of examining these changes, be slowed down somewhat. Because of the vast measures undertaken in this legislation, it would seem only prudent to have impact studies done on each of the different components of the different pieces of legislation so that we might fully understand how these things will actually play out for people who receive service and who deliver service in the province.
I think it is fundamentally important to remember that changes in law which appear as words on paper will have a massive impact on the everyday lives of real people all across the province. It's important to understand that, while there are elements of this debate around social service delivery that centre clearly on ideology, even these points of ideology are ultimately going to personally affect real people's lives. I would hope, and I would urge all of you, to keep that concept paramount in your minds while you are listening to different presentations across the province.
I have reviewed some of the materials that were presented to the committee in Toronto and I found that there are some very detailed presentations around some of the measures in the bill, but I believe it's really important to reiterate some of the most fundamental and the huge range of changes that this bill represents. First of all, a fundamental shift in the reasons why we, as a province, provide income support; an introduction of the idea of income support as a form of a loan which must be repaid.
These changes in legislation will entrench workfare or work for welfare. They will exempt these people who are going to be considered some form of worker from current employment standards law and labour law. It opens up clearly the possibilities and opportunities for privatization of public services and social service delivery in our province. It changes the definition of disability and support for persons with disabilities. It gives new powers to welfare workers and officials over people's private and personal lives. It introduces real restrictions on the fundamental rights in our society to appeal any decisions made about our lives with which we do not agree, and it provides only a bare outline in law, leaving details to be stipulated in regulation, which means that most of the fundamental issues can be decided, introduced, amended and enacted without notice or debate.
These are 10 things which the bill proposes to do, and any one of these things alone could have a massive impact in our province. To have all 10 of them and more happen simultaneously seems to our members to be quite scary. While all of the issues I mentioned are important, I know that there have been presentations on a variety of these issues, so I wanted to focus on a couple of fundamental points.
First, the concept of lending income support to people in need, reducing welfare to a loan by requiring repayment from future job earnings, putting a lien on people's homes and requiring third-party cosigners: This facet of the proposed legislation seems completely at odds with the goal of instilling self-sufficiency and long-term employment for people so that they can get off of the welfare system. This requirement fails to recognize that people have already paid for the welfare system through their tax dollars. It also means that it'll be harder for people to get off welfare and to make a new start when they do find employment, as the debt will follow them. It could mean that many people will lose their homes because their mortgages may not be renegotiated when there is a lien against them.
0910
Ideology aside, I think this clearly represents a disincentive for people to get off the welfare system. Once they've built up a debt that they know they can hardly ever repay, why leave the system at all? After making it impossible for a former recipient to better their financial situation, the hard reality is that a person may be working for a welfare cheque through unpaid community participation and yet end up having to pay all that money back out of future income.
Second, the element of workfare or work for welfare is also a key component of this bill, and this further entrenches this concept into income support, making it mandatory to perform some form of work to receive social assistance.
The bill outlines four main obligations of all recipients and dependants, which are to satisfy community participation requirements; participate in employment measures; accept and undertake basic education and job-specific skills training; and accept and maintain employment. There is no requirement that any of these above issues be reasonable or suitable or that the recipient or dependant be capable of doing them. The discussion is entirely with the welfare administrator. Once he or she has determined that the recipient has to do something, they must comply.
Many municipalities have indicated in their workfare business plan that they wish to maintain an element of choice and some degree of voluntarism. They say that the recipient should be able to choose what to participate in. However, the act does not allow for such a voluntary aspect. People cannot choose or even appeal their placements.
The obligation to accept and maintain employment has no qualifications or safeguards attached. There is no requirement for the work to be legal, adequately compensated or safe. There is no requirement that the employer comply with any of what's left of Ontario's protective employment legislation, including the Ontario Human Rights Code. In fact the Ontario Works Act expressly provides that community participation activities and any other activity prescribed by regulation is not employment for the purposes of the act or any act or regulation that has provisions regulating employment or employees unless the regulations say otherwise.
The minister has said that only single parents with school-age children will be required to participate, but this is also not clearly stipulated in the act. If it comes in regulations, then it could be changed without notice. Given that recipients cannot appeal their placements, which may in some cases begin before or end after school classes or school hours, there is no provision to take the issue of child care into account, and we all know that we already have huge waiting lists for qualified day care spaces across our province.
It's estimated that there are 200,000 single mothers alone receiving assistance in Ontario and, again, estimated that 19,000 of them are in Metro Toronto, which means literally hundreds of thousands of children all across our province will be immediately and personally impacted by these changes.
Where exactly will this work come from? It's a well-accepted and sad fact that we've been struggling with double-digit unemployment rates for over a decade. Human Resources Development Canada said that there were slightly less than 31,000 job vacancies in the Toronto region as of June 1997. The month previous, Statistics Canada reported there were 207,000 people officially unemployed in the Toronto region, and that's people who are unemployed and actively looking for work. This doesn't take into account people who have stopped looking for work or people who are involuntarily employed part-time and who may be looking for full-time work.
If we assume that there is at least one job available for every job actually recorded by Human Resources Development Canada and, further, if we assume that the actual number of job seekers who are recorded now continues to exist in terms of people actively looking for work, it means there would be three job seekers for every job available. In fact that ratio is probably higher because the number of active job seekers may grow with welfare reform.
Second, the jobs registered with Human Resources Development Canada tend towards lower-paid and less-skilled requirements and may better reflect the kinds of jobs most social service recipients will be competing for. So in reality there may be seven or more job seekers for every job available to most social assistance recipients.
It's estimated that between 1997 and 1999 the Ontario economy could generate approximately between 200,000 and 300,000 new jobs, which is barely enough to absorb any new entrants into the labour market, never mind the potential of 250,000 to 300,000 people who will have Ontario Works requirements. It seems to me that these figures alone demonstrate the need for an impact study simply on the introduction of workfare and its effect on unemployment rates.
Last, I wanted to talk a little bit about the agency that I work for and what has started to happen across our province in terms of demonizing some of the agencies that provide social services.
Our agency has had budget cuts from the funding ministry and has struggled to integrate those cuts and maintain service delivery. At the same time there is an increased demand for service delivery in the field that we provide services in, which is developmental services. With the introduction of workfare and the mandatory nature of workfare in the Ontario Works Act, employers like ours are going to be increasingly pressured to take workfare placements.
That pressure will not only come from the reality that there will be people looking for workfare placements but also from the reality that with increased budget demands and less staff but with increased demands for service, our employers and agencies like ours are going to be forced to look at this new form of voluntary labour. This of course brings up a whole number of issues in relation to accountability and training and quality service delivery for people with disabilities in our province.
Given the discussion this morning and my review of some of the materials also presented to the committee, on behalf of the 800 members of our local, I would like to recommend the following changes:
That the laws in Bill 142 must not be made exempt from existing legislation, especially employment standards, the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Human Rights Code.
That when the Ontario Works Act office or the Ontario Disability Support Program Act office denies or cancels or reduces assistance, applicants must be given the reasons for that decision.
That basic appeal rights should be established and protected in the act.
That all exemptions to appeal rights listed in the OWA and the ODSPA must be removed, especially the direct payment arrangements, deductions from basic assistance, appointment of trustees and unsuitable workfare conditions.
Recipients of social services must have the right to an advocate in internal and tribunal appeals. Recipients must be fully informed of their rights and responsibilities. Tribunals need to be fair and they need to be impartial and accessible to recipients. Eligibility criteria should be revamped so that all persons in Ontario will have protection.
Levels of social assistance benefit must be studied and restored. Employment programs, training and education programs should retain a voluntary character.
The process for changing regulations must be transparent, and tribunals need to be independent and fair.
Welfare officials should not be given police powers such as the ability to obtain search warrants or other unidentified powers that can be given by regulation.
The Ontario Works Act must be fully monitored and evaluated to ensure that it is effective, accountable and fair.
The tribunal must not refuse to process appeals because they are considered frivolous.
There should be further public hearings and impact studies for all of the proposed changes in Bill 142, which would of course be the normal procedure of a democratic government. Thank you.
0920
The Chair: We have about two minutes per caucus. We begin with the official opposition.
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): Thanks for coming this morning. I enjoyed your presentation and agree most likely with everything you've said.
This is already effective workfare. The truth is that the parliamentary assistant yesterday at the proceedings admitted that even without Bill 142 workfare is here. Comments by the minister herself said: "The pilot stage is finished. Now the second phase is province-wide implementation."
Yesterday we learned that $900,000 is being spent on an ad campaign promoting workfare, and here we are, I suppose like a bunch of idiots, travelling all around the country all for naught because the minister is intent on passing this, with or without this whole process. We watch people coming in, genuinely believing they're speaking to a group of people who want to hear valid concerns about a bill so that amendments are going to be presented, and then we see the kind of comments the minister makes and we see the ad that's going to appear on radio, television and in newspapers across Ontario over the next little while.
I don't know how that makes you feel, but I'm embarrassed to be part of this sham of a proceeding. I'm feeling not very hopeful that there are going to be appropriate changes made to very basic justice issues, like the appeal process that you spoke to. But the truth is, this is the kind of group we're dealing with, and I hope in a couple of years we're going to have a government that's more prepared to deal with the real issue, which frankly is one of jobs. Thanks for coming.
Mr Hahn: Thanks. I appreciate your candour.
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): Thank you kindly. I suppose it's not inappropriate that there's an American flag in the room with us this morning, because this is very much part of the process of the Americanization of Ontario. There seem to be some people hell-bent on making us the Arkansas or the Mississippi of the north.
This process all began, obviously, with the slashing of welfare rates by 21.6%, 22% cuts to the poorest people in the province. That was quickly followed, I've got to tell you, by Bill 42, which was this government's proposal to increase MPPs' salaries by 40%. That's what the valuation of it is: an increase of payout to MPPs to the tune of 40%.
I wonder how many poor people in this province have been called upon to subsidize salary increases for MPPs; to subsidize Mike Harris's pension buyout; to subsidize -- Ms Pupatello talked about this -- the just shy of $1-million ad campaign to promote workfare because it doesn't have any legs of its own; to subsidize the $70,000 Glen Wright spent redecorating his 1,000-square-foot office up at the Workers' Compensation Board after Mike Harris appointed him to replace the last workers' comp director.
We had a crisis in this country a couple of weeks ago, a crisis, and that was when unemployment stood a chance of dropping below 9%. That was a crisis our federal government responded to. They increased interest rates. God forbid that unemployment should drop below 9%. That's tragic.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): Thank you, Mr Hahn, for your presentation this morning. You made some passing comments regarding Ontario Works, specifically the workfare component of it. I assume you're not supportive of Ontario Works.
Mr Hahn: No, I'm not.
Mr Klees: Could you very briefly tell me why specifically?
Mr Hahn: There are two fundamental reasons. First of all, in a caring and fair society, people shouldn't have to work for social assistance.
Mr Klees: Do you --
Mr Hahn: I wasn't quite finished. I had a second reason. The second reason has to do with the work I perform and what I consider the real danger in terms of the disintegration of quality service delivery for people with disabilities in my particular field with the introduction of the Ontario Works Act.
Mr Klees: You're president of your CUPE local. No doubt you're familiar with your colleague who is president of the CUPE local in York region, Brad Black. You're aware that Mr Black has come out publicly, as quoted in a recent newspaper article, stating uncategorically that he supports the Ontario Works program. In fact, as the president of the CUPE local he participated in a working group to develop the business plan because, in his words, he feels it's precisely the kind of program that is necessary to support people with whom he's working. Why would he see the wisdom of this program and you feel it is actually detrimental to people?
Mr Hahn: I don't know necessarily that he's seeing any wisdom, but what I would say to you is that the wonder of CUPE as an organization, unlike other organizations and political parties, is that we have what's called local autonomy, and individual people can have their own opinions and voice their own opinions.
The Chair: Mr Hahn, on that note, thank you very much for voicing your opinion here today, together with Ms Hamilton. We do appreciate it.
I ask Darrell Murphy to come forward, please. Is Mr Murphy here? If not, are Gracia Janes and David Terryberry of Niagara SARC here? Thank you very much.
Ms Gracia Janes: This is very different. I thought I'd be on at 10. Mr Terryberry is working.
The Chair: If you wish, we can wait. We'll just call a brief recess until your co-presenter is here.
Ms Janes: Perhaps we should, because there is another person who is supposed to be coming.
The Chair: Very well. Because we are ahead of time and we have some latitude, we'll just call a recess for a few minutes until your co-presenter is here.
Mr Klees: Chair, before you do that, I wonder if I can just take a couple of minutes a make a clarification for the benefit of the committee.
Mr Kormos: No, wait a second. By the time we hear you --
Mr Klees: The NDP are muzzling us again.
The Chair: Mr Klees, we'll hear you out for a couple of minutes.
Mr Klees: Thank you very much. It relates to the Ontario Works program that is in --
Mrs Pupatello: The ad campaign?
Mr Kormos: Yes. What part of the $1-million ad campaign?
The Chair: Mr Klees wants to make a point of clarification. I will allow him to do that because we have time. I will allow both of the other parties to make comments if they so choose.
Mr Klees: Please, after I'm finished, if they wouldn't mind respecting my time.
There has been some discussion and concern expressed about the fact that Ontario Works is currently implemented, and perhaps prior to Bill 142. Ms Pupatello in particular is very confused about it. I would like to point out that the General Welfare Assistance Act, the regulations that were implemented in 1996, state under 4.3(3):
"A welfare administrator, with the approval of the director, shall establish a program which shall include all of the following:
"1. Community participation activities, including community improvement and community service projects.
"2. Employment support activities that may include basic education, job-specific skills training or structured job search activities.
"3. Employment placement activities."
All of these regulations give the authorization for the implementation of Ontario Works as it has been implemented across the province and continues to do so. What has been done, and in fact the ad Ms Pupatello referred to, relates to the Ontario Works program that has been established across the province under the authority of these regulations. What Bill 142 does -- and I think all of us have heard some substantive submissions from people across this province already -- relates to very significant, positive changes that affect people with disabilities and affect people on social services in the province. For us to suggest that we're wasting our time is, first of all, an admission that we don't know what's in the bill and, second, is an insult to the many people who have come before us to make representation.
I wanted to have the committee understand what the difference is between the Ontario Works program that has been established across the province and that continues to evolve and Bill 142, which is before this committee.
The Chair: For the record, Mr Klees spoke for three minutes. I'll give three minutes to each of the other parties to respond, but please, no debate; just make your case.
Mr Preston: On a point of order, Madam Chair: At the end of each submission, there are individuals here who say, "May I clarify a point and bring it to the table?" and you have heard them every single time and have not granted equal time to everybody else. All of a sudden now, the government says, "May I make a clarification?" and everybody else has to get three minutes each.
0930
The Chair: Mr Preston, I don't want to dispute the record with you. I don't think it's exactly that way. These are extraordinary circumstances. We do have some time to fill, and it's in that vein that we're continuing.
Mr Preston: Oh, I see. When we're going to be followed immediately by another submission, we won't have questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Preston. That's enough.
Mrs Pupatello: While you may be the parliamentary assistant, I'll just quote the minister. Perhaps you should have more communication with your minister. What the minister says is, "There are 53,000 people to date across the province that are or have participated in workfare" -- your minister's quote, Mr Parliamentary Assistant. She goes on to say: "Currently, 51 communities across Ontario are participating. The pilot stage is finished. The second phase is province-wide implementation."
The truth is that with or without these public hearings, your machine, the steamroller, is going forward with workfare. The reality is that people are coming to the table and making recommendations to this committee such as that the mandatory nature of this bill should be amended and it shouldn't be mandatory. Why are you allowing people to come to the table to even offer you suggestions when, very clearly, Mike Harris plans to steamroll over everyone, like he did the nurses that he called hula hoops, like he did the doctors when he said they're overpaid and underworked? Now it's the teachers' turn to be bashed.
The truth is that the people of Ontario are on to you, and the only reason for a $1-million ad campaign is because you can't muster enough propaganda by bringing your sacred workfare across Ontario through hearings. You're spending an additional $1 million of our taxpayers' money to propagandize a bill that you have seen for yourself has crashed and burned, even in North Bay, the Premier's own home town. Out of 24 deputations, every one of them was opposed to Bill 142, including the city of North Bay itself. I don't know what planet Mike Harris came from. He certainly couldn't have come from the same mentality of the people we all met in North Bay.
That is the reality of what we are hearing. The greatest concern of all is that one more time we are sitting here spending taxpayers' money making people believe there is actually hope when they come to the table and say there are real issues here, justice issues, never mind the moral ones. You have a majority government, and I guess you get the right to moralize over the rest of Ontario. But there are truly issues you need to address that clearly your own minister and your own Premier are not paying attention to, and you're wasting our time.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, you have three minutes.
Interjections.
Mr Kormos: I'm waiting to acquire the floor, Chair.
The Chair: I suggest you take the floor.
Mr Kormos: Thank you kindly, Chair. I've got to say to the parliamentary assistant, Mr Klees, that he's far too good for us. He should have stayed with the Canadian Home Shopping Channel, selling whatever it was he was selling them.
The folks here in Niagara know exactly what Bill 142 is all about. It's about attacking the poor and the poorest. This government, rather than engaging in a war on poverty, has engaged in a frontal assault on the poor, and 142 is all about that: a 21.6% cut to the support plan for the poorest in our communities -- women, kids -- to pay for MPPs' 40% salary increase; to pay for Mike Harris's pension buyout, wherein Harris became an instant millionaire at the expense of the poorest in the province; to pay for a 30% tax break for the richest in this province. We're calling upon the poor here in Niagara Falls, throughout Niagara, throughout this province, to pay for these things. That's what 142 is all about. It's about slashing welfare rates, it's about denying that this government has been totally ineffective in even approaching its commitment to create 725,000 jobs.
I've got to give credit to Jack Carroll, Mr Klees's colleague, his co-parliamentary assistant, who finally acknowledged that the real issue is the fact that we have double-digit levels of unemployment in this province and that all the workfare in the world ain't going to get people out of poverty if we don't have real jobs, with real wages, with real benefits and with some permanence and stability. In Mike Harris's Ontario, bankruptcies increase, the rich get richer, and, yes, at Mike Harris's insistence and to his benefit, the poor get poorer.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kormos. With that, may I ask --
Interjections.
The Chair: Gentlemen, please come to order. I'd like to ask, is Mr Terryberry here yet, Ms Janes? No? Very well, we will take a 10-minute recess and see how we're doing.
The committee recessed from 0937 to 0952.
NIAGARA SARC NETWORK
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to resume our hearings. I'd like to call the Niagara SARC, Gracia Janes, Mary Potter and Gerald Diffin. Good morning, all. Thank you for being here to present a little early to us.
Ms Gracia Janes: I'm Gracia Janes and I represent the Niagara SARC Network. That's the Social Assistance Reform Committee, and you have our brief. With me is Mary Potter, who will present a short brief from the St Catharines and District Council of Women, in support of the Provincial Council of Women of Ontario brief, which was handed in in Ottawa, but they did not have a chance to make a presentation. To my left is Gerry Diffin, who will have a few minutes at the end to speak on behalf of the Golden Horseshoe Social Action Committee. So I'll start.
The Niagara SARC Network is a group of social service agencies, churches, organizations and individuals in the region of Niagara who have, since 1989, monitored social welfare conditions as they relate to provincial legislation, policy and programs. The network was originally formed as a result of the work of Judge George Thomson and the SARC commission he chaired around poverty and proposed welfare reform. Our intent was to support and monitor progressive changes of the SARC Transitions report.
These reforms were a comprehensive attempt to move the provision of welfare away from the punitive 17th- and 18th-century workhouse/poorhouse attitudes that had somehow hung over into the 20th century and to remove the barriers to work and societal involvement for those on assistance and their dependants. There was an expectation also that public investment in people, through opportunity planning and job supports, would be paid back many times over. Real jobs and improved health and welfare for individuals, families and those with disabilities would reduce future public costs that result from poverty, joblessness, infant mortality, school failure, hospital use and mental illness.
The overriding philosophy of the SARC commission was best expressed in the Transitions report of 1988: "All people in Ontario are entitled to an equal assurance of life opportunities in a society that is based on fairness, shared responsibility and personal dignity for all. The objective of social assistance therefore must be to ensure that individuals are able to make the transition from dependence to autonomy and from exclusion on the margins to integration within the mainstream of community life." There was an intent as well to ensure an efficient, just and fair welfare system that honoured the provisions of the Canada Assistance Plan in providing "adequate assistance to and in respect of persons in need and the prevention and removal of the causes of poverty."
In particular, these aims reflected long-standing social welfare policies and principles in Canada for which we are known around the world and which most certainly propelled Canada to be a signatory to international covenants such as the human rights declaration, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed by Canada, states:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his or her control."
We draw to the committee's attention Bill 142's extraordinary rejection of these long-held Canadian principles of fairness and justice. We cannot deal in a short presentation with the many flaws, but would seek to highlight the most glaring through questions to the committee and, through it, to the government as follow:
Recent polls strongly suggest that after 50 years of societal concern, the citizens of Ontario will be profoundly unsettled by such an Americanization of attitude as survival of the fittest. Why does the Act revoke the philosophy of need and entitlement, as found in the Canada Assistance Plan and other international treaties, and instead insist on self-reliance through employment?
Why does the bill place the onus of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of those who are in dire straits, with no obligations from the larger community? Bill 142 is cruel, unfair and its enforcement measures are draconian. Examination of the results of the province's snitch line confirm that the perception of widespread cheating on the part of welfare recipients is unfounded and the vast majority of complaints are groundless, often based on misinformation regarding welfare policy or ill feeling on behalf of the complainant.
Where is the human dignity in being perceived to be part of a group of persons likely to cheat, therefore requiring the imposition, through Bill 142, of draconian enforcement measures with fraud control units and snitch lines to threaten one's daily life and that of one's children?
Why does Bill 142 place so much emphasis on police state methods of enforcement? Given the struggle most have already to make ends meet, to find employment and to move out of poverty, why has the act allowed for liens to be put on some homes and why may some recipients be required to pay back welfare moneys? Will these measures not make it far more difficult for people to fight their way out of poverty?
It seems that the objective of the act is to cut people off welfare or reduce their assistance drastically in order to save money and to appear to be acting tough. Why else would the definition or the determination of eligibility for the Ontario disability support program be so restrictive and the decisions around employment supports non-appealable?
In the USA, studies show that mandatory workfare has not led to a substantial increase in people leaving welfare over the long term. One study showed that those who did not participate had a better chance of moving off welfare. Given this, will workfare really lead to secure, safe and reasonably paid jobs or will it perhaps even interfere with pre-existing job searches?
How will recipients without jobs make up the 21.6% cut in welfare, eg, single parents of preschool children? Are single parents and their dependants to continue to suffer from reduced income because of their circumstances?
Privatization has many pitfalls. Andersen Consulting of Chicago had overruns in contract costs in Texas of 559% and is four years behind schedule, had cost overruns in Nebraska and has had a contract terminated for overruns and delays by the federal government. Given these and other negative results of private sector development and delivery of welfare and workfare, what kind of losses can we expect as a result of the provincial contract with Andersen Consulting? In light of the abysmal failure of the private sector, why does the Ontario Works Act give sweeping powers to contract out welfare delivery and administration?
What kind of accountability for service delivery will there be for the private sector? Will they just cream off the most job-ready workfare participants?
What will the private sector delivery system mean for welfare recipients in terms of human dignity, since profit will be the bottom line? What appeal rights would recipients have?
Workfare is unlikely to make a difference that is measurable. Since the average stay on welfare for single employables is 8.3 months and for FBA clients 3.5 years, it is obvious that there is a large flux on and off welfare at any time. In light of this, how will the success of workfare in moving people off workfare and into jobs be documented?
FBA and GWA already require employable people to search for employment and accept any job they are physically capable of doing. Sole-support parents engage in job searches and other employment activities voluntarily, and the overwhelming majority of recipients would jump at a job opportunity. Why, then, does the legislation focus on client self-sufficiency and on breaking presumed dependencies? Why are those on assistance to be punished for the very poor job market?
In Niagara, and I'm sure elsewhere, hundreds of recipients volunteer yearly in the community and many have been assisted in finding jobs. Why can't the workfare program be voluntary?
To conclude, the Niagara SARC Network sees Bill 142 as a giant step backwards in time, of between 60 and 200 years, to the days when only the "truly deserving" received unconditional social support while those who were "undeserving" worked for a pittance and were blamed for their condition. We caution that such an uncharitable attitude and system will bring untold hardship for poor people in Ontario, who are also being blamed for their condition, the lack of a job in a society driven by mechanization and corporate downsizing.
1000
The long-term cost to society as a result of increased poverty and homelessness, already exacerbated by the drastic cuts to welfare rates, loss of self-esteem, mental stress and illness will be enormous. Given the American experience, the proposed savings from the new, hard-nosed business approach seem dubious, if not completely illusory.
We challenge the committee to seek answers to our questions from the Minister of Community and Social Services before reporting recommended changes to cabinet or risk sharing the blame for a failed and costly welfare system and social breakdown caused by a growing rift between those who have jobs and can make their way and those who drift further and further into poverty. We ask you to opt instead for a fair, humane and just welfare system, such as that proposed by Transitions, that builds on the abilities of all its citizens and treats with compassion those who need help.
Ms Mary Potter: Founded in 1918 in St Catharines, the St Catharines and District Council of Women has worked towards the betterment of family and society for close to 80 years. For example, council urged the establishment of a well baby clinic in 1930, in 1939 requested that city council hire a social worker and in 1970 conducted a survey on poverty.
Today the council represents 22 affiliates of varying constituencies -- for example, the Beta Sigma Phi Sorority, Ukrainian Social Services and University Women of St Catharines -- and continues to serve its community well through advocacy around issues that impact society and the family, such as environment and social problems.
As an affiliate of the international, national and provincial councils of women we are part of an organization that represents millions of citizens worldwide and we are bound by democratically set policy, that is, by resolution circulated widely, at all levels.
It is within this context that we speak today in support of the Provincial Council of Women of Ontario brief presented in Ottawa. This brief uses as its basis Provincial Council of Women of Ontario policy in support of the Transitions report of 1989 and National Council of Women social policy, which asks that government "maintain national standards which would require social assistance granted on the basis of need and include a suitable appeal process."
The brief speaks of "a system that needs to be improved to provide more adequate support for the very real needs of people in hardship situations," and of a sense that "Bill 142 has abandoned the basic purpose of meeting need based on fairness, shared responsibility and personal dignity for all."
We agree with the Provincial Council of Women of Ontario that "the punitive features of this act and the spirit in which it appears to be written, seem to be an excellent recipe for alienating the most impoverished from the general society."
This act confirms our fears that the government has bought into the many myths surrounding those on social assistance, myths that are not only damaging to citizens on welfare but to our future as a caring, healthy province. Some of the most popular myths are:
Welfare fraud is rampant, when we know it to involve just a very few, far fewer than those who commit white-collar crime or cheat on taxes.
People are lazy and must be forced to work, when we know that thousands have applied for certain jobs, thousands volunteer their time to get needed experience and many people are trapped in low-paying and part-time jobs because these are the only jobs available.
There are large numbers of teens on welfare, particularly teen moms, although these comprise only a fraction of the caseload.
There is a huge core of people on welfare caseloads who remain on for generations, when in fact 40% of those on assistance are children, and the median stay on welfare for singles is 8.3 months and for families is 3.5 years.
Welfare recipients are dependent on a system that is far too generous, when we know that they have instead real needs, such as hunger, homelessness and mental and physical illness, all of which have been intensified by the recent cuts in benefits.
Welfare recipients are a drag on the upstanding taxpayer, when in fact all welfare recipients pay taxes, ranging from GST and PST to the hidden taxes, such as those implicit in rental payments; and when most have worked before coming on to hard times and thus have previously paid income tax etc.
In philosophy, intent and content, Bill 142 reinforces and builds itself around these myths and seems to return to the cruel days of long ago when the poor were dependent on and beholden to a land owner, merchant lord or factory employer; were often suspect and punished harshly if found to be taking advantage of their situation; and had very few rights of appeal.
In light of all this, we ask ourselves why Bill 142 is so unfair and unremitting in its harsh attitude and action towards social assistance recipients, for example, workfare even for single parents, welfare police, snitch lines, liens on property, welfare as a loan in some cases, fingerprinting and lack of opportunity to appeal perceived unjust decisions that so heavily impact a recipient and dependants. The answer perhaps may be found in a government ideology that we must force people to stand on their own. It also strongly reflects a political need to tap into society's general uncertainty and concern about the future and hence to appear to be tough towards those who are perceived to be a drag on the upstanding taxpayer.
We agree with the Provincial Council of Women of Ontario that "Canadians have not ceased to believe in a caring, compassionate society" but that because we "are in a time of stagnant incomes and high unemployment, at the same time as we worry bout dealing with debt and deficit...it has therefore been easy to foster a climate of belief that certain elements of our society are practising widespread abuse of the system, even though the facts do not bear this out."
Finally, we ask that this committee pay close attention to the Provincial Council of Women of Ontario brief, particularly as it relates to the following: the underlying government belief in what are really just myths, erroneous assumptions; the need for supportive programs such as STEP, ACT, opportunity planning, JobLink; and the apparent void in areas of fairness, shared responsibility and personal dignity for all.
Ms Janes: If we have a few more minutes, Gerry Diffin would like to speak.
The Chair: You have five more minutes.
Mr Gerald Diffin: I'm concerned that Bill 142 is allowed to happen by a government that thinks poor people aren't people, they're something less, they're subhuman. My concern is sexual harassment. It happens to women who are very bright and talented and in high positions in the workplace, and there is no vehicle in this bill for some vulnerable young lady put in a position where she cannot go back the next day, so her children are going to go hungry because she was harassed the day before. I think it's a bloody shame. There are women in the government caucus who know that women are vulnerable in the workplace every day, so they know they have to be doubly vulnerable in a workfare program. Nothing in there addresses anything like that. I think it's a bloody shame.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about a minute per caucus. I would ask you to keep your questions short. We begin with Mr Kormos of the third party.
Mr Kormos: Thank you kindly for compressing so much into such a short period of time. There are a few things we've learned over the course of the last week: that 93% -- this was presented to us in Ottawa, I believe -- of children on welfare were born in non-welfare families, were born into families that had jobs, that had incomes, that were self-supporting; similarly, that the average stay of a woman on the social assistance system is 18 months and that almost inevitably these are women who, again, prior to being on social assistance were part of households that had incomes, that were working class, middle class, that were buying cars and paying off household finances, what have you, but as often as not were forced on to welfare because of violence or the threat of violence to themselves or to their kids. These are women who have fled the risk of deadly violence to themselves or their kids. We also heard that because of the slashing of welfare rates, those same women have been forced back into households where they risk death for themselves or for their kids. That, in my view, makes this government a co-conspirator in the attacks on those women and those children.
1010
Mr Bart Maves (Niagara Falls): Thank you very much for your presentation. I just wanted to go to one point where you lament a statement, "self-reliance through employment." I believe if we asked Ontarians if they agreed with that statement, that people should seek self-reliance through employment, I would say well over 90% would say they agree with that statement. Yet you seem to lament the idea of self-reliance through employment, and I wonder why.
Ms Janes: There are two answers to that. One is that the jobs aren't there; two is that the people want jobs, they're desperate for job, they're volunteering. They are doing all this voluntarily, so there's nothing wrong. They all want to work and they see value in it. Of course people would say, "There's value in employment if we can get it, and we want it badly."
To take away the kindness and compassion that have been traditional Canadian and Ontario preserves -- we are known for this -- to move directly away from the Canada assistance plan provision for people, I think Canadians would be most unhappy with that. I believe recent polls show that they a great deal of compassion even in some of the areas like the 905 and sharing resources with the city of Toronto.
I don't think the people of Ontario buy this business. They all know the jobs aren't there. They all know that the former welfare system we had obliged people to work, and people want to work. I don't think they have much truck with this self-made stuff.
Mrs Pupatello: Thanks for coming today. I just want your comment on Mike Harris's launch of a million-dollar campaign to advertise workfare, because they just suffered through a complete crash-and-burn exercise. In the Premier's home town of North Bay they could not find presenters who were going to support Bill 142. They have boycotted other communities. They refused to come to Windsor. They refused to go to Thunder Bay even though at that point, before advertising the hearings, 35% of our list was made up of people coming from those regions.
It's been a complete exercise of trying to stifle people who want to speak by making very little time available, going only where they wanted to go. Then, to add insult to injury, they have groups like yours come to us with genuine concerns about the bill and looking for amendments, and we see at the same time the minister and her trekkies rushing around rural and urban Ontario saying, "Mandatory workfare is coming." Come hell or high water, this is happening.
The city of London told us yesterday that under no circumstances will the mandatory nature of workfare be removed. It really begs the question, why have you come here and why does the government insist on spending $1 million dollars, through that ministry, to advertise this?
Ms Janes: I think they're trying to con the public, and I don't think the public will be conned into thinking it's a hand up and a handout. That's what Transitions was all about: a hand up and a handout. This is about pushing people down and under, and while you're doing it, blaming them for their condition. I don't think people are buying that at all.
As a matter of fact, this workfare is not going very well for the government. That's why they need the campaign. In Niagara there are only six placements at the Fireman's Park where the program was announced.
Mrs Pupatello: What do they do there?
Ms Janes: They clean up and paint and do this kind of thing. Some have moved off --
The Chair: I regret that time has expired. Thank you for your brief. I wanted to tell you that the brief of the Provincial Council of Women of Ontario was deposited in Ottawa. We received one copy. We're making copies for members of the committee and they will be circulated on our return to Toronto.
Ms Janes: That's wonderful. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you all very much for being here this morning.
PROJECT SHARE
The Chair: Project SHARE, Roxanne Felice, Tanya Buckaway, Tracy Ross and Anne Smellie. Welcome. I think we're going to need one more chair for our presenters. We have enough microphones but not quite enough chairs.
Ms Roxanne Felice: Madam Chairperson and members of the committee, also people in the audience, especially the students from the social service class at Niagara College, we thank you for the opportunity of coming here today to speak on Bill 142.
Project SHARE is an agency in Niagara Falls that serves people who live below the poverty line. Our services are an emergency food bank, a food cooperative, a housing help centre, emergency and crisis service. We do public education, advocacy and the Christmas basket program. We serve approximately 2,300 people a month. Since the welfare cuts in 1995, we went up another 30%. Just to tell you what things are really like, I started the job in 1989, and a high month for us was if we served 250 people. We've gone from 1989 and 250 people to 2,300. Things are not good.
We would like to express to you today our concerns regarding Bill 142 and what it would mean for food bank recipients in the Niagara area. We have five recommendations that I'm going to go through, then the presenters who are with me will talk on different sections.
(1) We would like to remove the potential for all welfare to be regarded as a loan. I am told that this is not supposed to be the interpretation. However, the way the legislation reads right now, anyone can be asked to repay their welfare. If the regs are to be defined differently, that is not known yet. It is not fair to have people go back to work only to be plunged into greater debt and poverty.
(2) We would like to allow the 60- to 64-year-olds to stay on family benefits. We have a recipient, Anne Smellie, here who will speak on that.
(3) We would like to have you maintain the right to appeal the decisions at its current level.
(4) Reconsider the section of the bill regarding third-party informal trustees, taking into account the potential for abuse from landlords and unscrupulous people.
(5) Do not restrict the definition of "disability." Take into account the needs of people who are not visibly disabled but who are still unable to work.
On that point, Project SHARE serves approximately 200 people a month who have a mental illness problem, some of whom are on disability, some of whom are not. If this definition stands, they will no longer be able to apply for benefits as they don't fit into the new definition, but they are unable to function in the community. If this occurs, their income will become $520 per month instead of the disability amount of $930. This will put a constant strain on our services for food and shelter. We realize that the existing people on family benefits will be grandfathered. We are concerned about the new recipients.
To get on disability right now is extremely difficult, so this is going to be severely difficult. Those who are moderately disabled, those who have HIV/AIDS, those with an addiction problem, those who have what are generally barriers to employment will no longer qualify. We have real concerns about that.
Anne is going to speak on the aged.
Ms Anne Smellie: Good morning. At the present time, Project SHARE services very few consumers who are between the ages of 60 and 64, 4% of our total statistics. If this new legislation, Bill 142, passes as it is, this group of aged will be forced to live on $410 less a month. Their monthly income will drop from $930 to $520. This will mean extreme hardship for this group, which is often stricken with arthritis and ill health. Such legislation will force this group to have to go out to our food bank in order to feed themselves, and in some cases they will go hungry because of their culture and upbringing.
The 60- to 64-year-olds find it literally impossible for find employment and will have great difficulty in performing workfare placements.
If I may speak personally, I am a single, fourth-generation Ontario resident, grade 13 education, a worklife mostly in retail sales. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I was self-employed in a small crafts business but a techno-peasant when it comes to today's computer and job skill requirements. At age 60 in May I had a minimum-wage job, but I was managing and about to receive a small early Canada pension when I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, carpal tunnel syndrome and a left-eye cataract, none of which is totally disabling, but combined make my chances of self-sufficient employment very low.
I applied as a first-timer for the basic $520 social assistance and, depending on ongoing medical tests, as a candidate for future disability benefits. The money and health card I receive covers my rent, medication and basic food, for which I'm very grateful. Each purchase I make is a major decision. I remain eternally optimistic I can rejoin my community as a working member, but the resources to do so within my age group's health factors and income are very limited.
1020
You've heard how the need for Project SHARE services has increased so dramatically over the past few years. As a food co-op member and volunteer for hundreds of hours over the past 18 months, I've seen this first hand as I try to pay back the help I receive -- my own form of workfare.
If this legislation is passed without amendments, my vulnerable age group will be severely penalized. Project SHARE will have a huge demand on its already overextended burden to care for and about us, a burden that its five recommendations surely can help to avoid.
Thank you very much for listening.
Ms Felice: Tanya is going to speak on the homeless.
Ms Tanya Buckaway: I'd like to speak on homelessness, and when I use that term I'm not simply referring to someone who is temporarily out of a place to stay. Rather, I'm referring to somebody who's socially isolated, has absolutely no friends or family to turn to, has no financial resources at all. When they come to see us at Project SHARE, we're the last house on the block. We see about 200 families a month that are in some kind of a housing crisis and about 20 individuals, families, who are completely homeless.
We did a survey at Project SHARE in this summer of 1997 and we asked the people who come in to use the services of Project SHARE how much they spend on their rent. We found that the majority spend over 80% of their income on rent. To give you some context, according to Stats Canada the average Canadian spends 27.9% of their income on rent. This means, when they're spending that much money, that leaves very little for essentials. Even $5 can send the household into a crisis. That means frivolous things like Kleenex are not on the shopping list.
These families that come to us, and we have to remember there are a lot of events going on right now -- Bill 96, redefining the term "disability"; changes to human rights, things like that -- as well as events that have happened in the past -- the 21.6% cut; deinstitutionalization that has never been adequately addressed in our community -- and all these things are intertwining and have an impact on the people who are coming in to see us.
These people, when they're in a housing crisis, are looking at jails, hospitals and shelters as a housing option. That's not a good thing because we have very few shelters in Niagara Falls. That's found on page 4 of your package. There is no shelter for families, for single men, for men who have children, single-parent males. What this does is, when they're released from a hospital, they're back where they started from. They're back on the streets and all they've done is really delayed their life on the streets.
For some people, try as they might, if they can't get a job and they don't meet the rigid requirements of Bill 142, they're not going to have an income. If they don't have an income they can't pay rent, and if they can't pay rent they're going to be on the streets and we're going to see an increase in the homeless people who are living on the streets of our city.
Ms Felice: Tracy is going to talk about workfare and the single parent and special needs children.
Ms Tracy Ross: Workfare and the single parent: In our survey in 1992, we found that 66% of people coming to Project SHARE were on welfare for the first time. There are many children in these families below 12 years of age who need the support of their parents. In our 1997 survey, more two-parent families were coming to Project SHARE for food assistance. In the majority of cases, unemployment and a lack of adequate income are the major reasons for demands for services: 57% surveyed lost their jobs in the 1990s; 55% of the unemployed felt they did not have the adequate skills or training to get a job; 73% of those surveyed had a high school diploma.
The government seems committed to putting these families, especially the children, into a life of poverty and risk of hunger by forcing the parents to have to juggle another piece of eligibility, workfare, in order to get rent and to put food on the tables. Parents will be told to put their children into day care that they cannot afford.
In this area, we'd also like to cover the special needs children. We recommend that the legislation should exempt employment requirements for parents who have special needs children. I am a single parent with a disabled child who does not fall under the children's disability guidelines. Due to her illness and need for close supervision, I have been collecting mother's allowance for 11 years. At this point in time, I am working two part-time jobs that have very flexible hours. Due to her illness, she must have adult supervision for emergencies at all times. If I am forced to work full-time or inappropriate hours, her quality of life will drop drastically and her personal safety would be nil. Even though I work and collect mother's allowance, I am also forced to rely on Project SHARE to feed my family as I receive no help towards her disability.
Ms Felice: Tanya is going to discuss third-party informal trustees.
Ms Buckaway: The other point we'd like to bring to your attention is this idea of an informal trustee. In our experience it has not proven to be an effective measure to maintain stability in a person's life. I have two stories for you that have happened just recently.
For the purposes of the presentation, the first one will be Jane. She is a mental health consumer in her forties. She has a trustee who is a lovely lady and a very good companion to Jane, but she's not able to help guide her in some of the decisions, especially in her financial decisions. What happens to Jane is that she enters into a crisis, the trustee responds inadequately and Jane ends up being homeless and has to travel to shelters in other cities and even outside the region to find a place to stay so she can remain off the streets.
Another story: For the purposes of the presentation, her name is Janie. She is a mental health consumer in her fifties. She has a public trustee with the guardian's office. By an oversight, her rent was not paid for three months, July, August and September. A few weeks ago we got a call from a very angry hotel owner -- hotels are not covered under the Landlord and Tenant Act -- and he said, "If my rent isn't paid for three months, then Janie is going to be kicked out by lunchtime." So we started playing the telephone tag game with the Public Guardian and Trustee's office to try and find out what had happened to this rent money and tried to intervene and negotiate with the hotel owner to extend her stay until we could get to the bottom of it.
Everything was resolved, but in both those cases we were dealing with trustees who had compassion for the person they were dealing with and they were more than willing to deal with us. But if we were looking at a trustee who had any other kind of motivation -- say, money or just doing it as a job and not having that compassion -- we would be very concerned. As an agency or as any other concerned individual we'd be kept out of the loop because of freedom of information and we would be unable to help that person and they would end up being on the street.
Ms Felice: Last, we'll talk about the loss of an independent appeal process.
Bill 142 abolishes the Social Assistance Review Board and replaces it with the Social Benefits Tribunal. This tribunal has very few powers to improve social assistance delivery. Before the tribunal will hear a case, the appeal must go through an internal process. We could see an increase in the number of people needing help with a complex appeals process. It could also delay access to welfare benefits, which means people may have no income for a period of time and will have to rely on the food banks and shelters because they are not able to get on to the welfare system.
The tribunal can also refuse to hear an appeal if they feel it's frivolous. It is not permitted to hear appeals related to workfare placements, direct payments to landlords or appointments to trustees without people's consent. All these areas become unappealable. This is hard to imagine in a community where we pride ourselves in being able to appeal anything from a Sears bill to a parking ticket. Yet we in Ontario are going to take that away from people who are living below the poverty line.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about a minute per caucus for questioning. We begin with the government.
Mr Klees: Thank you for your presentation, and on behalf of the government I want to commend you for the work you're doing in the community. I have a question for you specifically relating to the issue of trustees.
By the way, we agree there should be accountability. We've heard those representations made and I know members of the committee share that. That is something we will be addressing.
I have no doubt that in the work you do, you come across circumstances where there is an abuse on the part of recipients. It may be, in the case of an individual who is either incapable or as a result perhaps of an alcohol problem or other substance abuse, that sometimes the social assistance payments that are made don't get to the family. I know as an MPP I have cases like that in my constituency office that are very difficult to deal with, and it's really for that reason we're trying to find some way to get that money to the recipient's family. Do you have any advice for us as to how we could achieve that?
Ms Felice: First of all, what discourages me about this government is that the only thing we hear from you is the rhetoric of abuse. I just wish for once we could come to this committee where you have something positive to say about the people who are most vulnerable in our community.
Mr Preston: You're talking about abuse of the children.
The Chair: Mr Preston, please.
Ms Felice: We do have cases where people do not pay their rent when they get money. There are very few. On $520 a month, if you want a roof over your head, you've got to pay your bills.
1030
Mrs Pupatello: Thank you so much. The group's work is quite legendary in the region. I'm glad you're here, because it is important to hear from people who work on the front line and deal with individuals who need help in our community.
I would like your opinion about Mike Harris's launch of a $1-million campaign advertising workfare in the midst of these proceedings. When the bill is not even law yet, they've launched a $1-million campaign telling everyone this is coming. Knowing that the program is mandatory, the recipients don't have a choice, why do you need to advertise it? Municipalities are being threatened into participation by virtue of cutting off grant money to municipalities if they don't. Seeing that the projects are out there and they're mandatory, there isn't any purpose to advertise. I want to know how you feel, with the kind of work you do, when you come here legitimately talking about significant issues with this bill and you watch Mike Harris spend $1 million advertising a program that's mandatory anyway.
Ms Felice: It makes you feel very discouraged and powerless. It also gives you the feeling, although this happens very often, that this government just doesn't care about the people who are suffering.
Mr Kormos: Thank you kindly. Tragically, I know all too well what you folks do on a daily basis. I say "tragically" because you should be out of business. You should be doing other things for a living than having to do what you do. I say that with absolute sincerity. By God, I'd love to see you out of business.
Unfortunately, this whole process commenced with the cutting of welfare rates by 21.6%. The message was, "We'll help the poor escape from the trap of poverty by making them poorer." The poorer, and I'll repeat this as often as I have to, are being put under attack. They're being called upon to subsidize the 40% pay increase that Harris gave MPPs immediately on the heels of cutting welfare rates. They're being called upon to pay for the $109-million pension plan buyout that made Mike Harris and others millionaires. They're being called upon to pay for this $900,000 ad campaign and they're being called upon to pay for a 30% tax break, two thirds of which goes to the top 10% of income earners. That is the only crime that's taking place here.
The Chair: I want to thank all of you on behalf of the committee for being here today and sharing your presentation with us.
NIAGARA SOUTH SOCIAL SAFETY NETWORK
The Chair: Next is the Niagara South Social Safety Network, Barbara DeRuiter. Welcome. As you get settled, I notice there are two co-presenters with you. I'd ask you to identify them for the record.
Ms Barbara DeRuiter: Lynne Prine is going to help me to present, and René is here to help with questions. I was expecting Mary Beth Anger to also help with questions. I'm not sure if she's in the room.
The Chair: Could we have the full name of the third person you introduced?
Ms DeRuiter: René Fisher.
We are here to represent the Niagara South Social Safety Network. The social safety network is made up of community representatives from churches and social organizations as well as individual community members. We are committed to working for change for all people. The network is open to people living in Port Colborne, Wainfleet, Welland, Pelham and the Fort Erie area. We want to lobby to preserve social programs and to help make our communities healthier.
We use a broad definition of health. A healthy community goes far beyond physical health. It needs to include economic, social, spiritual, emotional and intellectual health as well. The network works to improve human dignity, social justice and economic justice and to empower people.
We are also a member of the Ontario Social Safety Network, which is a provincial network of groups and individuals working to support low-income people. The Ontario Social Safety Network has put forth a very creditable set of recommendations. We endorse their recommendations and call on you to implement them.
I'd like to talk for a few minutes about Transitions, which was the report of the Social Assistance Review Committee, put out in 1988. This was an attempt to reform the social assistance system that involved genuine good-quality consultation with the people of Ontario. Real care was taken to ensure that the committee heard from people living on social assistance and living with the effects of government policies. They sought to give people dignity and an adequate income and to enable all people to participate in society.
Transitions was very widely praised and received broad support from churches and community organizations. Sadly, however, little progress was made in implementing its recommendations. This involves tremendous waste of time and money invested in this broadly recognized report. Worse yet, it involves tremendous waste of the potential of social assistance recipients whose lives would have been bettered by its implementation.
Instead, we are faced with another costly attempt at reform. In contrast to Transitions, the spirit of this social reform act is very mean. It relies on intimidation, and has similarities to a police state in the permission it gives for fingerprinting and the lack of privacy people are allowed and lack of respect for human rights. It is as if people on social assistance have no human rights. This would allow them to be treated like criminals, sometimes even worse. We're hearing, for example, that children of families living on social assistance are not able to eat as well as criminals do. Criminals have food provided that meets Canada's food guide. I'm not saying I want that taken away, but our children should be treated at least as well.
We think too that eligibility for social assistance needs to simply be based on need. People are now being forced to go with absolutely no assistance. Also, people who are convicted of offences in relation to social assistance should remain eligible if they are otherwise in need at the time. Families should not be penalized by cutting benefits due to one member's offence. Failing to allow people to have enough income to meet their basic needs pushes them towards mental illness, crime, begging or suicide. The result will be more violence in our society and less safety for all of us and our children. We call on the government to meet its responsibility to set up standards and enforce them to ensure the wellbeing and human rights of all Canadians.
1040
Another important point we would like to make is that the social assistance system should be based on law, not regulations. The act is much too general and much too vague. It is like asking the people of Ontario to sign a blank cheque or a blank contract regarding how economically disadvantaged people will be treated. The details are not filled in. Numbers and figures of what people are going to get or what they'll be allowed to have to qualify are not filled in.
Being as it's set down in regulation, it can be easily changed compared to a law. There can be changes without public consultation, and this is a real concern. There are too many sweeping powers granted to the minister and cabinet so that changes can be made without public consultation on very important matters, matters that affect people's lives very seriously.
There also needs to be uniformity of delivery. With the regulations and the setup as far as municipalities, there is too much room for inconsistency across the province. One region or municipality may have a more lenient Ontario Works plan, whereas there's openness to another one being very harsh. This is unfair and unjust. Regulations need to be consistent and humane across the province.
It also leaves people at too much vulnerability to workers' discretion and differences in treatment by different workers.
Recipients must also be fully informed of their rights and responsibilities, and responsibility needs to be with the government to do the informing. Right now it is recipients who are responsible. The way the act is set up it is recipients who are responsible, and that is not acceptable.
People also need to have the right of appeal regarding all decisions. Poor people need access to justice just as much as anyone else.
Bill 142 has very cruel effects on 60- to 64-year-olds. Those who do not qualify under the disability act will have to remain on a municipal Ontario Works program, subject to lower rates and workfare requirements. Their income will be greatly reduced. Municipalities cannot handle the burden of trying to retrain these recipients whose employment chances are realistically so low. Even people 10 and 15 years younger are having difficulty finding employment due to age. The 60- to 64-year-olds should be included in the Ontario disability support plan just as they are now included in the family benefits.
There is also grave concern for people with disabilities. Bill 142 blatantly contradicts the Common Sense Revolution, in which there was a promise that disabilities would not be affected. In the future many disabled people will be left to subsist on the much lower rates of the municipal Ontario Works program.
Disabled people need higher incomes because they have higher costs associated with their disabilities. For example, they must pay a $2 user fee on each prescription. Sometimes they need special diets, for example, diabetics, and extra transportation expenses are involved as a result of needing to get special medical treatment. For example, it costs $30 for transportation from Port Colborne to Hamilton for treatment.
Many disabled people are going through extreme anxiety over what this act is going to mean. I've heard of people losing sleep, and just very, very worried. It's cruel that they should need to go through this on top of struggling with their disability.
We support a change in the definition of disabilities in keeping with the submission of the Ontario Social Safety Network and commend Minister Janet Ecker for moving in this direction, though more needs to be done.
I will now give Lynne a chance to speak.
Ms Lynne Prine: I'm not really a speaker, but I came here to try and give you an idea of what some of the people on assistance go through. I'm going to read you one little story here.
A little girl said to me a few weeks ago: "If this is an adult situation, why do we have to pay? Just because our parents are poor, do they have to make it so we stay poor? All I want is a place to live, some food to eat, my family and a good education so I can get a job."
This came from a girl whose mother is on FBA as a result of a car accident and a marriage breakdown. The mother suffers from some disabilities but she's not receiving disability, and she still acquired a college diploma on her own. She is still unable to work full-time and will never be able to work full-time due to her disabilities. She may be able to manage a business from home at some later point, but at present that isn't even possible due to health and money.
She works part-time to try to make up the 22.5% or 22.6% cutback and has to maintain a vehicle to do so. She receives no allowance for her vehicle, when any person owning a vehicle, used or new, or any financial agency will verify that it costs a minimum of $300 a month to keep a car on the road, between repairs, gas, insurance etc. Sometimes it costs more. This cost is more than the 22.5% cut.
On top of that there are other costs involved in going to work which she must bear. She is also left with past debts and a student loan. Do you think in a marriage breakdown she was not left with debts? How can she pay these? Friends and family aren't allowed to help. That would be income and subject to be deducted from shelter and food allowance.
She has a student loan because she went to college to better herself, knowing that she had to keep up with the times and would be responsible to support her three children. She can't afford to pay it. The family is not allowed to help. They are changing the bankruptcy law so you can't file against student loans. The institution that loaned the money knew that she didn't have an income to begin with.
Many graduates can't get a job after graduation or they only get a job that pays minimum wage even after acquiring a diploma or degree. Also not being considered is, what if they are not capable of full-time employment and have to abide by social service rules and regulations to provide shelter and food for their children? The whole idea of a loan as income has to be abolished.
Social services only provide minimum shelter and basic food. Even working people are often dependent on other means of support and help to survive. Social service recipients are denied that right. This is just an example of one person on assistance struggling with the system, and there are many, many, many more with varying degrees of problems. These are not low-self-esteem people with no education, with no will power, with no initiative, as social service recipients are so easily stereotyped as being. These are true people in families in need who are being destroyed by a very unfair and unjust system that denies them their basic rights and allows certain individuals to take too much power over their lives, needs and rights. This must stop.
People on the system have their hands tied. A loan is income. You can't borrow to advance. You can't save, for example, through an education savings plan because that's going to be classed as too many assets. You can't have family help. Anything on a regular basis, ie, a family making payments for you, gifts on a regular basis, can have a value put on it and be determined as income and deducted from benefits that were only intended for shelter and food to begin with. Gifts for Christmas, birthdays, meals at parents' every Friday night could be interpreted as on a regular basis. This has already happened in the past. It depends on the worker and the agency involved, not on basic rights or needs. The worker will say according to the act, anything on a regular basis."
If you lose a family member, become disabled, are left alone, are a victim of violence, you need family support. You are forced to manipulate to survive. If you're caught, you are labelled as or actually become a criminal when you were only trying to improve your situation or provide for loved ones. People working making a decent wage still have and/or need family support, emotionally and financially. Why do you think social recipients don't have that right?
1050
Ask children if they want to be raised in a school situation from age six, or even six months, on a continuous basis. It robs children of their childhood, family, family values, fun, learning experiences in home, shopping and independence. With a mother at home, children learn to play on their own and take care of things and themselves while their mother attends to other family needs, such as meals, sewing, fixing, lawns etc. She can still supervise the child.
In contrast, in day care they have constant attention. This constant attention can cause a negative effect over a long period of time in that the children don't know how to play on their own, always require attention, they're not independent, not confident etc. They always need someone there. No one loves your child the way you do. The children become a number at a young age. This is not healthy. The children resent their parents for not being there for them, not participating in activities or the children not being able to participate in activities because their parents are always working. This applies mostly to sole-support parents.
This will have a ripple effect over time. Society is starting to experience the consequences of the two-income family and the effect on children. Some children end up taking care of siblings if a parent can't afford sitters, they need work or in some cases just want work, prefer a career to a home, and the children suffer. They could be out on the street and the parent not know it. Types of friends or things they do together, everything is exciting when you are young, and the consequences are seldom realized till it is too late.
Children have a right to a family, education and health. The rules this new act is trying to make people live under will deprive them of those very rights. We should be able to sue the government for neglect of child welfare. They're not considering these children or the people, the low-income, the disabled, the elderly. They only seem to care about the numbers they want to reduce off of benefits. We say, "Shame on them."
The public seems to think that social service recipients or low-income poor don't get involved. Part of that is because the poor don't think they can make a change. They fear the attention may result in being cut off for making waves or drawing attention to themselves. But in more cases than the public realizes, they are simply not aware of what is going on. They do not belong to these organizations, many don't know the organizations exist or where to find them, they don't know what resources are available and how to access them. They can't afford newspapers or computers unless they already had one. Some don't even own a TV. They think there are agencies in place to protect their rights and that it is the agency's job to do so. If they don't buy newspapers or see reports going around at local organized groups, they are not aware until it is too late. They don't belong to groups or organizations often because they can't get there. Day care, cost, travel and awareness of existence. This bill is actually a prime example of the lack on the government's and media's part to get the information out to all of the public.
The Chair: Ms Prine, excuse me, I'm not sure how long your presentation is, but you that you have about a minute left.
Ms Prine: Thank you. That's the part about not being informed.
It really seems like a case of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. People should be entitled to basic things like education, health and basic welfare. This bill seems to be denying them all those rights. It just truly does not seem fair to the needy.
The Chair: I want to thank all of you for your presentation. Twenty minutes seem to go by so quickly. I regret we don't have more time and have no time for questions. But thank you all very much for participating here today.
UNITED DISABLED CONSUMERS
The Chair: Next is the United Disabled Consumers, Geoff Langhorne. Welcome, Mr Langhorne. We're happy to have you with us this morning. Please proceed.
Mr Geoff Langhorne: I'm going to read this speech to you from a display rather than from large-type, double-spaced notes, so give me a minute and we'll get the display up and get going.
I'm going to speak on recovery employment, self-employment, not from the point of view of a technical expert, but I want to acquaint you a little with what it can be like to become and to be disabled.
Your husband or your wife has become disabled. Doctors have no sure cure, and now only one of you works. Disability threatens your credit, home and makes your kids' college just a wish without recovery and work.
Do provincial benefits support your spouse's recovery? Caseloads for FBA disability workers have risen typically from 300 to 500 clients each. What does this mean? One client wrote:
"We had home visits about every six months. Workers were changing constantly. At times we didn't even know they had changed. At one point there was a problem and I phoned and found out we had a new worker. I had to do a lot of arguing and pushing to get some answers and action. Finally when the worker became cooperative, she worked things out for us and she told me she had never seen a file in such a mess and that there were codes used in it that didn't even exist."
Months of this person's recovery were spent fighting an overloaded system, losing time and money for the recipient and province alike, losing initiative and potentially losing hope. Would you wish this for your sick husband or wife?
Someone told me in confidence of an advantage, however, to cognitive disability: It is often hard to remember for very long why you get angry. Yet if your spouse had a head injury and brain damage, memory loss, panic attacks or outbursts of inappropriate behaviour, they might not qualify as disabled under the ODSP. Can you care for them with $400 or $500 a month from Ontario Works? If they can't keep work because of their injury, can you care for them without anything from Ontario Works? Would you forget why that made you angry?
If you are young and enrolled in school and under the program you haven't enough to care for your spouse, what does that mean to your income, your contribution in taxes, your hopes and dreams and, when recovered, your spouse's hopes and dreams? Do you have to quit school and work to support your sick husband or wife? How do you repay your student loan when you are forced not to graduate and the province has forbidden the loan's dissolution under bankruptcy? Once you drop out and start work, the government deducts the cost of your earnings from your spouse's benefits. The more successful you are at speeding and improving your recovery, the more the province claws back, reducing your benefit cheque again and again, every month, defeating the support you hoped to earn.
If you were already working, your spouse probably doesn't qualify for the Ontario drug benefit plan. Disabled individuals under doctors' advice pay for medication for their own recovery, too little, too seldom and still costing too much, from benefits of less than $8,000 a year. Most of us couldn't pay rent and groceries with that. Municipalities have special needs benefits, but the province has cut their funding too, so you may not get their help.
1100
If you are disabled enough, the Canada pension plan may give you a very limited income. If you are poor enough, the province used to add basic dental and prescription support, and possibly some income, to federal pensions. Under the ODSP, you may be neither disabled enough nor poor enough to qualify. Who is so unworthy that we may deny them a meaningful life by refusing tax-funded disability benefits? Your wife? Your husband?
If your spouse, now disabled, wants to work, they might be one of 32% disabled interested in self-employment. The self-employment policy is consistent with no other provincial or federal business or tax policy and is often irreconcilable with the dynamics of starting a new business. Perhaps your husband or wife can work instead, part-time or at home, where they control their commitments, medication and other support. Your spouse asks your MPP, who refers to local employment programs. Providers are evaluated for the province in a way that reinforces a narrow checklist vision of restoring employment, however. Providers do best who graduate the most, and the most obviously successful, clients. This favours the more able clients for the better statistics they show.
Your spouse would be exceptionally lucky to have providers who have dealt successfully with a disability of their own. If your spouse is not trained by a provider exclusively for the disabled, your spouse will be even luckier to find the provider unbiased. Disabled clients have broader needs, are often slower-paced, mean extra costs and higher overhead and different performance statistics for the provider. Discriminating in training clients with disabilities has never been hard, or bad for business as usual.
Your spouse speaks to a ministry worker. After many surprisingly disturbing personal questions, she explains that if your spouse can work at all, the benefits which have slowed the disintegration of your lives will shortly stop, whether or not they're working. If they are and before they do, the province may allow your spouse to keep no more of their earnings than if they had simply remained on benefits. This may be true even if they courageously made those earnings at great risk to their recovery.
If the province wants to recover your husband's or wife's benefits, you may now be liable for their debt. This is a new strain on your marriage, on top of disability, when you need one another most.
The province is also seeking power almost completely outside the courts to require the disabled and their dependants to concede future earnings as a condition of receiving disability benefits. Is this an incentive to recover and work?
Your spouse had hoped there would be time -- if self-employed, perhaps a year or more -- to restore income to at least replace the benefits, and for that income to become foreseeably secure. But this time, if the gamble of working doesn't pay out in a few months, you probably can't get the benefits back.
I've been told that another advantage of cognitive disabilities is that you can often enjoy the same surprises several times, having forgotten they surprised you the first time. You can be surprised to be wished happy birthday several times on your birthday, even open presents twice. If your spouse recovers but doesn't immediately succeed at work, a 21.6% drop in benefits will surprise them. The now historic 21.6% cut from welfare in reality is a cliff to walk for those who recover but are unsuccessful returning to work.
Your credit is already at its limit since your loss of income. As calls from creditors pile up, you begin to feel no matter how much your government wants your spouse off the benefits payroll, it does not want your husband or wife to work.
If you have financial difficulty, new trusteeship and direct payment powers of the province may disburse your spouse's benefits without your input or approval and without any right of appeal. They may make similar support deduction orders for undefined government debts, which could include federal and provincial debts, income and property taxes, benefit overpayments and even student loans. This legislation turns the whole province into a Dickensian workhouse for the disabled and the poor. Becoming disabled, which almost by definition makes you poor, now puts you at risk of lifetime impoverishment in a perpetual underclass.
A 1994 study for the Secretary of State identifies 44% of those seeking to go back to work as discouraged by the threat of losing their benefits. Even risking their benefits may be denied the disabled. According to funding projections, there may not be enough money to help all who want to work. This failure will be a great cost not only to those whose lives have already been changed by disability, but to all of us, who must walk the streets with them.
A survey published this month for the Ontario Social Development Council remarks the decline in quality of life in Ontario, marked by bankruptcies, unemployment, rise in social assistance, social housing waiting lists, elderly waiting for long-term care and children in care of children's aid. Can we share with so many more disfranchised our lives and our society, disintegrating under unbearable burdens, without facing vast, destructive, irreversible changes in the life we now enjoy?
The administration of disability benefits is about to change. The effect of that administration upon the disabled is not. Some 17% of Ontarians suffer disability. They do not prefer benefits. Their government does not support their return to work. The needs of people with disabilities are not being met with the Ontario disability support program.
The act's two key commitments are described by the minister, Janet Ecker: "To reform Ontario's welfare system and to create an income support program to meet the unique needs of people with disabilities." We cannot address these by restricting access to or by funding within the limits of the current benefits system.
It is dishonest to say disability benefits have not been cut. Affordable housing has been cut, and with it the rent assistance available to those with disabilities. Transfer payment cuts to cities have cut transit for the disabled and cut municipal funds for special needs. Workers' Compensation Board claim limits and outright eliminations and planned hospital closings deny the disabled care. Benefits may not have been numerically reduced, but the real cost of being disabled has been driven up manifold, so the value of benefits has also been cut manifold.
The disabled I have spoken with to prepare this report have repeatedly declined to divide disability from poverty. Neither have they divided poverty from exclusion -- exclusion from education, from employment, from a hopeful future in our society. Can we divide up these costs of disability with as dull a knife as the Ontario disability support program?
I confess that everyone disabled that I spoke to was also working and felt themselves successful in coping with their disability. The costs I have described to you are really just the costs of "disability lite." It must be unimaginably worse for those who have failed to succeed in their own eyes.
Perhaps we feel that if we isolate our disabled, we can put them out of sight and out of mind. It is pleasanter for us to remember them if they are absent from our communities, from the institutions we make use of, and our lives.
We have yet to address clearly whether we wish to provide them with compensation for becoming disabled, like a kind of insurance, or to guarantee them a living stipend to restore their hope and a meaningful life. Instead, benefits instituted as a fresh start have become an envious limit we impose upon the recovery of the disabled, a dead end vigorously enforced. We pretend they have enough -- enough money, enough privacy, enough dignity -- while we systematically strip them of all these achievements that disability has not already robbed them of.
The Ontario disability support program is doomed under terrific and unchanging disincentives to recovery and to returning to work. Restrictions in this legislation will not help people with disabilities get better, or help them eventually pay their own way. You can't get there from here. You must begin again. The first job of the disabled is to recover. It is a full-time job.
1110
I am grateful for the opportunity to have spoken to you here today on behalf of those not yet well enough, even if they wished, to come, but I am troubled by their need to have a spokesman in their defence. Their job should be just to get better. So it falls to you to ask: "Have we truly lowered the costs of disability to the disabled, to our community and to ourselves? What are the barriers to recovery, employment and self-employment in Ontario? How could a real revolution and intelligent, new, from-the-ground-up policy help these gutsy survivors towards whole lives and families in regaining the work many have already given Ontario for half a lifetime or more?"
I am still in recovery from my disability, although you may not notice it here today. When I first began my recovery I wondered how long it would be before I missed being able to spend all day in bed, often having to spend it there. When I couldn't remember whether I had turned the stove on or off, no one asked me to do a lot of cooking. I admit I have been granted a special kind of privilege with unrestricted access to daytime TV.
I regret that many of the institutions that helped me since I began my ongoing recovery are threatened as I am here today. Quite a few other disabled people have informed my report in order to bring before you their experience of disability and to ask you to re-evaluate the Ontario disability support program and its relationship to Ontario Works before it is reintroduced in the House. We hope you will begin its re-evaluation here today.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Langhorne. We have one minute per caucus. We begin with the official opposition.
Mrs Pupatello: Thanks for coming to speak with us today. The opposition shares many of your concerns with the bill. I want to ask all the presenters I can if you feel it has been a worthwhile endeavour in light of the $900,000 campaign that Mike Harris has launched to propagandize workfare and announce as a mandatory program for both the recipients of welfare and municipalities to participate in workfare. It really has made the entire hearing process quite a sham and at a significant expense to the Legislature to boot. I'm just wondering if you as a presenter have any sense from that behaviour if this has been a worthwhile endeavour for you, and why?
Mr Langhorne: It seems to me that Mike Harris is preaching to his constituents. While I recognize that political tradition, it doesn't seem to me to change any opinions or points of view on either side.
Mr Kormos: In a press release yesterday, Mrs Ecker acknowledged that one of the front-and-centre goals of Bill 142 was to tighten eligibility, restrict eligibility, reduce the number of people who have access to any of these programs. The standard or the threshold for being disabled under this bill is an exceptionally high one. I have had fears expressed to me by members of the community of persons with disabilities that some disabled people might feel compelled to aggravate or enhance their disability so as to pass that threshold to get into that higher tier of income support because there's a 22-percentile difference. Are those realistic fears?
Mr Langhorne: I'm familiar with the thought that under the present disability plan it is expensive to get better. It is expensive getting there and it is expensive at each step along the way, as your achievements are clawed back and before you are ready to support yourself. Under restricted eligibility, it's more expensive and it's more risky and it's more frightening, and I think even for intelligent people who are disabled and highly trained, and skilled people who are disabled, this is a very real fear.
Mr Maves: Thank you for your presentation, Mr Langhorne. There are, I think, many positive things the government has announced around the Ontario disability support program that I'm not hearing anything about. I want to run a few by you and see if you think they are positive.
Persons on the Ontario disability support program as well as those receiving handicapped children's benefits in Ontario Works will continue to receive the benefits of the Ministry of Health assistive devices program. The 25% copayment will be eliminated. I would assume you think that's positive, eliminating that copayment.
Mr Langhorne: I haven't looked deeply at it, to be honest with you. My job here today is not to defend or attack the government but to defend disabled constituents, but from what you say, it sounds positive.
Mr Maves: Okay. Another one is that people with disabilities will now be able to retain compensation awards of up to $100,000; for example, awards due to injuries or being a victim of abuse or crime. The limit under the former FBA rules was $25,000. Again, I think that's a very positive development.
Mr Langhorne: Given that the rules for reclaiming disability benefits have been extended, I think we're seeing potentially a loser again. A lot of people will make a claim and then find that the government takes it for the benefits they've received.
The Chair: Mr Langhorne, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for taking the time to be here and presenting your views.
Mr Kormos: That's okay. Mr Maves ran out of positive comments.
Mr Maves: Actually, I had many more.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We did only have one minute, as I indicated.
CANADIAN MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION ONTARIO DIVISION
The Chair: Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario Division, Lisa McDonald and John Kelly, please. Welcome to our committee. We're happy to have you here this morning. You have 20 minutes for your presentation. If you should not exhaust the time, I'm sure the committee members will fill it by asking questions.
Mr John Kelly: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is John Kelly. I'm the past president of the Ontario division of the Canadian Mental Health Association. Lisa McDonald is on our staff at the Ontario division office.
The Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario Division, is an incorporated, registered, non-profit charitable organization chartered in 1952. We have about 4,000 volunteers who are active in direct, board and committee service in a network of 36 branches which are located in communities across Ontario. Our services and programs are funded through government grants, local United Ways and supplementary fundraising activities.
CMHA, Ontario Division, has been and continues to be very involved in social assistance issues. This is evidenced by the policy work that has been undertaken by our organization over the years as well as by our involvement with other groups and other organizations working in this area. In 1986 CMHA, Ontario Division, was represented on the Social Assistance Review Committee established by the Minister of Community and Social Services. This report, Transitions, was released in 1988.
In 1993 the Ministry of Community and Social Services published a framework for reforming Ontario's social assistance system entitled Turning Point: New Support Programs for People with Low Incomes. In our response to this report, we had the following recommendations:
That social assistance legislation be guided by the principles of accessibility on an equal basis for all;
That the current General Welfare Assistance Act and Family Benefits Act be combined into a simple legislated program to facilitate access of recipients, ease of administration and cost-effectiveness;
That the social assistance safety net ensure that people who are unable to work because of a disability are guaranteed an income above the poverty line and never penalized because of their disability;
That a person's ability to receive long-term benefits not be jeopardized by obtaining full- or part-time employment; and
That the definitions of "disability" and "employability" used in social assistance legislation be stigma-free, internally consistent and consistent with other legislation and across provincial ministries, flexible, and based on limitations rather than duration.
Many persons who experience mental illness rely on some form of income maintenance for support. Income is recognized as one of the foundations of the community resource base conceptualized by our national office in the document, New Framework for Support. According to the framework, the foundations of citizenship are comprised of work, income, housing and education, and income is considered a fundamental determinant of health.
Research supports the central role that an adequate income can play in maintaining mental health. While mental illness is not directly caused by being poor, poverty exacerbates mental illness. In addition, there is a far greater chance that persons with mental health problems will also be poor. It is a fact that having a disability predicts poverty better than almost any other population characteristic.
The current mental health reform initiative of the Ministry of Health recognizes that for many persons with mental health problems poverty becomes a way of life. Without appropriate income and community support services, people with serious mental health problems are at risk of becoming trapped in the revolving-door syndrome wherein, upon release from hospital, lack of money forces them into substandard housing where their mental health deteriorates and they return to the hospital. The maintenance of adequate and appropriate income support for persons with mental health problems is crucial to their overall health and wellbeing.
Bill 142 proposes sweeping changes to the existing social assistance system which, if passed, will have profound effects on persons with mental health problems who are unable to work due to the symptoms associated with their illness or because they face barriers to securing and maintaining employment.
Now I'm going to pass it over to Lisa, who will make specific comments on this specific proposal.
1120
Ms Lisa McDonald: I'm going to speak first of all about the Ontario Disability Support Program Act within Bill 142. The single most important issue, from the point of view of the our organization, is whether the definition contained within the act is sufficiently broad and flexible to recognize the unique needs and circumstances faced by persons with mental health problems. The CMHA, Ontario Division, believes that the definition of "disability" contained within the act will not ensure that all those with mental health problems in need of income support will receive it. Our concerns include the following:
(1) The use of the qualifier "substantial" in describing physical and mental impairment is not sufficiently clear. The term is open to interpretation, including a very restrictive interpretation.
(2) The significance of requiring that there be a direct effect of the person's impairment on the ability to function in the community and function in a workplace is also not clear. Would the fact that an individual's mental health problem has prevented them from working for periods of time, or from benefiting from educational opportunities, be considered a "direct" effect on the ability to function in a workplace because of the barriers to employment they will no doubt face? If not, the definition does not adequately acknowledge the reality faced by those with significant mental health problems.
(3) Our third concern is that individuals will be required to demonstrate a "substantial" restriction in three areas: personal care, functioning in the community and functioning in the workplace. We believe that an inability to function in the workplace at any point in time due to a disability should be sufficient evidence that a person is unable to live without income assistance. Under the proposed system, such individuals with disabilities would be forced to seek a much reduced level of assistance under Ontario Works and then also be subject to mandatory work requirements which they will be unable to fulfil.
(4) The definition does not recognize that persons with serious mental health problems may not be substantially restricted in attending to personal care or may only be so restricted for very short periods of time. Nevertheless, they may be very restricted in terms of their functioning in the community and in the workplace for much longer periods of time, such that they are unable to earn a living. The CMHA, Ontario Division, is very concerned that for these people a lack of income will serve to exacerbate illness and unnecessarily lengthen their recovery time.
(5) The fact that individuals with substance abuse problems are deemed not disabled and therefore ineligible for income assistance under ODSPA is also unacceptable. Such a distinction can only be seen as a judgement that assigns blame to some individuals for their illness but not others. As with persons with mental health problems who are considered "not disabled enough," how will persons with substance abuse problems be able to receive the treatment they require and maximize their potential for recovery without an adequate level of income support?
(6) Exclusion of persons with substance abuse problems also does not recognize that many persons experience mental health and substance abuse problems concurrently. A recent study of individuals showed that almost one third of mentally ill individuals in the sample also reported a substance abuse problem, and up to 50% of those with substance abuse problems other than alcohol had a psychiatric diagnosis.
(7) It is not clear how a determination of disability will be made for individuals with both a mental illness and a substance use problem utilizing the proposed definition. Persons with concurrent disorders who are not receiving treatment for mental illness or who have never received a diagnosis of mental illness could be excluded because of their substance abuse problem.
The second area I'd like to highlight concerns the provisions for liens and reimbursements within the ODSPA. The act proposes expanded powers requiring that recipients or dependants agree to liens against property, the reimbursement of income support or the assignment of expected income as conditions of eligibility for income support. Failure to comply with any of these conditions can result in a person being denied support, being declared ineligible for a specified period of time, or having their support reduced or suspended.
It is possible that some persons may be too frightened by these requirements to apply for income support in the first place. As well, persons who have had a lien imposed on their property may not be able to move if they choose because of the restrictions against assuming mortgages on properties which have a lien against them. Also, if income assistance is considered to be a loan, people who are able to recover from their disability sufficiently to earn an income may never be able to recover financially from the impact of their disability because of repayment requirements. This makes the possibility of escaping from the poverty often associated with having a disability even more unlikely.
Another area of concern for the CMHA, Ontario Division, with respect to this act is the power in the act to appoint a person to act for the recipient if there is no guardian of property or trustee for the recipient and he or she is satisfied that the recipient is likely to use the income support provided in a way that is not for their own or their dependants' benefit, or if the recipient is incapacitated or incapable of handling his or her affairs.
Our organization is concerned about the potential for abuse of this section of the act since it could allow for the removal of individuals' control over their own finances in a variety of circumstances which are not specified in the act. It is unclear, for example, how it could be decided that an individual is likely to use his or her income inappropriately and what guidelines will be in place to ensure a fair and equitable process for this determination. As well, no mention is made of a requirement to adhere to the procedures and safeguards included in the Substitute Decisions Act in determining that an individual is incapable of handling his or her own affairs.
Related to this concern about control over finances is the fact that a portion of income could be paid directly to a third party on behalf of a recipient for costs related to basic needs such as shelter. The circumstances under which this would occur are not specified. However, it is important to recognize that there may be very good reasons why payment is being withheld from a third party; for example, a landlord who hasn't done necessary repairs on a building. Also, since the amount payable is by a member of the "benefit unit," presumably a person receiving social assistance could be held responsible for their spouse's or child's rent and/or other basic needs expenses. We believe that a decision to have a third party paid directly should not be made without the consent of the social assistance recipient.
1130
The area of appeals provisions within the act is also a focus of concern for our organization. Very few details about the new Social Benefits Tribunal are available, making it difficult to comment on many important aspects of the proposed tribunal. What is known is that only negative decisions of a mandated internal review process will be heard. Of concern is that without safeguards in place, such an internal review process may be used to unnecessarily delay cases in reaching the tribunal. This is of critical importance since there does not appear to be any provision for interim assistance during the internal review process. This may dissuade many from appealing to the tribunal, especially if they believe the same decision-making process will be used by the tribunal as was used during the internal review process.
Also, it is not clear if individuals will have access to legal or advocacy assistance during the review process. Decisions to hear appeals at all are at the complete discretion of the tribunal, and there is no assurance that these decisions will be consistent or fair.
The fact that there is an extensive list of decisions that are not appealable under the act is also of great concern. Decisions that are not appealable include employment supports, since the appeals that currently exist under the Vocational Rehabilitation Services Act will be eliminated; discretionary income support; income support in exceptional circumstances; direct payments to a third party; appointment of a person to act on behalf of the recipient; a change in assistance caused by an amendment to the ODSPA or the regulations made under the act; emergency assistance; or any other decision so prescribed in the regulations.
The part of the act which deals with the provision of employment supports is also very important for persons with mental health problems. While we are encouraged by the comparatively expanded criteria for eligibility used in this section, we believe a number of cautions are still warranted. For example, a service coordinator for a specific geographic region will determine if any financial contribution is to be made by the applicant towards the cost of employment supports. Presumably, the criteria for determining financial contribution on the part of the recipient will be prescribed in the regulations. Requiring recipients to make a financial contribution to employment supports could exclude some people from participating.
Employment supports may also be suspended or cancelled if the person is not making satisfactory progress towards competitive employment in accordance with the agreement made with the service coordinator. The role of the recipient in determining what constitutes "satisfactory progress" is not specified. Again, there is the possibility of excluding many persons with disabilities from receiving employment supports because they fail to meet expectations of success. It is also stipulated that employment supports may be suspended or cancelled if the person fails to use them. We believe there should be some attempt to determine why a person does not use the employment supports provided, because there may be a very good reason for their failure to use them and that could be addressed without cancelling supports altogether.
Without knowing the criteria to be used in determining "satisfactory progress," there is no way of determining whether they are realistic, given the reality that many persons with disabilities face tremendous barriers to employment and may require intensive supports over a long period of time. Those most in need may not have an opportunity to benefit from employment supports if only those most likely to succeed are chosen to receive the benefit or allowed to continue in the program.
Another potential problem with the program is the stipulation that a person is eligible for employment supports only if they are "not a member of a class of persons prescribed to be ineligible for" the supports. The purpose of including this clause is unknown, but it could be used inappropriately to decide that certain groups of people are not eligible to receive employment supports. Such a restriction would require only that a regulation be passed to that effect.
I want to make a few comments about the Ontario Works Act. While the ODSPA is intended to provide social assistance to persons with disabilities, we believe that many persons with mental health problems will fail to qualify for income support under that program and be forced to seek assistance under the Ontario Works Act. Many of the concerns we've already raised with respect to the Ontario disability support program apply here as well, and I'm not going to detail those, but they relate to liens and reimbursements, appointment of a third party, appeals, direct payment to third parties, and so on. But also, recipients of social assistance under the Ontario Works Act may be required to satisfy community participation requirements, participate in employment measures, accept and undertake basic education and job-specific skills training and accept and maintain employment.
It is not clear how persons with mental health problems, "not disabled enough" to receive social assistance under the ODSPA but unable to work due to their illness, will be able to access income support to meet their basic needs. The CMHA, Ontario Division, is concerned that these individuals will fall through the cracks and that their mental health problems will possibly worsen to the point of requiring hospitalization.
The mandatory nature of obligations under the OWA, the fact that there is no requirement that these be reasonable or suitable, and the fact that there is no requirement that employers comply with the Ontario Human Rights Code or other protective employment legislation are also problematic aspects of the act from the point of view of our organization.
Mr Kelly: In conclusion, it is difficult to imagine a piece of legislation that could have more profound effects on persons with mental health problems than Bill 142. At stake is the very health and wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable residents of Ontario and their right to live with dignity in the community. The CMHA, Ontario Division, urges the government to consider the concerns raised in this brief and to reconsider those aspects of Bill 142 that threaten the social safety net that our organization believes must be maintained for persons with mental health problems. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kelly and Ms McDonald, for being here. Regrettably, there is no time for questions, but we thank you for your brief.
Mr Kelly: We certainly appreciate being here.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we don't have a confirmation for 11:40, but Community Legal Services of Niagara South, which is scheduled for 1:30, would be willing to present. With the consensus of the committee, we could ask them to come forward now.
Ms Mary Beth Anger-Sheffield: Excuse me, that's not what I said. I said the person presenting with me had just left.
The Chair: My apologies. I misunderstood. In that case, we are adjourned until 1:30
The committee recessed from 1137 to 1330.
COMMUNITY LEGAL SERVICES OF NIAGARA SOUTH
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to get started right away with the Community Legal Services of Niagara South, Mary Beth Anger-Sheffield. I note there are two of you presenting. Perhaps you'll introduce yourselves for the record and you then have 20 minutes for your presentation.
Ms Lynne Prine: I'm Lynne Prine. I spoke to you this morning with the Niagara South Social Safety Network.
The Chair: Welcome again.
Ms Mary Beth Anger-Sheffield: Lynne is a client of Community Legal Services and she is going to talk about her personal experience in regard to some of the matters I'm presenting in my brief. We hope there may be some time for questions.
I'm a community legal worker and I work at Community Legal Services. The primary part of my job is addressing the needs of low-income people on benefits, all the income maintenance issues.
My question to the standing committee is, are we changing who we are as Canadians? I am concerned about who we are and where we are going and what does it really mean to our country, because it affects every one of us.
The poor are not the traditional poor. They are not people who have ever been on assistance generation after generation. But there for the grace of God go I. This could happen to any one of you or to me. What you're putting in place -- legislation doesn't change quickly, and this legislation is going to be long-lasting and live for a long time. Think about when the major changes were made to welfare legislation in the past. That's a long time ago, over 50 years. There have been small amendments made. We're changing who we are, we're changing our thinking and I don't approve of exactly how we're changing this.
I saw many, many people from churches, from the community, who came together, who made submissions to the government in the role of the standing committee with Transitions. I'm not sure why those recommendations and why that process aren't being looked at, to use, to empower. Many people came together and told the government what they wanted, and it's being disregarded.
Are we changing who we are as Canadians? The federal government has repealed the Canada assistance plan and is allowing the provinces to make the rules. Now there is unequal delivery of social assistance across Canada. The government is now looking to the citizens of this province to work for their welfare on a mandatory basis. The Ontario government does not allow the recipient time to recover from whatever problems they face, so they can find solutions and employment on their own, without the mandatory process being implemented. Mandatory labour, instead of encouragement to find one's own way to a new future, is a negative start.
A more balanced approach would be time limits to allow a recipient time to volunteer and move into the Ontario Works process, and time to get on with life without a forced process would be reasonable to me. I think it's important how we treat recipients and how we encourage them. These recipients are no different than you and I. Think about yourselves in your roles, when it's a negative process and when it's a positive, and how encouragement helps move you on to a better and more positive process. It makes you a better you. People who are recipients are no different.
The appeal process: In a democratic society the right of appeal should exist. This means the right to an appeal process in a timely and fair and equal manner for all Ontarians. An internal secret process which is designed in SARA really doesn't provide any limits. It doesn't tell the recipient when they can expect that they can move on to the next step. It doesn't tell them how long they're going to be in that process. Is it going to be two or three weeks? Is it going to be two or three months? It's unfair to leave a person suspended, hanging without a time limit and a timely process that they can expect to be met so they know when they are going on to the next step.
Also, if in fact we continue the appeal process as it stands with the Social Assistance Review Board, if we continue a process where a person has a right of appeal from the very beginning, then there's that court date. That tribunal date is coming, it's pushing the process and it means that the welfare Ontario Works people have to be moving on, and so would the representatives. So there's a limit, there's an ending, and everyone can expect that if it's not resolved before that appeal date, then it will go on to a next level. That's a fair process. That's what happens in other court systems in a democratic society. I'm not sure why we feel this system isn't worthy of that same type of fairness and democracy.
When a person is denied the right of appeal, that's a denial of natural justice. The external appeal starting at the same time is the only solution I can see that provides fairness.
Interim assistance is extremely important for a meaningful appeal system. If you can't have some kind of base income while you're waiting -- and I can't see that that's proposed, that that's gong to be a process in place that we can depend on. It needs to be legislated. It needs to be something that people can count on at the very base level of existence.
A person in the appeal system and in the process is treated like they're guilty. It seems to me that in most places in society and democracy, you're innocent until you're proven guilty. People on public assistance are treated as if they're guilty until they prove their innocence. That's an unfair process. This could happen to you.
The tribunal must retain the ability to interpret law and not be bound by policy directives of the minister, who may be one of the parties in the dispute. The minister could be part of the dispute, and that's a conflict of interest in any other case in our courts in our land. I'm not sure why we would change that or how we would think that would be a suitable process for the minister when he may be a party.
The tribunal needs a plan for people who are illiterate, disabled or do not speak English or French. The appeal process should be open to individuals who are no longer on benefits, as in many cases overpayments arise at the termination and close of benefits. The tribunal needs to have the authority and the ability to deal with administrative errors.
In the process of going off benefits, clients sometimes try to work to stay on benefits. They're ready to go off and they have to fight to try and work to keep their incomes low to not move off because they have this dispute with a family benefits officer, a lot of single moms do. They have overpayments that are inappropriate because they're not correct. The single mom is trying to get ahead with her life in the future and here's she's got this great big debt that she's facing and she doesn't even have the right to correct it. That's not fair in a democratic society.
Recipients ought not to be responsible for errors made, given that they had no intent to hide or benefit from the errors. At times the errors have been totally a mistake by a case worker. The poor person suffers from the error of the system.
Repayment of an overpayment based on the creation of an automatic judgement, without a hearing or a court process, should not be allowed. Only after the matter has been taken to the tribunal for a fair determination, similar to a court, should further action be taken. At this point, enforcement of a judgement would be reasonable as we need to maintain a democratic process for all citizens of Ontario.
We believe that to ask a person to pay for an administrative error that they did not create, when they've had no intent to treat anybody poorly, they haven't done anything in secret, they haven't hidden anything -- some other person makes a mistake and you have to pay for it? How would you feel if that happened in your home? Would you be angry? Would you be upset? Would you fight back? I believe that most of you would. Why would you think that a recipient should be dealt with differently? I don't understand how persons making these decisions would think on that basis and want to treat other classes of people in our province in a less than fair process.
Third-party collection of debts from public assistance: Deducting for other debts reduces this basic form of subsistence. These funds are given to pay the rent and to eat and to meet basic needs to sustain life during a period of struggle. To recover student loans, traffic violations, parking tickets, business taxes, personal taxes or other debts to the government is taking advantage of the family or individual who is already at the lowest ebb in the struggle to support themselves. It may be feasible in a society where there is high employment, but not in the current economy. This is poor-bashing.
Many of the families now on public assistance have never been poor before. Are we punishing these recipients for not having found employment when we have high unemployment, with very little hope of finding a job? Alternatively, we suggest such a third-party debt be adjudicated by the tribunal to ensure the issues have a proper determination.
1340
Assets, income, loans, liens and reimbursement agreements: We encourage families to support one another in difficult times, but the public assistance system discourages giving that support, love and care while the family is in struggle. Many of these small values given to a family are considered as support or income that may result in a reduction.
A lot of times it's also the fear, "If I take that from you, what's going to happen to me?" There's an unequal thinking on the parts of case workers. Some case workers think about these things and they think, "Gee, I really don't want to include that." There's a lot of discretion. One person may be able to have something and keep it because the case worker sees that's reasonable and fair, and another case worker will say, "That's income and I have to deduct it."
I had a mom come to my office who told me about speaking to a case worker who looked at her going to her mother's for dinner every Friday and was adjudicating the value of that dinner for her and her children. The recipient, being proud of her mother and the care that they had in this family of one another, talked about how the case worker asked about the meal, what kind of a meal, turkey, roast beef, did all of that and then said, "Your mother must spend about $50 to feed you every Friday." It's an unfair process to say to this person: "You can't go to your mother's for dinner. Because your mother feeds you well, we might be looking at you for an overpayment." That's not fair. How does that encourage the support of families to care for one another? I think it's inappropriate.
Many of these small values given to a family are considered as support or income that may result in a reduction in benefits. Grandparents and parents want to support the family, but if it is deducted as income, then most often the item is not given and the family suffers needlessly. Recipients are fearful to admit they go to dinner once a week at their parents' home, as this has been seen as a value that could be deducted or considered as support. The recipient has faced reductions when a parent brings a bag of groceries to provide some extras. This gift has been deemed as income. The church who gives a food basket or going to the food bank is exempt, but is this not the same idea? Recipients need the support and encouragement in tough times. Family and friends need each other to endure the struggle. This assistance period needs to be an empowering process and not a time of greater stress, the courage, preventing the feeling to strive ahead, it's not a time to beat people down. The empowerment is needed to move the family through to a positive conclusion. It's not a process that you should be feeling that you're stuck in. It should be a process that you feel you're moving through and out of in a positive type of way.
The statistical information provided to the public needs to be divided, so that the overpayment issues and the fraud issues are separate. Overpayment information is given with fraud statistics and it insinuates criminal intent. A lot of the moms who are working, who are trying to get off the system actually earn more money. The overpayments are created and the overpayments are growing and they're trying to get near the end of the system to get off the system. So these are the same overpayments they're left with that they can't appeal when there are errors in those overpayments, but they're also the same overpayments that are counted in as part of the fraud statistics, and this is about moms who are working to get off the system. You're lumping all the overpayment statistics with the fraud statistics, making it look like there are so many people being fraudulent when that's not the case. You're actually beating down the women who are trying to struggle and get ahead in this province, single moms trying to do their best.
It's an unfair delivery of information to the public as well. This mixing of issues gives the wrong picture. The resulting assumption is that any person on public assistance is a cheater.
The rules need to be unified, written and provide proper information about assets, overpayment, income and fraud, delivered to the recipient upon application. This process also needs to be discussed and talked about verbally to ensure literacy and understanding of what is being said, in addition to the written information given. Sometimes it's given. Sometimes you ask recipients to sign. They sign. They don't tell you they can't read. They don't tell you, "I don't understand that big word." A lot of times when I go to hearings at the Social Assistance Review Board, people are asked questions and they don't understand the word and they'll answer yes or no; and after they come out of the hearing, they say, "Well, I didn't really know that word, but I didn't want to look stupid."
Also, people don't want to look stupid when they're applying for public assistance. There are words yet in our society that I don't know and I don't understand. I'm sure there are words that you don't know and you don't understand. So don't discount or think that people are stupid, but they have a right to understand what's being said. They have a right to that.
The asset levels need to allow a reasonable way of life for families. Under the proposed legislation, the welfare assistance levels are thousands of dollars lower and many families moving from the family benefits system into the new system will be over the asset levels and be penalized. Reasonableness would be to give a greater amount of assets to all levels, levels currently set out in the Family Benefits Act as opposed to using the levels in the welfare act.
We should be empowering people. We shouldn't be stripping them of everything they have while they go through this process and a struggle to get on with their life. They shouldn't be stripped bare. Think about it in your house, in your life. Would you like to be stripped bare while you're in this struggle?
We do not support the idea that public assistance is a loan that must be repaid or that a lien could be put on a property after being on benefits for a year or more. This will only make the poor even poorer. This will make public assistance always be a punishment. The result will be that families or others will hold and provide the assets for many recipients in the struggle to self-sufficiency. Families need to move through the public assistance process free of fear of punishment for the problem. They need their energy to move forward into new situations and employment. Transitions gave good recommendations.
Definition of disability: We support the changes to the definition of "disabled," in substituting the word "or" for "and," so that people will only have to demonstrate limitations in activities of daily living. Janet Ecker has said that she was willing to do this and we support and commend her for being willing to support that change.
The Chair: Excuse me, Ms Anger-Sheffield, you have about 30 seconds left.
Ms Anger-Sheffield: Okay.
It is equally important to include in the definition that persons who are suffering from compulsive addictive disorders -- and maybe you could read that. They shouldn't be lumped in with others without being included in the disability definition because it is a disease.
Could you take one minute to listen to Lynne in regard to her overpayment statement? It will not be long.
The Chair: Very well. One minute.
Ms Prine: I guess the thing about overpayments is that oftentimes they come from office error. That's what happened in my case. I called up the family benefits office and I told them my intention to marry my children's father. They then directed me to the GWA office who told me that because he was an immigrant applying to come to Canada and he still didn't have his papers to live here or earn money here and he was only here as a visitor, there was nothing I needed to do at that point.
Then six months later FBA told me that no, because we had gotten married and the sponsorship went through, I should have been switched over to GWA. So despite the fact that I went through to all the people and even lawyers, through immigration, through family benefits and GWA, GWA actually made the error. He should have known that I should have gone on GWA at that point and yet I'm the one who's stuck with that bill. They made a $7,000 error seven years ago. I'm still paying for it. Then because the marriage didn't last, which mostly had a lot to do with the financial problems. When I called up the family benefits office and asked them to reduce the amount of payment, they told me it was too much trouble to go into their computer each month to reduce it to $20 as opposed to $60.
I'm looked upon as one of these fraudulent people and I think I did everything properly. They made an error. Even the lawyer didn't know to argue administrative error at the time, and I understand from Mary Beth that these things are now wiped out. If the government makes a mistake, the recipient pays. That's fair? That's not fair.
1350
The same thing with assets. On FBA you're allowed $5,000. I bought into education savings plans for two of my three children; I couldn't afford it for the third. But when they changed the baby bonus to collecting it yearly, like on your income tax, and gave it to you each month, I decided I would put some of that money to use and put it into education savings plans for the two children I could afford, paying $40 a month out of the baby bonus, so that they would have a chance for an education later. Think about it: so they wouldn't be so dependent on the system later. That's what they want, to get an education to get a good job.
Now if you're going to lower the asset levels, they could really and truly say to me, "Well, you no longer qualify because you bought into education savings plans for you children." If you were allowed $5,000 in assets last year, I think you should be allowed it this year. You shouldn't be cut off, forced to cash that in and lose $800 to $1,000 off $3,600 to administration costs to the Canadian scholarship plan and be forced to live off that money before you can even reapply for benefits. The asset level should remain the same. You shouldn't reduce it.
The Chair: Ms Anger-Sheffield and Ms Prine, thank you very much. The time is very short and goes by very quickly. We thank you for your presentation.
Ms Prine: Yes. Actually I thought we had half an hour, but I see it was 20 minutes. So thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Could I call on the Canadian Hearing Society, please.
Interjection.
Ms Anger-Sheffield: Some assets should be exempt. Some assets, like a person who's struggling to use their income tax return or whatever to save for the children, should be exempt.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Kormos, I would remind you that I am the Chair.
Mr Kormos: I knew that, Chair.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
CANADIAN HEARING SOCIETY
The Chair: Canadian Hearing Society, thank you very much for being here. I ask you to introduce yourself for the record. I also want to acknowledge Christal Dinner, who has been signing for us this afternoon and who is here courtesy of the Canadian Hearing Society, which is providing services for signing during these hearings.
Mr Phil Kyre: My name is Phil Kyre and I work for the Canadian Hearing Society. My job title is GSS, which is the general social service counsellor. I'll explain some of the things that I do. I counsel individuals. I do some advocacy rights, as well as access issues. I work on employment services and I work with other agencies, helping them be able to help deaf consumers. I also do technical devices: flashing lights; the phone systems, which are the TTYs. I cover the area of Hamilton, as well as Niagara Falls, St Catharines, Thorold and Brantford. I'm the only counsellor who covers that whole region.
I also would like to introduce my colleague. His name is Donald Prong.
Mr Donald Prong: Hello. I work as a counsellor supervisor in the Peel office at the Canadian Hearing Society in Mississauga. I cover Halton and Dufferin areas. It's about a 100-kilometre radius. My job is to focus on the counselling program. I supervise the counsellors and I do some counselling on my own. I do some advocacy, as well as Phil. I help with access issues. Today, Phil and I would like to bring up some concerns with the new Bill 142 and we'd just like to express those. I'll pass this back over to Phil.
Mr Kyre: I'll give you some background of CHS. CHS, for over 57 years, is a non-profit organization. They help deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing. They include advocating for interests and promoting deaf consumers' rights. We have 21 area service offices throughout Ontario. CHS has prepared this brief proposal just to let you know how we feel about Bill 142 and the proposal on the Social Assistance Reform Act, 1997.
CHS is pleased to support the intent of the proposed Ontario Disability Support Program Act announced by the Honourable Janet Ecker, Minister of Community and Social Services. The government has listened attentively to deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing consumers and to CHS service providers and, as a result, has accepted some of our concerns. However, there are still some outstanding issues which require further study, clarification and/or incorporation into the act by the government.
Highlights of the program that the CHS supports are: no financial penalty if efforts at employment don't succeed; expenditures in supports to employment to almost double, from $18 million to $35 million upon implementation; the elimination of unnecessary medical assessment testing and other types of assessments; as well, for the assistive devices program we'd like to see the copayment of 25% eliminated.
CHS has the following serious concerns with the new legislation:
(1) The potential restrictions in eligibility for the Ontario disability support program income support benefits and supports to employment due to the definition of disability. Number one, that's a big concern for us.
(2) There's no provision for costs of accommodation services for sign language interpreters or computerized notetakers for interviews, hearings and appeals to determine eligibility for services or to receive the services from the ODSP programs.
(3) There is lack of clarity that verifications of eligibility should be done by a person with the prescribed qualifications for determining functional loss -- ie, the impact of disability, the impact on the client's communication, social and vocational situations dealing with deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing -- and not solely from a medical perspective.
(4) Repealing the current legislative commitment to fund post-secondary students with disabilities -- deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing -- for disability-related supports, which involve listening devices, sign language interpreters and computerized notetaking.
(5) Inherent misperceptions that mainstream service providers accessed through competitively selected local service coordinators can meet the needs of deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing people for employment services.
(6) We have uncertainty over how various VRS support services will continue.
(7) The apparent insignificant funding being allocated to ODSP hasn't been clarified yet.
(8) The need for complimentary legislation -- ie, the Ontarians with Disabilities Act -- to ensure success of ODSP; ie, to ensure MET provides comparable access services for post-secondary students out of province.
Our concern is how the information for eligibility criteria will be put out to the public. Another question is how deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing will apply for top-up. Also, if students don't qualify for CSL because of parental income, will they be ineligible for top-up funds as well?
We'd like to know the standards to ensure equal access for deaf post-secondary students with hearing counterparts. What is the transition plan and how will the transfer be implemented to the ODSP to ensure that students and other VRS consumers get the support they need requested within an effective time frame? We'd like to see if some of those have been changed.
Will MET now fund literacy training programs to individual tutors at private clinics or will deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing students be able to access supports through service coordinators? Will deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing students with this high level of need be accommodated through MET, or will they have to access through other service providers or service coordinators? Will your government ensure that local service coordinators reduce the backlogs, making sure they can provide supports and training dollars to catch up with those backlogs?
1400
Mr Prong: There needs to be a recognition that quality employment services need to include aspects of counselling, ie, career guidance, market research analysis. These are essential to ensure consumer satisfaction and government savings over the long run. Those people have to understand the needs of deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing people.
The act, Bill 142, needs to clearly state that sign language interpreting, computerized notetaking and specialized communication devices will be provided as part of the provisions of income support or employment services.
Furthermore, responsibility for payment of accommodation services must be clearly put among government, private sector providers or employers. Establishment of an accommodation fund would allow for partners to contribute their fair share and have funding readily available for consumers so that the need is never denied because of communication inaccessibility. We want to see a partnership set up.
In terms of determining eligibility for ODSP -- income support benefits and supports to employment -- the client's and/or consumer's request should be accepted where the disability can easily be substantiated. For example, an audiologist's report and grade report from the provincial school for the deaf where the individual attended should serve as enough information to determine their eligibility.
Mr Kyre: CHS has a list of some recommendations for eligibility criteria for local service coordinators to include expectations that specialized services can be provided through a contract or purchase-of-service agreement between an agency and CHS and the service coordinator. This would be good to ensure that services are offered in an accessible environment by staff who have proven sensitivity to and understanding of deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing consumers. This recommendation would ease the consumer's deep concerns, especially if the service coordinator determining eligibility in a local community comes from the for-profit sector, which presumably can occur in a competitive process.
CHS recommends that the Ministry of Community and Social Services work with the Ministry of Citizenship to have the Ontarians with Disabilities Act passed. This will strengthen the Ontario disability support program -- supports to employment -- and improve outcomes of local service coordinators.
As well, CHS recommends that the Minister of Community and Social Services work with the ministers of citizenship and education and training to include legislative commitments in the Ontarians with Disabilities Act that would fund post-secondary disability-related supports and also one-to-one tutoring and literacy training programs.
Mr Prong: In conclusion, the Canadian Hearing Society is pleased to support the intent of Bill 142, the Social Assistance Reform Act, and also the proposed Ontarians with Disabilities Act at a later time.
Deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing consumers value the specialized services such as those provided by the Canadian Hearing Society. They believe that the Canadian Hearing Society is best equipped to meet their services because of the agency's expertise in meeting their communication needs. CHS has specially trained counsellors and staff who can communicate directly with consumers. In addition, some of those staff themselves are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing who have experienced the difficulty of conducting a job search and know the barriers that can be overcome. Furthermore, new barriers such as technology, physical work environment and contract work are making it even more difficult for deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing persons to be trained, hired and promoted on the basis of individual merit.
The Canadian Hearing Society is supporting Bill 142, the proposed Social Assistance Reforms Act, 1997, but with some reservations. CHS wants the issues outlined in this paper addressed before the Ontario government passes Bill 142. Furthermore, Bill 142 on its own is not significant enough. We feel that it is essential that the government draft and pass the ODA bill to ensure that comprehensive employment services and opportunities are available.
It's important to note that on October 9, 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously that the failure to provide sign language interpretation where it's needed for effective communication in delivering health care violates the rights of the deaf person. The ruling further states that the government cannot escape constitutional obligations by passing on the responsibility for policy implementation to private entities not directed under the Charter of Rights' jurisdiction.
This decision reaches far beyond the deaf community and will touch every Canadian who has a disability. The court has made the equity guarantees in the Charter of Rights real. Businesses, hospitals, the community, faculties -- all are affected by this landmark decision. The decision requires the removal of barriers that prohibit full participation of persons with disabilities. The provincial government will need to ensure that Bill 142 and, subsequently, the ODA are consistent with the Supreme Court's decision.
Thank you. That's all we had. At least we stayed within our 20 minutes, I see.
The Chair: You did it in 17, so we have one minute per caucus. We start with Mr Kormos for the NDP.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, gentlemen. You should know that we've heard from the Canadian Hearing Society across this province, north, east, west and now here in Niagara.
When we take a close look at section 32, dealing with the employment supports, the section interestingly uses the word "may"; that is to say, "employment supports may be provided." Obviously it's a totally discretionary thing. It causes me, and I would ask you, does it cause you some concern that there are no baseline rights to employment supports but rather it's solely a discretionary proviso?
Mr Prong: Yes. I'm happy that you brought that up. The word "may" is a famous political word that's used. It looks good, but as far as action happening from that, you're right; the "may" needs to be changed. I'm happy that you brought that up.
1410
Mr Klees: Thank you very much for your thoughtful presentation and also for your recognition of a number of the very positive things that have evolved from this legislation. We thank you for your input during the consultation process.
In the short time I have, I want to just refer to a couple of points that you questioned. With regard, for example, to the lack of clarity, as you say, with regard to eligibility, those specifics will be forthcoming in the regulations. We have ongoing consultations around that. I certainly think you'll be pleased with the results you'll see there.
With regard to some of the support services you mentioned, I want to leave you with a sense of assurance that it is not the intent of the government to sidestep on this or to withhold. It is clearly the intent to support those who need whatever supportive devices are necessary. I want to point out as well, however, that the Ministry of Education and Training will be assuming some of those responsibilities. Our ministry is in discussions currently with the Ministry of Education to determine just who does what on that point.
Mrs Pupatello: I'd like to have a comment from you, please, whether those clients you work with through your agency and perhaps you yourself consider a hearing impairment as a substantial impairment or substantial disability. I ask that because if the answer is no, then you don't get over the bar in order to access employment supports at all. My greatest concern is that for individuals with some sort of disability that is manageable -- clearly with an interpreter it certainly is, as you show us -- do people with hearing impairments consider themselves to be substantially disabled? If the answer is no, then clearly that wouldn't entitle you to meet the criteria to access the supports.
Mr Kyre: I'll give you an example; maybe that will give you a good answer. We have two deaf people, and their dB is decibel loss. For example, the audiologist will say that they both have the same hearing loss. If I have the same hearing loss as someone else but I can speak and the other deaf person can't speak, they have no verbal skills at all, how do you weigh out the difference? I may not consider myself to have a substantial impairment because I can still voice for myself, but another deaf person who doesn't have that capability of doing that has a more serious disability. It gives you an idea of how two people can have the same hearing loss but one can cope better because they have the speaking skills and the other one doesn't. Does that give you a better idea?
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kyre and Mr Prong, for being here and for making your presentation so forcefully.
Mr Prong: Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come here.
REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY OF HAMILTON-WENTWORTH COUNCIL REGIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR PERSONS WITH PHYSICAL DISABILITIES
The Chair: The Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth Council, Regional Advisory Committee for Persons with Physical Disabilities, Mayor Ted McMeekin, Graeme Aitken and Michael Schuster. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you very much for being here. We're very pleased to have your worship with us as well.
Mr Ted McMeekin: We're pleased to be here. I have with me this afternoon Mr Graeme Aitken, a member of the Regional Advisory Committee for Persons with Physical Disabilities, and Mr Mike Schuster, our commissioner of social services. We want to thank the members of the standing committee on social development for granting us the opportunity to come and share our opinions, however briefly, with you.
The Social Assistance Reform Act legislation tabled by the provincial government is historic and will alter the way that social assistance programs are delivered across the province. We appreciate not only having the opportunity to make a written submission to your committee but also being able to provide our comments to you in person here today. As requested, we have delivered 25 copies of our detailed presentation -- a little late-night reading for the group. Our presentation will be divided into three sections. I will offer, as is appropriate as a political representative, some general comments and a few specific comments related to the Ontario Works Act. Mr Aitken will be discussing some key areas under the Ontario Disability Support Program Act.
By way of those general comments, we believe the provincial government should be, and indeed needs to be, commended for streamlining the current social assistance systems into two new programs: Ontario Works and the Ontario disability support program. The region of Hamilton-Wentworth has long supported the streamlining of this legislation and is pleased to offer some comments on this new legislation today.
The legislation clearly links employment and financial assistance in both programs. In the Ontario Works program, the linkage is mandatory, while for persons with disabilities, employment supports are to be made available for persons wishing to seek employment.
We appreciate that the legislation does not contain many of the specific details required to implement the acts. Since municipalities like Hamilton-Wentworth have a significant amount of experience in delivering both financial assistance programs and employment programs, we recommend that the province should consult extensively with municipalities like Hamilton-Wentworth regarding the final wording of the regulations and certainly before they are finalized. We implore you to do that, please.
As it relates to the Ontario Works Act, as I have already stated, the regional department of community services has prepared a detailed response. That detailed response went before our regional council and was endorsed, so that is the official position of the council of Hamilton-Wentworth.
Instead of reviewing all of the items identified in our written submission, I want to focus on two areas in the legislation that we would like to see changed -- we suspect you want to hear from us about that -- and areas in the legislation that may be confusing, where some clarification may be in order.
Of the areas that require change, we want to specifically note the 60- to 64-year-old age group. In Hamilton-Wentworth we are interpreting the new legislation to mean that all those aged 60 to 64 will not be transferred to the Ontario disabilities support program as in the past and that these recipients will have a mandatory requirement to participate in the Ontario Works program. This proposed change would also have a direct financial impact on those in this age bracket, who will not be grandfathered on to the Ontario disabilities support program.
The region recommends to your committee that the provincial government indeed consider allowing those aged 60 to 64 to be transferred to the Ontario disabilities support program. They should be allowed to participate in the Ontario Works program on a voluntary basis.
With respect to the sections in the new legislation dealing with foster children, as of January 1, 1998, we note that all benefits for foster children will be administered through the Ontario Works Act. Although we appreciate that the system for the administration of benefits to foster children needed to be streamlined, it is our opinion that issues related to foster children would be more appropriately and adequately addressed within the child welfare protection system rather than the Ontario Works Act. So we'd ask, respectfully, for your committee's consideration of that particular note from us.
With respect to domiciliary hostels -- we refer to them as "second-level lodging homes" -- they form an integral component of our total housing care option in Hamilton-Wentworth and really provide a service to many of our most vulnerable citizens in Hamilton-Wentworth. Residents of these homes are often seniors and/or persons with either psychiatric or developmental disabilities, but without much housing and care, many of these residents could end up living in the streets, particularly if, as we fear, there may be some major changes related to the closing of the psychiatric hospital in Hamilton. We're waiting in breathless anticipation to see what the hospital restructuring group comes up with, but we're worried about that.
1420
Although the domiciliary hostel program provides a critical housing care component in some municipalities, the new legislation does not make reference to the domiciliary hostel programming in either the Ontario Works Act or the Ontario Disability Support Program Act. As of January 1, 1998, municipalities like ours will be required to pay 100% of the cost, if the legislation is put forward in its current form, of this discretionary program. In Hamilton-Wentworth that figure amounts to roughly $2.6 million.
The region of Hamilton-Wentworth would respectfully recommend to this committee that the provincial government acknowledge the importance of the hostel program by including it under the Ontario Disability Support Plan Act section of the legislation.
With respect to areas that we believe require clarification, the sole-support parents and mandatory participation section, we understand from the legislation and from our own experience as the first site delivering the Ontario Works program that sole-support parents will be required to participate in the Ontario Works program when their children reach a particular age. However, we note with some concern that the age is not defined. We recommend strongly to the committee that the provincial government define a specific child's age in which participation of sole-support parents would become required under the Ontario Works program. We think that clarification would frankly be helpful.
With respect to the special assistance program, the legislation and regulations under the new Ontario Works Act must clearly specify which items will be covered under the program and provide some direction as to whether the program will be limited only to persons on assistance. Currently municipalities are able to offer special assistance items and services to the working poor or low-income families. This flexibility does not appear to be evident in the current legislation.
The region of Hamilton-Wentworth respectfully recommends that the provincial government provide more clarification regarding items you consider eligible for funding under special assistance and give us some help defining who you believe should be eligible for these benefits.
The province should be commended for eliminating the two-tiered system for dental and vision care for children younger than 18 on social assistance in Ontario. Although this change would ensure that all children less than 18 will receive the same level of vision and dental care, the legislation does not include the level of care that would or should be covered, or how that benefit will be accessed under the Ontario Works Act. As the standing committee is already aware, these benefits are accessed differently within the current GWA and FBA systems, so we think there needs to be some clarification with respect to those programs to provide some necessary guidelines, since we're not wanting to see a patchwork quilt of services develop right across the province.
At this time, I'd like to invite my colleague Graeme to discuss the Ontario disability support program with members of your committee.
Mr Graeme Aitken: First, I'd like to echo Mr McMeekin's thanks for your time in granting us standing before the committee and listening to our submission. I don't intend to read from the submissions. I trust everyone is capable of doing so and will do so. But I do wish to draw your attention to some specific points in our submissions.
First, under the heading of "Background" on page 1 of our submissions, I think it's important that you note the composition of the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Advisory Committee for Persons with Physical Disabilities. Two regional councillors sit on the advisory committee, and one of these members is the committee chairman. All other 11 advisory committee members have disabilities, have family or friends with disabilities and/or have a direct professional interest in disability issues. In addition to these associations, members also cross-represent a large service club, labour law, seniors and volunteer services. As you can see, our committee truly represents those individuals and groups who will be most affected by the proposed legislation, the legislation we're discussing here today.
Much like Mayor McMeekin's presentation, I wish to approach this in two distinct parts: First and absolutely foremost in our minds, make no mistake, we want to commend the movers of this legislation for the recognition of the need for independence and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. Our committee has long recognized this, and we applaud others for doing so. Further, it's hoped that by taking such progressive steps, we can begin to have these persons with disabilities in the mainstream of society and not as a series of disfranchised groups on the edges.
There can be little argument with the purported aims and goals of the proposed legislation, particularly as they've been articulated in the backgrounder document -- I don't know if that's the proper title for it, but none the less the documentation distributed by the Ministry of Community and Social Services in June of this year. In fact, we wholeheartedly support all the goals and the unbridled integration of persons with disabilities into the economy of Ontario.
The goals we are particularly glad to see forwarded are the recognition that people with disabilities can and do want to work, and as a result, a commitment to improving the employment support systems for these individuals.
We applaud the elimination of what we perceive to be disincentives to people with disabilities accepting work, the easing of financial restrictions and freeing of moneys to allow persons with disabilities to function in the manner that those of us who are currently able-bodied simply take for granted.
Finally, the acknowledgement of the need for standardized practice in this important area across the province of Ontario.
However, we have concerns. I want to address the concerns so that you might ask us questions on them. The concerns begin at page 4 in our submissions that we've put before you. Again, I don't plan on reading through them and I don't have the time to go through all the concerns. I do want to highlight two very important concerns, however. Please don't misunderstand that this means we're less concerned about others; we're concerned about all areas that we address before you.
Definitions: Concise, well-articulated, understood, even accepted definitions are nowhere to be found in the legislation. Specifically, we were unable to find definitions for the following words: "disability," "vulnerable," "substantial barrier," "substantial restrictions," "permanent serious disability," "those who qualify" and "eligibility." None appear in the definitions section.
I'm going to be told that in part I, section 4, there's a definition for "disability," but in that definition for "disability" are the words "vulnerable," "substantial barrier" and "substantial restrictions." They're not defined. Thus, it's our position there's no definition for "disability."
These terms and the words in our view are rather substantial. They're fundamental to the scheme of the proposed legislation. It would seem that if they're that fundamental, there should be no question as to the meaning of either these words or these terms. As a result, we strongly and respectfully submit that these definitions be finalized before passage of the legislation and that they be articulated through consultation and discussions with groups such as ours.
The second set of concerns I wish to address today are those listed under the "Accommodations and Employment" section at page 5 of our submissions. I'm going to focus on employment, and I don't want to suggest, again, that we're less concerned about accommodation, but I deal with the employment portion particularly given the time constraints, but also this legislation appears to embrace an employment philosophy. That seems to be the whole thrust behind the disability legislation.
1430
We applaud the recognition that supports provided to those with disabilities enhance the opportunities for full and gainful employment. I would echo Mr Kormos's concern, though, for the discretionary nature of those.
It does not appear, though, that there is any recognition for the varying types and degrees of disabilities throughout the community. In other words, some disabilities are going to require greater supports than other disabilities. It's going to depend on the nature of the disability and it's going to depend on the degree of disability, both. So our committee strongly recommends that the amount of support not be determined on the basis of personal income or other objective factors. These determinations must be made based on the individual case, on the disability and the impediment that disability creates for that individual.
It also ties in to our concern over the establishment of community-based delivery agents and the mandate under which they will operate. Quite simply, if a contract renewal for a community delivery agent is based on outcome results, jobs they've provided, what does that do for those who have more severe disabilities? Our concern is that if we're on strictly a "How many jobs did you produce?" basis for renewal of contract, agency 1 will put out 100 disabled people with jobs; agency 2 may only put out 50. However, agency 1 may have put out 100 people with -- and I don't mean to demean any disabilities -- less severe disabilities while agency 2 put out 50 people with more severe disabilities. So it must be taken into consideration when we're looking at who we give the contract to. Quite simply, our committee doesn't want to see a system established where the result becomes disabilities being rated for the purposes of employment.
Finally, with respect to our concerns over employment, under the proposed legislation there doesn't appear to be any reference to part-time, temporary or short-term employment positions. Would these positions have a negative impact on a person, would they be a disincentive to accepting a job? What of the newer, non-traditional types of work that we're seeing -- independent contractors, home work, contract work? They don't seem to be contemplated at all. We've taken a very narrow and traditional view of work into this legislation.
As I said earlier, it appears to employ a philosophy of employment. Where are the employers in this proposal? I don't see them anywhere. None of us could find them. We couldn't find any reference to obligations, expectations or any other mention of employers in an employment-based scheme. Including families as a partner in this proposal while leaving out business seems absolutely contrary to the scheme and its goals.
Thus, the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Advisory Committee for Persons with Physical Disabilities respectfully recommends that the definitions relating to disability and eligibility be addressed expediently; that direct payments to landlords and utility companies be administered in very special circumstances and only as a last resort; that only medical professionals of an ODSP recipient's choice complete required medical assessments; that accommodations needed for employment or daily living not be restricted by the type, extent or cost of prescribed devices; that for working people personal income taxes continue to be used as the vehicle for deducting disability expenditures; and that an objective appeal process for applicants and recipients be developed and implemented.
I just want to leave you with one final thought that was first put to me when I became involved in acting on behalf of issues for disabled persons. The group labelled as disabled is increasingly growing. When one considers the rapidly aging population and the apparent increase in accidents, this group is going to get exponentially larger. We who are able-bodied are only temporarily so. We are able-bodied for only a short time. We will have disabilities in future, whether they be decreased hearing, impaired visibility, less mobility. This proposed legislation is not just for those who are disabled today. It is there for all of us, there for tomorrow.
The Chair: Thank you very much, your worship and gentlemen, for a very thorough and thoughtful presentation. I regret that you've used up all of the available time.
Mrs Pupatello: May we have just a couple of minutes per caucus? I think they're the only municipal representatives today on the agenda.
The Chair: Is there unanimous consent? We have unanimous consent for two minutes per caucus for questioning. We begin with Ms Pupatello for the official opposition.
Mrs Pupatello: You've been involved with the pilot project with workfare to date?
Mr Michael Schuster: Yes.
Mrs Pupatello: What was your business plan number outline, that you were to reach how many participants?
Mr Schuster: We were supposed to be reaching close to 100 participants in the voluntary community participation per month.
Mrs Pupatello: And now where are you at?
Mr Schuster: We're approximately 27.
Mrs Pupatello: That's 27 out of 100. Do you see any purpose for the million dollars on a campaign for workfare that the Ministry of Community and Social Services is now spending, given that workfare is mandatory for the participants, as we know, and municipalities as well? When you answer that, could you tell me too if you've been given the criteria yet for you to access that wonderful fund that's going to make up the shortfall in the cuts to transfer payments? My question is related in that in my view that fund has been so politicized that if you don't follow the rules in terms of workfare, as an example, you'll be punished as municipalities out there and not be given the funding because all of it will be political.
Mr McMeekin: That was certainly part of the dynamic of the debate as we began to explore the workfare program and it caused us some considerable concern. Hamilton-Wentworth was one of the groups that had indicated, not only a willingness, but we followed through in terms of trying to help define some of the parameters so that the workfare program, which in our highly unionized area wasn't particularly well received, at least, we hoped, would make some sense based on our set of principles and criteria we developed.
There's been a dynamic tension there that has resulted, as I understand it -- maybe Mr Schuster could comment on it -- already in some budgetary shortfalls, given our concern to make sure that we could be as principle-based as possible, yet running into some bureaucratic hassles that delayed the transfers of funds to us.
The Chair: I'm going to give the floor to Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: First of all, congratulations. You're only the second municipality that's come to the committee. I'm sure others have done this type of work. The city of London and yourselves are the only ones --
The Chair: And North Bay.
Mr Kormos: -- and North Bay -- that have come to the committee with this type of analysis. It's obviously a well-thought-out one.
I want to refer back to, because it was October 22, the press release from Ms Ecker, wherein she explained -- because she's got this ad campaign, that's the one Ms Pupatello referred to, this $900,000. It's like those pictures of happy collective farm workers in the Ukraine, you know, that the Soviet Union used to publish in Northern Neighbours and magazines like that, because these are pictures of happy workfare workers. Ms Ecker says that municipalities requested that she embark on this ad campaign, that she's doing this in response to the request of municipalities. There are many municipalities in Ontario, but did Hamilton-Wentworth request Ms Ecker to spend $900,000 on an ad campaign for workfare?
Mr McMeekin: We've had frequent discussions with Ms Ecker, but I don't recall that we ever asked for an ad campaign to be launched, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Interesting, okay.
Mr McMeekin: We're pretty frugal with our bucks in Hamilton-Wentworth and we know this committee wants to follow through and be good stewards of resources as well.
Mr John L. Parker (York East): Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. Thank you for the work and effort that went into preparing it and delivering it here this afternoon. You obviously have a lot of experience with this subject matter and have put a great deal of thought into it. In your estimation, do you think the goals and principles of the government's workfare initiative are well understood by the public?
1440
Mr Schuster: No.
Mr Parker: What steps might you suggest the government should take to increase that understanding among the public?
Mr Schuster: From our experience, the misunderstanding is with regard to the components of the Ontario Works legislation, which deals with, as we saw it, an opportunity to get people on social assistance into employment. That being the focus is often lost through the discussions around the mandatory community participation, which makes up, in our opinion, a smaller component of the whole program. We saw it as an opportunity to consolidate our employment programs helping folks get back into the labour market and providing the employment supports. That part of the program is what I think is not understood by the general public at large. The focus has been on the mandatory community participation.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Your worship, in particular I thank you. Your commitment to the work that the region is doing is evidenced by your presence here today. We thank all three of you for the thoughtful presentation.
HAMILTON AGAINST POVERTY
The Chair: I call Hamilton Against Poverty, Julie Gordon and Wendell Fields. Thank you very much for being here. We appreciate your intervention.
Ms Julie Gordon: My name is Julie Gordon. I am very grateful to be here in front of this committee because this is the first time I have had the opportunity to express my anger at the government directly. I feel this whole act is disrespectful to mothers. It is discrimination against women.
Let's look a little at history. Mother's allowance began in 1920 in order to compensate families of war victims. Nowadays, mother's allowance serves many victims of family violence. The first public assistance programs were based on need, and today, although circumstances have changed, the needs are basically the same. In the past, when families moved into the cities from the farms, the extended family broke up; therefore, people lost that support. Nowadays, it is almost rare for people to depend on extended families. Back then, families lost the breadwinner during the epidemic; now it is because of injury or illness. There are many similarities between past and present.
But the major difference between now and then is that in the old days people believed that mothers should be at home and it was the public responsibility to support mothers in the home. I am here today to tell you that that belief is not yet dead. My mother was a stay-at-home mother. My next-door neighbour is a stay-at-home mother. The only difference between them and me is their marital status; I don't have marital status. But I am still the head of the household. I am sorry, but married or divorced or not married, I am a mother, and I believe that mothers' work in the home is important and should be recognized.
What happened to those Real Women who used to defend the role of mothers in the home? I know what happened to one of them. She is an MPP for this Conservative Party, in Hamilton West, and her name is Lillian Ross. I know some of you Conservatives agree with a mother's role.
I certainly believe that as a mother on mother's allowance I deserve every penny, whether my child is in school or not. Housework and child care are work. I am not ashamed of being on mother's allowance, and this government is not going to make me ashamed. I am not ashamed of being a mother.
This government has turned the public against disadvantaged people, and I refuse to go along with it. A person does not lose their value as a human simply because he or she is unemployed or lacking marital status. I remember that the previous government increased the allowance given to sole-support parents. The Conservative government has cut us back and will probably be cutting us back again. The government has no right to do this.
Now the government wants people to pay back social assistance costs when they are working? This is already being paid for by taxes. Isn't this what they call double-dipping?
Speaking of illegalities and fraud, Bill 142 is not going to prevent fraud. It is going to create fraud and encourage fraud because the government is taking away people's choices. I don't believe there is enough fraud to warrant the changes of Bill 142. If people commit fraud, it is because we are living in a materialistic society. People are not going to stop wanting more possessions, and they deserve more possessions.
Women do not deserve to be forced into staying in an abusive relationship because they are afraid of being destitute. Mothers should not be forced into workfare, no matter how old their children. Mothers certainly need the opportunity to breast-feed their children as well.
By forcing mothers into workfare, the government is also forcing social workers into a policing role instead of a supportive role. This will have a ripple effect on other social agencies.
The Children's Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto has opposed workfare on the basis that there may be serious impacts on children, including parenting under conditions where parents are severely stressed by poverty, especially poverty compounded by forced labour and ineffective programs. The breakup of programs under Bill 142 is inevitable.
These are the reasons I am angry, and there are lots of people out there who are angry. They are just not showing it -- not yet.
Mr Wendell Fields: The barbaric, anti-democratic decisions being made by the Ontario government today are a continuation of the decisions made by the previous provincial government and are in line with the decisions the federal government of the day is implementing. No government at any level in this society represents us.
Today we come here representing ourselves, the target of oppression. We will not accept this oppression, and we will struggle and fight to make this oppression a thing of the past, a thing which our children and our children's children will read of only in the history books.
We are beings who are human. We demand that we live in a society that permits us to live to our fullest human ability, to the highest standard of living that society can create, as individuals, as individuals in collectives, and as collectives. We will build that society ourselves, because this is what it means to be human, to be social beings. We will not be individual slave animals any longer.
Hamilton Against Poverty is an independent organization of social assistance recipients. We will have our own independent voice.
We salute those who come here for taking a stand against the oppression of the impoverished in this society. We will fight to put an end to this brutalization in this society by adhering to our right to be human, regardless of frontiers. It is clear that these assaults upon us must be countered. It is also clear that, protesting aside, we must take legal action, and new and innovative methods of struggle also need to be developed. We need to affirm and assert our full rights to live as full human beings in a social environment, in practice, in reality, in all aspects of our individual lives, in our collectives and in our society.
On a weekly basis, new sectors of the people are being slapped in the face, brutalized, oppressed. An anti-social trend is developing, a hysteria that does not permit us to think, that does not permit us to work, that does not permit us a human life. This trend blocks us from moving forward to developing a new, higher level of social being.
A new trend is also in the making, of which we are part, a pro-social trend which excludes no one from participating in making, implementing and administering decisions at all levels in society. This new pro-social trend will continue to fight to move forward, to think, to work, to plan, to organize, to implement and administer the new societal project, to build a new, human social society. The pro-social trend will break the anti-social trend once and for all, and we will live as free human beings in a society that we created as a people -- we the poor, we the workers, we the small shopkeepers, we the pro-people professionals, we the people, we the oppressed who refuse to accept our oppression.
1450
Hamilton Against Poverty salutes you who are the oppressed today, who will be the free human beings of tomorrow, and calls upon you to exercise and enforce your rights as human beings. Work out a plan of action and organize to put it into practice, put forward your demands, fight to build a new society. Each of us born into this society has rights, because we are born as human beings. Because we are human, we have certain claims on society that society is obligated to meet so as to ensure that we live as human beings should live. Present governments at all levels have abandoned their social responsibility. Maximum private profit-making is depriving us of our human life. We will not accept this.
Hamilton Against Poverty thinks society's aim should be to end unemployment and poverty. We think the people, especially the workers as well as the unemployed labourers who make up the majority of first-time welfare recipients and those who are retired, should take the lead in taking all the necessary measures to achieve this new aim of society, the ending of unemployment and poverty.
This is a leaflet we produced on Friday, August 25, 1995: Our Rights as Human Beings are Violated; Affirm Your Rights. Now we come to the present and the future.
Funding of social programs is a necessary investment for economic and social development. It is an essential feature of a modern and humane society. It is a major method of putting more money back into the economy than is taken out. Even though existing social programs are weak and marginal, they are one of the aspects of society that is modern and humane. To cut them is to declare this government is seeking an outdated, brutal society.
This government and others after it, due to the passage of Bill 26, will have dictatorial powers and rule by decree. It should be pointed out that this arrangement was made after the leaders of all three parties cut a deal, ratified in the caucuses, to pass Bill 26. Very well. You want to stifle democracy? You can have this form of rule. It is not ours. We will arrange our own democratic state by selecting and electing our own representatives and participating in governance.
Hamilton Against Poverty is running a number of our own candidates in the municipal elections and is encouraging all collectives, associations, societies, plant workers, professional groups and so on to do the same, to become political on your own terms and go directly for power without any mediator.
This government is seeking to privatize the delivery of social programs, to have social program delivery as a profitable business. It is my view that profit has no business in social program delivery. What are we going to have, monopoly fiefdoms competing against and killing each other to get maximum profits for themselves at our expense? It is well known historically that such medieval systems were overthrown and society progressed to a higher level. Must we repeat this again?
Society must develop to the level of being responsible for the claims of its members upon it. The supercities are creating economies of scale and service delivery so that large monopolies can profitably take them over. It is only by organizing ourselves collectively and demanding and creating a society that can actually meet our needs by ending this subservience to the financiers and monopolies that we defend our rights as human beings. It is only when the workers take the lead in beating back this government's offensive that we can make inroads into governing ourselves in our own social society.
We as social assistance recipients stand shoulder to shoulder with the teachers, with all public sector workers, as all people fighting for their rights as human beings should. We vow that no government has any mandate to govern us as long as they continue to meet the demands of the rich and not the demands of the people. We will not surrender. We will continue to fight until victory is achieved. We warn you that any political party which comes to power and begins to implement the agenda the financiers have for you will face the wrath of the people until you are all defeated. We are coming to see that we do not really need this political party dictatorship every three to four years, especially when they continue to take the risk for the monopolies and ignore the demands of the people, demands for a human society. Ignore us at your own peril, because we will break this alliance of political parties with the monopolies and financiers. A modern society is based on arrangements which systematically increase the services available to guarantee the people's wellbeing and quality.
We demand that this and any future government stop paying the rich. We demand that this and any future government increase funding to health, education and social programs and that it be enacted in legislation; that any cuts to health, education and social programs by any government be considered an indictable criminal offence under the Canadian Criminal Code.
Hamilton Against Poverty organized a demonstration when Ms Janet Ecker came to our city. At that time, we issued a warrant. It says:
"Warrant for the search of the premises of Sheraton Hotel, King Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, known present domicile of one Dishonourable Janet Ecker, Progressive Conservative member of provincial Parliament of Ontario and a known cabinet minister in the government thereof. To wit, that Janet Ecker, in a conspiracy with other known individuals in the abovementioned government, also named in separate warrants issued by this court, is withholding public funds belonging to the people of Ontario and may be in possession of said funds at the abovementioned address for the purpose of ungainful and criminal distribution of said funds to persons and corporations not entitled to them.
"Let it be declared hereby this court grants the bearers" -- and it names a number of organizations -- "the right to enter the said premises so noted above for the purpose of conducting an investigation into establishing the veracity of the above claims and also hereby grants the above bearers the right to search and seizure of said evidence and also the right to search and seizure of any further evidence which pertains to this and any other probable crimes committed by the abovementioned Progressive Conservative government of Ontario, its leadership, coconspirators and abettors against the people of Ontario and Canada.
"Signed this day of September 29, 1997, in the people's court of public opinion by the people of Hamilton, Ontario and Canada."
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about a minute per caucus. We'll begin with the Conservative caucus.
Mr Klees: Sir, do you believe you have an obligation that goes along with the rights that you have?
Mr Fields: Yes. Rights without obligations are nothing.
Mr Klees: What I mean is that I don't disagree with you that government has an obligation to support people who have no means of supporting themselves.
Mr Fields: Why does the government take the risk for corporations?
Mr Klees: Let me finish my question. Would you agree that as a recipient you also have an obligation to the people of this province to do what you can to become actively involved in the community?
Mr Fields: I am actively involved in the community, sir.
Mr Klees: Either through community participation --
Mr Fields: I don't believe in slave labour or compelled labour or coerced labour.
Mr Klees: Neither does this government.
Mr Fields: Sir, I have been compelled into these programs and told I had volunteered, which is a lie.
Mrs Pupatello: Julie, I wanted to ask you a question specifically. Our greatest concern about workfare -- we've seen it implemented in American jurisdictions. In some places where they say it has worked, they've also introduced significant child care supports, they've introduced other measures like transportation supports. These people who implemented the program recognized that in order to have workfare, which they considered their employment springboard for those on assistance, they knew it meant significant funding of the program. Not only are we not doing that here, but we're actually going in the reverse. We are significantly lacking in child care to start with, never mind what it's going to be when these people need to move in. Transportation issues for rural and northern Ontario are real, real issues to try to implement this. It speaks to our position that life just isn't simple out there; that you can't have two baskets with this piece of legislation, one for those with disabilities, if you qualify, and everybody else lumped in this big basket called workfare. Do you have any comments?
Ms Gordon: You're right, transportation is a big difficulty for anybody on welfare. I spend major time in my day walking. With workfare, a lot of people aren't going to have time to go to the food bank or go and get a meal at the Good Shepherd, because they're going to be busy in a workfare placement. So a lot of the supports they're used to accessing are no longer going to be available to them.
Mr Kormos: Once again, thank you kindly. Secondly, and following up on what you were just saying, my impression very distinctly, based on the folks we've heard from during the course of this week across the province, is that when you're trying to keep body and soul together and keep your kids from being painfully hungry, you're talking about work at an intense level that's a 24-hour-a-day project. You talked about food banks and, I presume, soup kitchens. We heard from one woman who systematically, one day per week, doesn't eat herself. That way she can allocate those funds to making sure that her 15-year-old son is fed as best she can. What are some of the other things?
1500
I'm afraid there are a whole lot of people on this committee -- the minimum wage at Queen's Park is just shy of 80 grand a year. That's the minimum wage at Queen's Park. The assistance paid to social assistance recipients was raided to the tune of 21.6% to help finance a 40% salary increase that this government gave the MPPs at Queen's Park and to help finance a $109-million pension plan by --
The Chair: Mr Kormos, do you have a question?
Mr Kormos: Can you respond to that, if you're inclined?
Mr Preston: Mr Kormos got his share of that payout too.
Mr Kormos: I never advocated chopping welfare budgets by 22%, Mr Preston.
The Chair: Excuse me, the question has been asked.
Mr Kormos: Mr Harris is in the millionaires' club.
Mr Preston: He's the Premier and you're not.
The Chair: Gentlemen, please. This is Ms Gordon's time.
Ms Gordon: I can see that a lot of people who really need that money could be supported by $80,000 a year. I live on almost $1,000 a month, so if you had $80,000 and stretched it out among the people on welfare, you'd be able to feed a lot more people.
The Chair: Thank you both very much for being here. We appreciate hearing your views.
MCQUESTEN LEGAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICES
CHURCH IN SOCIETY NETWORK HAMILTON CONFERENCE, UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA
BRANT COUNTY COMMUNITY LEGAL CLINIC
The Chair: McQuesten Legal and Community Services, Michael Ollier; Brant County Community Legal Clinic, Jay Sengupta; and United Church of Canada, Vaughn Stewart. Welcome to our committee. We're grateful for your presence here this afternoon.
Mr Mike Ollier: My name is Mike Ollier. I'm the executive director of the community legal clinic in the east end of Hamilton, McQuesten Legal and Community Services. To my immediate left is Mr Vaughn Stewart from the United Church. We're sharing our time with the United Church and also with Brant county legal services. Jay Sengupta, a staff lawyer with that clinic, will have some remarks as well.
I understand you have received the written material from Brant county and also from the United Church. McQuesten was part of a joint effort with other Hamilton legal clinics that provided a written submission as well.
The first thing I'd like to get across to you in the brief time I'll have this afternoon is what an eye-opening experience it's been for me personally to be the director of the legal clinic. Before I got this job I'd never met anybody on welfare and it was an abstract problem. But since I've been doing this work, I have encountered real-life examples and it has indeed opened my eyes. I know that for many of the people around this committee table this may be the first time you're beginning to see the human face of what has perhaps been only a theoretical problem for you. I would just like to caution you, before you make decisions, to try to have a better idea in your mind about who the people are.
It's perhaps apropos that I'm addressing you here, where Canada meets the United States, and I see the Canadian and American flags standing side by side. I've heard horrible things about social assistance in the United States, where people can actually be cut off after a fixed period of time no matter what their circumstances are. It gives me a great deal of concern that we may be heading in that direction. I know this legislation is a far cry from that, but I'm afraid it is heading in that direction.
Generally, the legislation I've seen seems to attempt to address a problem that affects a fraction of the recipients and has that as its focus, whether it be concern about fraud or recovery of overpayments, which is something I turned my mind to in preparation for today. The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority, well into 90% -- I understand the latest figure, the latest shot in the dark regarding fraud that I've seen is about 3% -- about 97% of the people are not going to be a concern for you, but they are all going to be affected by the measures you're planning to pass.
I think the challenge you face is balancing the goals that you've set against your obligation to provide this social service. It is, after all, social assistance and we have to determine what is it about the proposal that fulfils that obligation to provide assistance. After all, everyone that we're talking about is a citizen, is a resident of Ontario, and they have a right to be treated equally under the law with respect to their dignity as human beings, but also there is a legal obligation that you must fulfil. I'm sure none of you around this table has any intention of violating that, but I encourage you to look at the bill to see whether or not this may in fact be happening.
Take for example the requirement of, I think it's called, biometric imaging at the present time, which I'm afraid is understood to be fingerprinting. We probably will in decades to come have a way of recording people's image very close to this, but the perception will still remain at this time that it is singling out this part of our population for special treatment and special scrutiny. The fact of the matter is that the people I see coming into my clinic are going to have to answer the suspicions of their fellow Ontarians that, "These people must be capable of fraud because, after all, they're being required to be fingerprinted or undergo some such treatment."
The concerns I specifically addressed were income verification. Recently of course we've had what's known as enhanced verification. It's a legitimate goal, isn't it, which is to identify, to make sure that you're going to be paying the right benefit to the right person. I don't think anyone would argue with that goal. But again, I think the methods used have to be measured in terms of what their impact is going to be across the board. We spend a lot more time than perhaps we should, being funded by the province, assisting people and explaining why it is that they don't have a birth certificate and why it is that they can't get their social insurance number out of their wallet. It's been misplaced or whatever.
I think the verification requirements betray an assumption about people that needs to be tested. The assumption is that people walk around and, like a lot of people in this room, they probably carry their wallets and they have all their identification, and it's a reasonable assumption that they should be able to produce that in order to identify themselves. But the actual reality is that for a good chunk of the people we're dealing with, that simply is not the case.
The bill as it's currently drafted, as I understand it, requires the administrator, the delivery agent, to have that information before they can make a person eligible to receive a benefit. I know that's going to cause a great deal of hardship, which I firmly believe is unintended. I don't believe you intend to have people who, through no fault of their own, cannot lay their hands on the document and will go hungry and without shelter until such time as they can get that document.
Of course there's also the question of money. As anyone who has ever ordered a document has found out, it's difficult to get these things without money.
I'll just make one more comment while I have your attention. I know my friends are eager to make a presentation.
The other point I wanted to make out of the submission that we've made is in regard to the notion of recovering assistance that's been paid already. We in our clinic certainly deal with overpayments, where people have been told, "You've been paid more assistance than you're entitled to receive." Of course, if that's demonstrated, then they've got to pay that back. The difficulty always is, how can they pay that back when they're being paid an allowance which is a bare minimum for human needs? We've heard from people who are actually recipients here who say they don't eat one day a week or whatever in order to get through. Deducting money for overpayments is a hardship which recipients currently undergo.
1510
At present, this bill seems to want to make those deductions easier for other government debts, for example, and even for such compelling reasons as child support. I think everyone around the table agrees that child support should be honoured; however, we must also recognize that there are situations where that cannot be done without affecting the basic ability of a person to feed themselves.
A single individual on welfare right now gets $520 a month. That's not really a great deal when you consider that a one-bedroom apartment or even a rooming-house is going to cost at least $300 or $400. So the assumption that people can take these deductions and still survive has to be tested as well before you can go any further.
The other point I would like to make is that I question the assumption that people who are receiving social assistance are likely to be in a position in the near future to repay that assistance, the assumption again being that people will be able to get jobs. I pray that they do and I pray that they're good enough that they can repay social assistance, but the actual reality, I think, is quite different. To legislate that as a requirement is actually going to be counterproductive because it's going to raise the bar for looking for work and what can actually be affordable to meet all your needs and also repay social assistance.
Thank you very much for your attention. If there's some time for questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.
Mr Vaughn Stewart: Due to time constraints, I will only highlight our brief from the Hamilton Conference of the United Church of Canada.
In 1986 the United Church of Canada stated before the Social Assistance Review Committee of the province of Ontario that the economic system is out of control and a fair distribution of wealth is not happening. The system is not delivering the goods, especially to the poor and the marginalized.
This year they stated, "Bill 142 is such a dramatic, fundamental change to our practice of social assistance that it is clear that its proposed implications go beyond the bounds of the economy of grace. It is not a document which offers care for the needy or the marginalized. It is inconsistent with the tradition of faith. It is immoral."
The recent cutbacks in assistance and the very repressive way the social welfare program is administered by this government are a slap in the face to Christians and the Christian principles of love, care and compassion on which this country is founded. The way it punishes and blames the poor for being poor is also an insult to the people of most of the other world religions who hold those same basic principles -- love, care and compassion -- to be a part of their faith.
This government's policies towards the poor and the legislation contained in Bill 142 would indicate that they are using those least able to protect themselves as scapegoats for their economic problems. We have often seen the horrible human, social and spiritual cost of this type of scapegoating of other groups around the world during this century. Have we learned nothing from history?
A person on basic welfare receives $520 per month. If they spend just $400 on shelter, which is about the least a person can spend for any kind of sustainable housing, that leaves them with $120. To receive that money, the government demands that the recipient do about 50 job searches a month, which costs at least $50 a month if the client walks to most of the contacts. That leaves $70 a month.
In order to do a decent job search, a person needs a telephone for prospective employers or temporary agencies to call them for jobs. Phones are also needed for personal safety, to contact fire, police, doctor and ambulance. The basic monthly cost of a phone is about $25, leaving the recipient with $45. Two loads of laundry a month for $10 leaves them with just $35 a month for food. Of course, that means that they can't do dishes, brush their teeth, buy clothes, buy toilet paper or buy feminine hygiene products if they are women. If they have children living away from them, it leaves no money to be in contact with their children. Just imagine the horrible blow to the self-esteem and the terrible physical, emotional and spiritual cost to the thousands of people and their families living in this situation.
Furthermore, if a person loses their job for almost any reason other than layoffs, they can be ineligible for any kind of government support for at least three months. If they can't get another job or live with family or friends, then their only choices are to be homeless or to become criminals to survive. Therefore, government policy not only condones homelessness and crime, but actually encourages homelessness and crime. This policy also forces people to stay in possibly abusive and unsafe jobs out of fear of facing the government's alternative.
Current government deficits are due not to overspending on the poor or other social programs but to a lack of revenue. There are many things the government could do to create long-term positive change. We would like to suggest two.
First, in conjunction with the federal government, encourage companies to reduce the workweek to 30 to 32 hours for employees, maintaining the pay and benefits of the 40-hour week. Experience has shown that with the reduced workweek, jobs are increased; employee sickness, injury and downtime are almost eliminated; productivity is increased; quality is increased; waste is decreased; prices can be decreased; customers are happier; profits are increased substantially; and workers can spend more quality time with their families or in creative, educational or voluntary pursuits.
Second, since jobs will continue to be eliminated by technology and unemployment will continue to increase, we would also suggest a guaranteed annual income to replace the social service network. Since 1972 the United Church of Canada has advocated a policy of guaranteed annual income as a method of ensuring economic security for all persons in a more equitable yet less expensive and less complicated way than the current government policy provides.
Money almost never trickles down from the rich to the poor but almost always flows up. Those on guaranteed annual income would spend almost all their money on the necessities of life. This would increase demand, increase profits, increase jobs, decrease unemployment and put more money into circulation. The cost of the program could be covered by decreased unemployment, fewer administrative costs and more creative taxation systems, such as a tax on all bank transactions.
These and other positive changes, such as the increased support of education, health, the environment and culture, would create a healthier and more moral and ethical economy, a healthier environment and a more just society for all. Government is elected to represent all levels of society, not just the special interests of the greedy. Since our Canadian society has supposedly been built on the basic Judaeo-Christian principles of love, care and compassion for all and since most other religions encourage those same principles, it is time that we demand no less of the governments that represent us. Thank you.
Ms Jay Sengupta: I would like to begin by endorsing the brief presented to this committee by the Steering Committee on Social Assistance. That brief contains a detailed analysis of Bill 142 and we urge the committee to consider the recommendations that are contained in that brief.
As the time I have today is also limited, I would like to focus on one theme, that of accountability. Both the Ontario Works Act and the Ontario Disability Support Program Act have as one of several goals stated in the legislation that of being "accountable to the taxpayers of Ontario." The focus on taxpayers is, in our opinion, too restrictive. We believe that accountability to all the citizens of this province and, most particularly, to the users of the social assistance system who are directly affected by this bill is a more laudable goal and urge that the legislation be amended to include a recognition of that broader sense of accountability.
Accountability comes about in many ways. At the very least, it must include a true consultation with those who use the services and on whose lives this bill would have the greatest impact. We have grave concerns that large portions of the new system of social assistance delivery have been left blank and are to be filled in later by regulations. These regulations have not been released, will not be subject to meaningful public consultation or input, and can be changed without any consultation. A major reform of a system which provides basic necessities of life to a large segment of the population of this province should be subject to real scrutiny and public input, and that is not possible under Bill 142 as drafted. This does not advance the cause of accountability.
1520
In practice, one of the ways in which a system can be held accountable is through a review of decisions made by those entrusted to implement rules and regulations. Citizens need to know that their public service is operating fairly, efficiently and in accordance with the purpose and spirit of the law. The right to challenge decisions which have an adverse impact on a person is crucial in this regard. Again, the direction taken in this bill runs counter to the principle of accountability.
For example, certain decisions which have a profound impact on the lives of people cannot be challenged in any way, either through an internal review or through an appeal. These decisions include a decision to appoint a trustee to whom benefits for a person could be paid, or a decision to pay all or part of a person's assistance to a third party such as a landlord. The proposed legislation does not require the consent of the person concerned, and no right to challenge or hold the administrator accountable exists under this bill.
The Chair: Excuse me, you have less than a minute left. I just wanted to alert you.
Ms Sengupta: In that case, I will say that we have other concerns that deal with the independence and impartiality of the tribunal. We also have a final concern that I'd like to highlight, which is that there is no mechanism in place to evaluate the success or failure of Ontario Works and the workfare aspects of that bill.
I'll stop there. I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and I'll leave it at that.
The Chair: Frankly, we thank you for being here.
Mrs Pupatello: May I ask for unanimous consent for a couple of minutes per caucus, please?
Mr Klees: No.
Mrs Pupatello: The next slot is available, so we won't really delay the day.
The Chair: There does not appear to be unanimous consent.
Mr Kormos: Mr Klees, are you sure you don't want to give unanimous consent?
Mr Klees: Not after the way Mrs Pupatello has conducted herself every time I have agreed.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, Mr Klees.
I want to thank you very much. I apologize for the confusion here this afternoon, but thank you very much for your intervention.
May I ask the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario, Selina Volpatti, to come forward. As Ms Volpatti makes her way, there's an item --
Interjections.
The Chair: Excuse me, members. Come to order, please.
Mr Klees: If Mrs Pupatello would have conducted herself honourably every other time when I granted consent, I wouldn't mind.
Mrs Pupatello: Don't talk about my conduct. I am not answerable to you.
Mr Klees: I am not about to subject this committee to the kind of rhetoric and misinformation --
The Chair: Members, come to order, please.
Mr Klees: I don't have to put up with your misrepresentations around this table.
Mrs Pupatello: Would you send him for a time-out, please?
The Chair: Mr Klees, Mrs Pupatello. While we settle down a bit, I'd like to bring an item to the committee for discussion. We've had a request from the Hamilton Mountain Legal and Community Services. Essentially the request is this --
Interjections.
The Chair: I would really like the attention of members to this, because this is important. Mrs Pupatello and Mr Klees, this is an important request from the Hamilton Mountain Legal and Community Services. They had applied to appear before the committee to make a presentation. They were not able to get a slot. They are advising me in their letter dated October 22 that they are having their own community hearings in Hamilton on the 24th.
The significance of this is that we have a deadline of October 23 for submission to the committee. They've asked, in view of their hearings on the 24th where they hope to get a great deal of community input, that we extend the deadline for submissions to October 27. That's a matter that requires the consent of this committee and it's really up to the individual members to decide. Is there anyone contrary to the request of the Hamilton Mountain Legal and Community Services?
Mr Klees: I'd like to speak to that. I have no objection, on the understanding that this will in no way interfere with the schedule we've set out for the committee to deal with clause-by-clause.
Mrs Pupatello: We have no formal information regarding the schedule for clause-by-clause, only hearsay that it may be the 28th. Has there been an official notice put out by the committee?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Tonia Grannum): The amendments have to be in to the committee by 5 pm on the 28th. It seems as though clause-by-clause has been scheduled for November 3 and 4.
Mrs Pupatello: All day?
Clerk of the Committee: Both days.
Mrs Pupatello: We've not been officially notified.
Clerk of the Committee: The committee can make a decision. We have two days during the recess for clause-by-clause. It seems as though we have been slotted in for November 3 and 4.
The Chair: Essentially that means that were we to entertain this request, the committee would have time to file its amendments, which would be one day after the request that the Hamilton Mountain Legal and Community Services makes. To answer your question, Mr Klees, it does not appear to affect our clause-by-clause deliberations.
Do we have consensus that we extend the time for submissions until the 27th?
Mr Kormos: Of course.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate the committee's indulgence on this.
SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY OF ONTARIO
The Chair: I appreciate your indulgence, Ms Volpatti, waiting for that. We're trying to give as many people as possible the opportunity to make their views known, either personally or in other ways. I'm sure you appreciate that.
Ms Selina Volpatti: Thank you very much. I must say I was beginning to feel right at home in this room. Being a member of city council here, I'm familiar with statements being made around the table all at once.
I want to thank the committee very much for the opportunity of being able to make our presentation. I also want to welcome you all to our fair city and say that it's a real treat not to have to travel, and to have you all here.
The Schizophrenia Society of Ontario, of which I am the provincial president, was founded in 1979 as the Ontario Friends of Schizophrenics. It's a non-profit, family-based organization. We have about 40 chapters across the province and almost 10,000 members. Our representation doesn't stop there, because we really do speak for all those people who are on the streets, in our jails, everywhere but getting treatment and getting care. We estimate that there are almost 20,000 people across this province who have schizophrenia who have no contact with the mental health system and are out there having no place to live and are not being cared for.
Almost two thirds of people with schizophrenia are cared for by their family. I want to make the general statement that families are well aware of their obligations to their sick family members. We feel we have some rights too, but foremost in our minds, always, are our obligations to take care of people who are desperately sick.
Schizophrenia is a neurobiological brain disorder. Simply stated, it is not a label, it's a diagnosis. The symptoms of schizophrenia include audio and visual hallucinations: hearing voices, seeing things that aren't there. It includes paranoia and a lack of insight into the fact that they're sick at all. There are equally painful negative symptoms, such as the inability to interact with others, usually because of paranoia, confusion and apathy. When the brain is affected, there is very little control over your environment or over what happens to you, and that's what happens to our people.
You've heard from a lot of groups, but I'm here mainly to give you some insight about special problems that people with schizophrenia face. One of those problems is due mainly to the lack of insight. Generally, people with schizophrenia have no idea that they are sick at all. If you ask them, they will deny that they are sick. If you ask them if they want to work, they will be only too happy to say yes, that there's nothing wrong with them. The sad truth is, though, they might be able to work for an hour or two and sometimes even a day or two, but they can't work for long periods of time. We are very much afraid, as an organization, that they will be asked to work, say they will work, and then be unable to carry out any duties that they are given.
1530
The lack of insight means that many, many people with schizophrenia refuse to apply for disability in the first place. There's nothing wrong with them. They're not disabled. So they will generally take general welfare assistance. We're in a really bad situation when we have people who don't think they're ill put under general welfare. They're told to go to work, which they can't do, and if they're cut off welfare, that means they have absolutely no means of support, particularly if their family are in the situation that they've had to put them out of the house. Very sadly -- very sadly, ladies and gentlemen -- many times people with schizophrenia cannot live at home; they're too dangerous.
The other thing I would like to mention to you is the gravity of the symptoms of schizophrenia. This disease strikes in young adulthood. It's estimated that one in 100 people will suffer from schizophrenia in their lifetime. It's not a visible illness most of the time in the way that other diseases or disabilities are. You can look at a person who has schizophrenia and he may look physically very, very well and very capable, but the fact is that person is critically ill and unable to work.
I come to this association with a personal interest. My son has schizophrenia, and if he were to walk into this room today, you would say to yourself, "Why isn't this person doing something constructive?" He is very ill. He lived on the streets of Toronto, he lived on the streets of Niagara Falls and of Hamilton for three years with nobody to look after him, with very little money, thrown out of hostels and --
Interruption.
The Chair: I'd like to say to the audience, please try and be respectful of the people who are speaking and don't curtail their time.
Ms Volpatti: Thank you. We're very afraid that the proposed legislation may cut or deny benefits to people who really are very, very vulnerable. That's a much overused word, "vulnerable," but I want to tell you that people who have schizophrenia are right at the top of the pile of vulnerability. They are the most needy people you will ever encounter.
The other thing I want to bring to your attention, and I understand this is not just a subject for this committee, is that schizophrenia is a very complex disease. For families, Bill 142 cannot be considered alone. The Ministry of Community and Social Services is dealing with one piece of a very big picture, all of which is changing rapidly for families across the province and for people with schizophrenia. We have to deal with many other pieces of legislation and ministries on a regular basis, and the rules are changing all at once.
Subsidized housing, for example, is crucial to our people. While there are many families caring for their ill relatives, as I said before, very often we have to ask our children, our spouses, our brothers and sisters to leave our homes. It's impossible for us to take care of them. It's like running a mini mental institution. Because of the changes in housing, many people will not have the opportunity to find adequate housing, and if their financial aid is cut, they won't find housing of any kind.
Services for people with schizophrenia are generally first accessed through the Ministry of Health, but there are many other ministries that provide fragments of care. Families have to deal with the whole person. This means accessing a whole range of services and each of these services has their own set of rules. The end result of the whole muddle of red tape is that persons who are severely disabled with schizophrenia do not get the services they require and families don't get the assistance they require to uphold their end of the obligation.
The current situation is becoming more and more critical as tertiary care psychiatric beds are closed. The regional municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth I noticed stated their real fear about the closing of Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital. We have that very real fear as well. The Health Services Restructuring Commission is recommending further deinstitutionalization of our people. Lack of tertiary care beds means that persons with schizophrenia who have not yet been diagnosed will never get the opportunity for diagnosis and treatment. Because they don't ever get a diagnosis, that means they'll never be eligible for disability. So they just continue to wander the streets; we step over them.
Another horrible fear for our association is that as we continue to step over people in the streets, as we continue to hear the horrible stories about what happens to people with schizophrenia who are not taken care of, society becomes desensitized to it. In our society every dog has a home. Unfortunately for us as families not every person has a home. There's something very wrong with that whole equation.
I want to go into the subject of addictions because it's crucial to us and to the people I represent. Very frequently the symptoms of schizophrenia are confused with those of substance abuse. This is a matter any medical person will tell you. It takes time to make a reliable diagnosis of whether the base problem is substance abuse or schizophrenia. It takes a couple of weeks. Under the current legislation, our people can only be held for 72 hours. That means there goes the opportunity for getting diagnosis or for starting treatment that's going to mean anything.
If social assistance is cut off for people with addictions, that really means something to people with schizophrenia because as beds are closed and as there's very little opportunity for diagnosis, our people will turn more and more to illicit substances and alcohol to try to control their symptoms. Almost 60% of people with schizophrenia have substance abuse problems now in Canada and Ontario. That number will increase, because if they don't get medications which control their symptoms, they will use any substance that's out there to try to control them. It's very easy for a worker to look at a person and say, "This is an addict," without realizing that the real cause of the problem is schizophrenia.
That means you're going to make a whole other category of throwaway people. I'm not accusing this government of making the category; the category is there. Our throwaway people are already on the streets. I cannot tell you, as I go around the province visiting our 40 chapters, how many times I hear people tell me stories like: "My daughter's been living in a car for two years. She's 45 years old. I'm 80. I don't know if she can survive another winter."
A woman who happened to be from Niagara Falls called me and said: "I went to Toronto on the train. I got off the train at Union Station. I walked up the ramp and somebody asked me for money. I was going to walk by and then I looked at the person and said, 'Oh, my God, that's my brother.' Hadn't seen him for 10 years. Didn't know where he was." Now she knows where he is, she knows that he's begging on the streets for money, she knows that he's critically ill and she still can't get any help for him. The general welfare benefit that he receives is the only way he has of keeping body and soul together. Very often he doesn't even get that unless he has an address where the cheque can be sent.
The closing of beds: Legislation which will allow our people the right to be treated even when they don't think they're sick, Bill 111, is now before the House.
We need adequate housing for our people. There are many, many pieces to this puzzle. As I say, and as I said before, it's not within the realm of this committee to fix everything that's wrong, and we know that, but we ask you to consider in your legislation that as you tighten up the rules, as you make it impossible for addicts, for example, to be on disability and as you tighten up the other rules in the bill, you are throwing more people into our streets who will not be cared for and you are throwing families like mine into total and complete disarray.
1540
I cannot emphasize enough to you how much our people who have schizophrenia are suffering out there. It's a painful illness and I want you to imagine for a moment what it must feel like to be 20 years old and know that you're losing your mind.
In conclusion, the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario asks the committee to remember our population. We need legislation that guarantees that sick and vulnerable people will continue to receive desperately needed benefits. This legislation seems designed to make many people with schizophrenia, or more people with schizophrenia, into throwaway people.
We appreciate the sections on the treatment of assets. There are many positive aspects to this bill and the treatment of assets certainly is one, but of course I'm not here to tell you what's right about the bill. In my brief period of time I'd like to tell you what we think are the things you should watch for as you're amending this bill.
Waiting for the interpretation and regulations from Bill 142 means another period of uncertainty for Ontario families, added to the other uncertainties which are the consequences of, among other things, too much rapid change. The Schizophrenia Society of Ontario emphasizes that legislation for the severely disabled must consider the needs of the entire person. Bill 142 is a critical piece because it provides the financial basis on which they exist. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Volpatti. On behalf of the committee, accept our thanks for your very moving presentation here today on an area that frankly we hadn't heard very much about during the hearings. We really appreciate your coming.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
The Chair: I call on Jim Tait, please. Welcome.
Mr Jim Tait: Welcome to you. My name is Jim Tait. I'm a staff representative from OPSEU. How do you do?
The Chair: You want to shake our hands. Thank you very much.
Mr Tait: I've presented a brief to the clerk and I'm going to try and be as brief as I can, because I know you're busy.
The Chair: You have 20 minutes for your presentation.
Mr Tait: Good. Good afternoon. My name is Jim Tait. I'm a staff representative from OPSEU. I'm making this presentation to the committee because front-line welfare workers, OPSEU members, have been intimidated by their employer with threats should they attempt to appear before this committee. Employees had been informed that they would be severely disciplined if they did. This intimidation's a clear denial of these members' democratic rights. Therefore, I appear before this committee to ensure this attempted intimidation and subsequent threats are not successful and that vital information about this bill gets to the MPPs and to the public.
To those of you who are not from Niagara, welcome. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to speak with your committee. Although some of the information I will present is technical, it is vital that your committee and the public be aware of what Bill 142 will mean to Ontario.
First of all, the real nuts and bolts of this legislation will be contained in regulations that will be produced months after the legislation is passed. By that time, input from the public will not be possible. This is cause for real concern.
Along these lines, I wish to discuss the lack of technical support available to bring the general welfare program and the family benefits program together under Ontario Works. Under the current system, the family benefits program, which is operated by the province, is made up of 80 offices across Ontario. They are linked together by a computer system called CIMS. This computer program allows family benefits workers to access records on all clients on the system. It also allows benefits to be directly deposited in the bank accounts of clients.
The general welfare program operated by regional governments works quite differently. Regional welfare offices operate with a wide variety of different standalone computer systems. There is no sharing of information and they do not directly deposit benefits in bank accounts. Since general welfare offices are not able to track clients across the province, there's a greater chance of fraud in the system as clients can collect benefits in a number of offices without being detected.
Bill 142 will take these two operations and combine them under the Ontario Works program, which will be operated by regional government. This process requires a new computer system which will link all the Ontario Works offices together. This system does not exist. The computer program for Ontario Works that has been set up in the 20 test sites does not link them together, nor allow for direct deposit of cheques.
There is no sharing of information. The CIMS system family benefits uses is not capable of taking on the entire welfare population of Ontario, as it is at its limit now. The Harris government, which the majority of this committee represents, is in such a rush to fully implement the Ontario Works program and eliminate the family benefits program that they're willing to open the welfare system to a record amount of fraud.
This situation has been made worse by changes made in the way general welfare will operate Ontario Works. Each of the 20 test sites for Ontario Works had to file a work plan which had to be approved by the province. In the plan approved and in operation in the Niagara region today, Ontario Works staff no longer visit clients at their homes to confirm they actually live there. Interviews now take place in the office. This is the case with the majority of the Ontario Works programs that have been approved. You could literally get in a car and drive from Niagara Falls to Hamilton, on to London and finish up in Windsor, collecting welfare cheques all the way.
Since they came to office, the Tories have made much political hay about welfare fraud. They have no compunction in using figures which are totally inaccurate. Three weeks ago, Tory MPP Frank Klees made the ridiculous claim on a TVOntario program that fraud was at about 50%, even though every single report has pegged fraud at about 3%.
Mr Klees: That's not what I said.
Mr Tait: This is my time, sir, not yours.
Interjection.
Mr Tait: If you think I'm not being truthful, then you use the appropriate manner to deal with it.
Minister Janet Ecker has vowed to put an end to fraud in the welfare system. Obviously this is just talk aimed at scoring political points and has nothing to do with reality. The reality is that if the government does not take the time to put in a complete computer system, Ontario may become the fraud capital of Canada.
We have seen the disastrous consequences of the Harris government moving too quickly in shutting down an existing system when they changed over the family support plan. This would be a disaster at a much greater level.
Another matter of great concern to the clients is that this change will begin at the onset of winter. The effects on families with children could be devastating, to say the least.
The provincial government currently has Andersen Consulting under contract to help improve the delivery of welfare in Ontario. Andersen provided a computer system recently for the New Brunswick provincial government. It took two years to put it in place, in a much smaller province, because that's how complicated this type of system is.
The province should make regional governments aware of the cost of this system as soon as possible, since under provincial downloading regional governments will be shouldering half the cost of Ontario Works.
Turning to regional delivery: The second issue I would like to discuss is the decision to deliver social services at a regional level. Everyone from Mike Harris to polling companies agreed that workfare was the most important issue in the 1995 election campaign and a key reason the Tories were elected. Why, then, is the Harris government turning the implementation of their most important campaign promise over to another level of government?
No other province in Canada or state in the United States delivers welfare in a single-tier system at the regional level. The Harris government has never explained why they are right and everyone else is wrong.
1550
Homeowners will also want to know why their property taxes pay for 20% of welfare benefits and 50% of the administration of the program.
Workfare is a lie, turning to that question. In the Common Sense Revolution, or the CSR as I hear it referred to on the floor of the Legislature quite often, the Tories promised the people of Ontario that everyone on welfare would have to work in order to collect a cheque. This was simply not possible. In the spring of this year, Minister Janet Ecker delivered the Ontario Works program, which was very different from what had been promised in the 1995 campaign.
A person receiving welfare has four options under the program: They can make an active job search, keeping records of where they applied; they can upgrade their education to grade 12; they can do volunteer work; they can also enter the community work program most people would identify as workfare.
It is important that you understand that under the current general welfare system, clients are already required to present a record of their job search. They can attend high school under the current system and perform volunteer work. Ontario Works is business as usual.
There are a number of problems that will become even worse when single parents and people aged 60 to 64 are forced to enter the Ontario Works program. First of all, the province has not put any extra money into adult education, so the limited spots fill up quickly and people are left out. Also, there is not a fully developed system of day care available for parents who are in the program. This will make it impossible for some parents to participate.
The workfare option has been a failure on two levels. First of all, each of the Ontario Works sites had to have a work plan approved by the province. The plan detailed how the system would operate, as well as the projected results. Since we are in the Niagara region, which is one of the operating Ontario Works sites, I will use their plan to make my point. The Niagara plan projects that by the end of 1998, only 400 of the 11,000 people eligible for Ontario Works will be involved in the workfare part of the program. That works out to about 3.6% of the population. This projection does not differ from any of the other work plans already approved by the provincial government.
Second, we have also seen actual results at Ontario Works sites. For example, in Minister Janet Ecker's own riding, eight of the eligible 7,000 clients are in the workfare part of Ontario Works as of the end of August. If you were to visit an Ontario Works office, you would find that the vast majority of Ontario Works clients are simply continuing the job search they were doing before Ontario Works came along. Some clients are in school upgrading, but many were turned away due to lack of space.
The main difference is that the Ontario Works staff no longer visit clients in their home. With the great amount of money spent on computers and new offices, Ontario Works is sure to be more expensive than the disastrous Jobs Ontario program brought in by the previous government, and will produce even less.
Lack of results: The Harris government has become frustrated by the lack of results from Ontario Works. They only have themselves to blame. As many social policy experts have pointed out, workfare doesn't work. It doesn't move people into meaningful long-term jobs which help them contribute to the community.
It's no wonder that the two leading megacity mayoral candidates, Mel Lastman and Barbara Hall, have gone on record saying they will not implement the Ontario Works program in Toronto. Since Toronto has 40% of the welfare cases in Ontario, this would leave Ontario Works out of business in our biggest city.
I say again, with all this resistance, why is the Harris government determined to deliver Ontario Works at the municipal level? Why not run the program directly? I encourage the committee to consider the most efficient way to deliver welfare in this province, and that's a single-tier, provincially funded, provincially administered system.
This lack of control of Ontario Works by the province would not have happened if Mike Harris and Frank Klees had decided that the province should deliver Ontario Works. The Harris government has 2,000 people who deliver family benefits assistance to more than 250,000 households in Ontario, who are direct employees of the provincial government and who should be the ones to deliver the program. This would eliminate the resistance to Ontario Works at the municipal level.
In closing, I urge the Harris government to take one more look at who should deliver social services in Ontario. I also challenge the opposition parties to do a better job of looking at Bill 142 and the issues I have brought forward today. These may not be glamorous and high-profile issues; however, they will affect the delivery of social services and whether our tax dollars go to the people who really need them. The opposition must hold the Harris government responsible for the difference between what was promised in the Common Sense Revolution and what has been delivered with Ontario Works. Both opposition parties have failed to make this point.
It is my hope there is still time to make changes to Bill 142 before it is passed into law. We must also be prepared to deal with the implementation of this legislation through the regulations that will follow months from now.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with your committee on behalf of the clients and workers who are directly and indirectly involved in this extremely crucial area of the social services of Ontario.
The Chair: We have a couple of minutes for questioning per party. We begin with the official opposition.
Mrs Pupatello: I'll try to do a better job of asking my questions than you obviously think I've done so far. Thanks very much. We have made all these same points, Peter and I as critics, on this bill in the House and to media and anyone who will listen. Our difficulty, as you've noted in your presentation, is the public's willingness to hear this issue today, and the enormous pressure that the public faces with so many areas under significant change, and not all good change, going on at the same time.
I find your presentation very direct, very clear and I applaud you for taking the time and obviously the courage to come down. I'm not aware there's anything official in memo form as such, where there have actually been local employees threatened, as you've mentioned. I understand you are at the provincial level. That's a significant charge and it's not the first time I've heard it, but it's quite difficult to prove.
Mr Tait: It's not difficult to prove at all, ma'am, because all civil servants have to take an oath of loyalty and confidentiality to the government. The provincial government of Ontario, as have other provincial governments, has taken the position that no civil servant should speak out against government policy. Quite simply, when you say that to workers in that kind of situation -- I've known an awful lot of them for 30 years. A lot of them would dearly love to come before committees and tell you exactly what goes on out there, but they know the consequences of their actions.
The government is not looking at the problem the right way. They're looking at it from the bottom up. They should be looking at it from the top down. How do you know that you're being told the truth by the managers? How do you know the deputy minister is not giving you some bureaucratic mumble-jumble? You just don't know. You have to trust them. But the front-line workers are telling you here today that if you implement the system that you're talking about, there will be general chaos. God help you if one child suffers because of your actions. God help you.
Mr Kormos: Thank you kindly, Mr Tait. Yes, I think your points are valid. Although we heard from Ms Pupatello, perhaps we haven't emphasized them sufficiently. You certainly have. You obviously struck a nerve with Mr Klees.
Mr Tait: Too bad.
Mr Kormos: He yelped and squealed and squirmed and twisted. He undoubtedly would welcome my inviting you to flesh that out. He has such disdain for recipients of social assistance and the poor, that fraud is prevalent to the tune of 50% -- that was a TVO program?
Mr Tait: Yes. That's what I believe.
Mr Kormos: You're confident in that regard. You see, we've heard evidence about 1%, 3%, maybe 5%. We also heard that income tax fraud is likely such that at the level of 10% to 30% of people filing income tax returns are committing fraud, yet Mike Harris shrugged and said it's human nature.
Mr Tait: My reply to that would be, God forbid anybody would stand up and reveal the truth about the deferred income taxes that companies and corporations own in this country, and governments continue to let them defer them, and at the same time high-priced executives get bonuses at the end of the year.
Mr Kormos: Yes sir, and deputy ministers.
Mr Klees: For the record, I did not say, and never have said, that it's my opinion. I did say that there were studies, and I quote from a book entitled Welfare -- No Fair by Enrico Sabatini, who you probably know very well.
Mr Tait: Wrong.
Mr Klees: In that book, which is what I was quoting at the time, it says, "Estimates on the incidence of fraud vary from 1% or less to 50% or more." The same publication goes on to quote the Toronto Sun, January 26, 1994, as saying, "The head of Ontario's public service employees union," an organization you may be familiar with, "which represents the welfare workers, has insisted, 'The fraud rate is way higher than the ministry is willing to admit. It's at least 20% and may be as high as 40%.'"
With regard to the comment about intimidation, you can certainly get substantiation from a number of employees of this government who heard me say to them that I encourage them to come forward and give us their input on Bill 142. In meetings across the province, I invited that kind of input. I would suggest to you, sir --
Mr Tait: Could I ask you a question?
1600
Mr Klees: No, you can't. It's my time. You've had yours.
I suggest to you that before you come to a public hearing you get your facts straight. This government is more than willing to understand and to listen to input, but not from people who are prepared to twist the facts, to misrepresent the facts and not to take a constructive view.
Mr Kormos: You're the one who wants to say that 50% of claims are fraudulent.
The Chair: Enough, Mr Kormos. Mr Tait?
Mr Tait: First of all, speaking --
Mr Klees: Madam Chair, I am not finished.
The Chair: Yes, you are finished. In fact, Mr Klees, your two minutes are up.
Mr Tait: Is he finished or not? He's taking up my time. Do I have some time left?
The Chair: Mr Tait, I will give you a very brief time to respond, because we've exceeded your time.
Mr Tait: I will exceed, as you won't, being the experts, the spin doctors you are. I don't know -- what's the name, Ringo Sabatini? The only Ringo I know played with the Beatles many years ago. I don't know anybody called Ringo. You should check out your facts before you come before a committee.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Tait, for being here and making your presentation.
Mr Preston: On a point of order, Madam Chair: I understand that you want to allow people to continue, but it is not fair to other groups that have been here before to say to them, "Your time is up in one minute," and their time is up in one minute, but then you turn around and say to somebody, "I'll give you another minute to answer the question," when their time is quite, at your insistence -- "Oh, no, your time is up, but I'll give you time."
The Chair: Mr Preston, I am the one who is looking at the clock. There were still a few seconds left, and Mr Tait responded. Thank you very much, and I appreciate the point you made, Mr Preston.
NIAGARA MENTAL HEALTH SURVIVORS NETWORK
The Chair: I ask the Niagara Mental Health Survivors Network, Angela Browne, to come forward. Thank you very much for being here. We appreciate your attendance this afternoon. You have 20 minutes for your presentation, and if there is any time, I'm sure there will be some questions.
Ms Angela Browne: Oh, yes, I'm sure. It sounds like you had a very positive discussion here while I was waiting to be heard.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the standing committee. We are pleased to be given an opportunity to present before your committee on what amounts to the most dramatic form of welfare restructuring we've had in this province since day one.
Because people with psychiatric disabilities remain the largest category of recipients on both family benefits and general welfare, it has been a major part of our network's focus in the past three or four years to discuss, strategize and design proposals for reform for the system to help meet our members' needs. In addition to this talk, we included the following three documents in your package, which you can read at your leisure: Definition of Disability (and Key Factors in the Determination Process), from November 1995; Our Response to Proposed Reforms to VRS and Employment Supports for People with Disabilities, which is from January 1997; and Summary of Concerns and Alternative Strategies re Bill 142, Social Assistance Reform Act, October 1997. Whatever I don't cover in this talk will probably be somewhere in the documents.
Being largely volunteer-driven gives our organization a critical perspective that may not be otherwise available if we were solely concerned about protecting the status quo or expanding existing programs, because many of our members tell us these existing programs don't work. We speak to reforms from our five years of research in our community about the needs of people with psychiatric disabilities when it comes to employment and income supports.
First, we want to congratulate the government on its recognition that people with disabilities often can and want to work. Through our reading of the bill and its background papers, we view the emphasis on putting people back to work as a strong point of this legislation. Our positive feelings about this section appear to be backed by a government commitment to increase funding from current levels of $18 million to $35 million for vocational rehab funding. We also support proposed provisions in the minister's announcements to fully support assistive devices for people with disabilities and to guarantee extended benefits to all children receiving benefits, regardless of where they are in the province.
Second, we want to affirm our support of the government's decision to automatically transfer people currently on the family benefits system to the new Ontario disability support program.
Third, we learned that the government intends to simplify the process for applying for and being assessed for benefits by taking the process out of the hands of doctors, welfare workers and other parties currently involved in the referral process. We like the idea of an independent adjudication model. This recognizes the fact that mental health applicants may have stopped seeing their psychiatrist or be afraid to enter the system to apply for benefits. This will allow other knowledgeable professionals with whom people work on a more regular basis to provide input into the process, which allows other aspects of the individual to be taken into account when determining disability.
However, upon examination of this act, our organization noted a number of red flags that have left us concerned that many people who now qualify for assistance under FBA will no longer do so under the ODSPA. As we have pointed out in many forums before this one, the proposed definition of disability in the ODSPA is too restrictive to meet the needs of most people in our community. Although I respectfully acknowledge the minister's remarks made to the committee on September 29, 1997, to the effect that the definition will be amended to clarify that folks will only need to meet one or more areas of functioning -- at work, community, personal care, all that stuff -- there are other areas of the definition that remain vague and left to discretion.
In my personal experience as a legal advocate, the word "substantial" and the word "severe" may not necessarily be interpreted as being broadly distinct from one another, particularly when they apply to a functional definition. This is exactly what it is; it's a functional definition based on activities of daily living. Much of this is reflected in my experience of handling issues around the federal disability tax credit, where the interpretation of "marked restriction" is very narrow.
Please see our paper on the definition of disability and our recent comments on Bill 142 to note some of our proposed alternatives on some of the issues. Some of them you address, but on some you could probably make some amendments. In particular, we feel the factors associated with disability, in addition to factors directly arising from disability, need consideration, namely, stigma, the effects of treatments and long-term absences from the labour force as a result of disability. It does have an impact on people's employability.
Further to our comments on the definition of disability, we must also note that a narrow definition of disability that can be used in such an act will serve as a barrier to re-enter the labour force, no matter how much money you want to pour into it, particularly if the automatic period is limited only to people who have been off benefits for a period of less than 12 months. People trying to work themselves off the system want to be assured that no matter how long they are off benefits, they can easily be reinstated in the event that another episode strikes even two or three years down the road.
Limiting the automatic, no-questions-asked reinstatement policy to less than 12 months after one has left the system to go to work will result in very few people making serious attempts to find full-time jobs, although some may try to work part-time. Not every person with a cyclical condition like a mood disorder or recurrent schizophrenia is going to have a relapse within 12 months if they return to work. In fact, I know one fellow who has manic-depression, bipolar, that goes every four years; then he can't work for a while. I don't think he would be able to stand having to reapply for disability time and time again, every time he goes into the system.
We would suggest that this limit be removed entirely, with reinstatement being automatic as long as the person verifies they still suffer from the same condition and they want to go back on; to show they have the same condition that's stopping them. Either this, or extend this 12-month period to three to five years if a cap must be applied.
Another point we must raise is the relative silence on the part of this act in its impact on families, particularly where the man or woman in a marriage or common-law relationship is defined as a person with a disability and the other person is not and they are trying to work. The problem here is that the income and assets belonging to the working spouse are automatically counted against the level of benefits of the spouse who is a person with a disability. It is conceivable that the working spouse may find a job that pays him or her just enough money to work the couple off benefits, leaving the person with a disability entirely dependent on the working spouse for his or her support. This unfairly places the burden of support for the person with a disability on the working spouse, which can be very stressful on families, particularly if the job is only modestly paying and the person with a disability has high needs. We know of several cases where individuals broke off wedding engagements or families have split up over this issue, often leaving the person with a disability without any support at all outside of the FBA or ODSPA.
A typical case involves a recent example that has come to my attention in another part of Ontario. The fellow was on family benefits for psychiatric disability. His wife and his kid had $1,400 a month. Suddenly his wife got a job that paid her enough to take him off family benefits but not enough to accumulate any savings or get any big-time rich earnings. She wasn't an MPP. She worked at this job for almost two years and got laid off. Her unemployment ran out and the family was forced to turn to welfare. This was shortly after the 21% cut was in place, so that family's income would significantly drop.
The man was told he had to reapply for disability benefits to prove he was a disabled person again, despite the fact that he never worked during any of the time his wife was employed. Even though this person qualified for disability before, this process can still take as long as six months to a year to get back on. Anyway, this lengthy period of time forced the family to rely on a lower income, with their rent alone taking over 75% of their cheque. The stress led to their eventual breakup.
The husband since reapplied for welfare as a single person at $520 a month, and the wife applied for welfare as a single parent of one child and receives just over $900 a month. If this man ever gets back on disability, he would be entitled to the full $930 a month, which would then cost the government more than it would if the family never had to go to the welfare system to begin with, therefore leading to the stress that caused the split.
I can see this scenario repeated over and over again in this region. I know at least 15 couples who have gone through that in Niagara region alone. These are just people I know, and believe me, I don't know everybody in the Niagara region, let alone Ontario.
Add to this the costs of crisis care and possible rehospitalization at upwards of $650 a night as a result of these kinds of life circumstances provoking an episode or even a suicide attempt on the part of many of the people going through these things.
This government keeps talking about the importance of families staying together, the importance of children being raised in two-parent families --
The Chair: Excuse me, please. I'd like you to remove the banners. There are no demonstrations allowed in the hall. Please, out of respect to the presenter, don't interrupt again.
Ms Browne: I get a two-minute extension, I imagine.
The Chair: I will certainly take into consideration what has happened.
There's another demonstration in the front that I would like to have removed, please.
Interruption.
The Chair: Ms Browne, we will recess for just a few minutes, if you don't mind.
The committee recessed from 1614 to 1625.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we are going back on the record. I would like to ask once more for the banner and the stuffed doll to be taken out, please, because they constitute a demonstration. I'll ask the clerk to do that. Thank you very much.
Mr Klees: Madam Chair, I would like to make a motion to adjourn.
The Chair: A motion to adjourn is not debatable, Mr Klees. I will have to put it to a vote.
Mrs Pupatello: He doesn't have the floor to make a motion, Chair.
The Chair: I did recognize him, unfortunately, Mrs Pupatello, or fortunately, depending on your point of view. All in favour of the motion to adjourn?
Interjection.
The Chair: There's no discussion on a motion to adjourn, Mrs Pupatello.
Mrs Pupatello: On a point of order, Madam Chair: I'd like to know who the official, voting members of the committee are today.
The Chair: That is a valid point of order. Who are the official members, clerk?
Clerk of the Committee: Mr Preston, Mr Doyle, Mr Parker, Mr Klees, Ms Pupatello, Mr Kormos.
Mrs Pupatello: Can I have a recorded vote, please?
The Chair: Very well. We've been asked for a recorded vote. All in favour of the motion to adjourn?
Ayes
Doyle, Klees, Parker, Preston.
Nays
Kormos, Pupatello.
The Chair: I regret that we are adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1627.