SOCIAL ASSISTANCE REFORM ACT, 1997 LOI DE 1997 SUR LA RÉFORME DE L'AIDE SOCIALE
ONTARIO COALITION AGAINST POVERTY
STEERING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
ONTARIO COUNCIL OF ALTERNATIVE BUSINESSES
ETHNO RACIAL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES COALITION OF ONTARIO
OPSEU VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION SERVICES DIVISION
ASSOCIATION FOR THE NEUROLOGICALLY DISABLED OF CANADA
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF INTERVAL AND TRANSITION HOUSES
HEMOPHILIA
ONTARIO
TERESA GROUP
CONTENTS
Monday 29 September 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
Ministry briefing
Hon Janet Ecker, Minister of Community and Social Services
Low Income Families Together
Ms Josephine Grey
Addiction Research Foundation
Dr Perry Kendall
Mr Simon Kahn
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
Mr John Clarke
Steering Committee on Social Assistance
Ms Lynn Wheatley
AIDS Committee of Toronto
Ms Joan Anderson1
Mr Matthew Perry
Mr Mark Freamo
Daily Bread Food Bank
Ms Susan Cox
Ms Beth Brown
Mr George Panagapka
Ms Alexandra Humphrey
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Ms Leah Casselman
Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses
Ms Diana Capponi
Income Maintenance Group
Ms Denise Feltham
Mr Scott Seiler
Mr Harry Beatty
Ethno Racial People with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario
Mr Jason David
Express Courier
Ms Laurie Hall
OPSEU vocational rehabilitation services division
Ms Judy Besse
Mr Paul Agueci
Association for the Neurologically Disabled of Canada
Ms Kathleen Haswell
Ontario March of Dimes
Mr Duncan Read
Mr Jim Grant
Mr Paul Raina
Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses
Ms Eileen Morrow
Ms Li Westcott
Ontario Social Safety Network
Rev Susan Eagle
Ms Jo-Anne Boulding
Mr Malcolm Shookner
Hemophilia Ontario; Teresa Group
Mr James Kreppner
Mr Bob Watkin
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 Ted Chudleigh (Halton North / -Nord PC)
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West / -Ouest L)
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York PC)
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich L)
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine ND)
Clerk / Greffière Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel Mr Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1531 in room 151.
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.
MINISTRY BRIEFING
The Chair (Ms Annamarie Castrilli): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the social development committee. We are today dealing with Bill 142 and we'll start promptly with the minister. You have 20 minutes.
Hon Janet Ecker (Minister of Community and Social Services): I am very pleased to be here today as the committee begins consideration of Bill 142, the Social Assistance Reform Act. I would like to make some brief remarks, and hopefully be very happy to respond to any questions we may have at the end of it.
Recognition of the need to change the welfare system existed long before the last election. Consequently, the Common Sense Revolution included an unequivocal commitment to take the steps necessary to make that change happen. We promised major reform to the welfare system to get people back to work and to fight fraud. We promised to create a new and separate program for people with disabilities to provide them with better income support and improved supports to employment. Bill 142 keeps both of these commitments. We have based it on three principles.
The first is fairness. The welfare system must be fair to those who receive its benefits, and it must be fair to those who provide the benefits -- the taxpayers of Ontario. People with disabilities need a fairer system that recognizes that for many of them, they may need income support for a lifetime.
The second principle is accountability. There must be mutual and reciprocal responsibilities between the beneficiaries of social assistance and the government, between people with disabilities and the social programs that serve them.
The third principle is effectiveness. This legislation will ensure that the recipients of these programs get what they need and need what they get. We must ensure that the administrative systems are clear and that they are effective. We must ensure that the rights and interests of recipients and taxpayers alike are respected. To put it another way, social programs have to work and they have to be seen to work. They have to have the right goals, and they have to be seen to be accomplishing those goals.
In developing this legislation, we consulted widely with both the people of Ontario and the affected groups, and we will continue to do so. This bill, and the subsequent regulations which flow from it, will be the basis for dramatically reformed programs in two key areas.
The first area is the Ontario Disability Support Act. It creates a new program which will significantly improve income and employment supports for people with disabilities. This program is separate from the welfare system and the Ontario Works Act. Its approach is focused on people's abilities, not their disabilities. It aims to support independence by creating a comprehensive and responsive program based on personal control, choice, flexibility, effectiveness and consistency.
Second is our work-for-welfare program, Ontario Works. Through our current Ontario Works program and the Ontario Works Act, we are keeping our commitment to the voters to make self-sufficiency and responsibility the hallmarks of the welfare system. An effective welfare system has to be a transitional program of last resort, designed to get people back into the workforce. The key is a requirement for mandatory participation by welfare recipients. In addition, the bill provides for one welfare system, delivered by one level of government, to streamline administration and reduce the duplication and waste. It will also give us the tools we need to fight misuse and abuse of the system.
A letter to the editor published two weeks ago in the Brantford Expositor provided support for Ontario Works from one 21-year-old participant. A victim of the vicious cycle of no experience, no job/no job, no experience, she rejected much of the criticism and praised Ontario Works as a serious attempt to move people into jobs. She concluded by saying that the program recognizes that "nothing worth having comes without hard work, sacrifice and determination." No one could fail to wish that young woman well. Her attitude is widely representative of the participants in Ontario Works whom I have met as I have travelled across the province.
As you review this bill, I want to restate my interest in constructive suggestions to improve the legislation consistent with its principles. I look forward to hearing suggestions from members of the public and others who have a specific interest in the legislation. Practical ideas and proposals will also be of assistance as the regulations are being developed.
The issues this legislation addresses are neither neat nor simple, and neither are the solutions. Even with the right legislative structure, it is going to take time for effective implementation of these important reforms. We are committed to introducing change, not disruption. The transition to the new programs is scheduled to begin January 1998. Switching from the current systems to the new must be a careful, planned process that will happen over time.
As I have said before, we are taking the time to get it right, because these programs impact on the day-to-day lives of the many Ontarians who depend on them, for support, for services, for employment. If we have to run parallel systems until everything is working as it should, we will do so. If improvements can be made throughout the transition process, they will be.
That being said, there should be no misapprehension about our commitment to these reforms. They have been overdue for many years. We don't need more studies. We believe it's time to act.
There were several issues raised by members during second reading debate to which I would like to briefly respond now. In doing so, let me express the hope that those wishing to contribute to this process will read the proposed legislation and our stated policy objectives, because I have been concerned that some of the criticisms do not reflect what is actually in the legislation, and those criticisms have spread misinformation and caused needless fear to clients and beneficiaries.
The new eligibility criteria for the Ontario disability support plan are one example of this. The purpose of the criteria is to create a more inclusive and sensitive recognition of the different dimensions of disability. Concerns have been raised that the new criteria might require proof, for example, that there is substantial restriction not only of the ability to attend to personal care, but also of the ability to function in the community and in the workplace.
The government's policy intention is very clear: Substantial restriction in any one of these three areas -- daily living, community or workplace -- will be sufficient to qualify. I have also been clear that the new criteria will be flexible enough to respond to the cyclical nature of some conditions and diseases, for example, mental illness or HIV/AIDS, and also to the fluctuations in health status that are often both inevitable and unique to the individual. This is what people with disabilities told us they expected from this reform, and that's what the new criteria are seeking to achieve. If changes are required in the legislative language to provide that outcome, we are prepared to make them.
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The right of appeal is another example that has been raised. Of course, it will continue for both those on the Ontario disability support program and for Ontario Works recipients. But changes have clearly been needed to fix the problems in the system. For example, members may not be aware that the average appeal currently can take almost seven months; 22% of those who are appealing don't even show up for their hearings; 12% of appeals are disposed of because of things such as the matter was already resolved or for some other unknown reason; and 31% are denied on the merits of the appeals.
To streamline the process we are adding a new first step: an internal review to provide recipients with a faster decision. These proposals will be less onerous for the recipient, while protecting their rights of appeal.
There is also the issue of liens. If someone has been on welfare for a long period of time, this legislation provides authority to place a lien on his or her residence. This allows taxpayers to recover a portion of their investment only upon the eventual sale of the home. No one will be forced to sell their home to satisfy a lien. I would also like to stress that under the Ontario disability support plan, people with disabilities will not have liens placed on their principal residence.
Finally, the issue of direct payment of rent or utilities in cases where recipients are not capable of handling their own affairs has also been raised. The authority to do this already exists for municipalities under the current general welfare assistance program. All this legislation does is create a similar authority for all recipients, where necessary.
These are all concrete examples of the kind of complexities that must be addressed and resolved in reforming these programs. It's our job as legislators and it's our job as government. But anyone who has talked to both beneficiaries and taxpayers knows they are united in wanting all of the mechanisms involved to be fair, to be accountable and to be effective.
As we now move to address the specifics of implementing them, of translating those principles into action, to mounting and delivering new and improved social support programs, we continue to need, and are interested in, advice and assistance. It will come from the members of this committee, it will come from those who appear before you and from those who submit their views to you in writing. I wish the committee well in their deliberations.
In closing, I can only repeat my commitment to carefully consider any and all practical suggestions for improving and refining both the Ontario Works program and the Ontario disability support program legislation contained in Bill 142. Thank you very much for your attention, and I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Before we move on, I'd like to inform people that there is an overflow area in committee room 2. You can follow the proceedings there by television. We now move to the official opposition critic.
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): Does she have question time left, Chair?
The Chair: She does, but it is normally handled through your period.
Mrs Pupatello: Are you looking for questions and/or my 20 minutes?
The Chair: It's your 20 minutes. The minister can use her 20 minutes in any way she wishes.
Mrs Pupatello: You did offer time for questions and answers?
Hon Mrs Ecker: Yes.
The Chair: You did offer time for questions?
Hon Mrs Ecker: Yes. If there's time left, I don't mind doing questions.
The Chair: Then we have approximately nine minutes left for questions, three minutes each.
Mrs Pupatello: Thanks, Chair. So question and answer then.
Minister, while you are here -- and we are pleased to have an opportunity to ask a question -- after the passage of this bill, will there be more or fewer people on disability in Ontario?
Hon Mrs Ecker: There will be more people on the disability support program. One of the challenges is that we know there will be more people needing disability support in the province, and we want to make sure that the program is not only meeting their needs in a better way but also is able to meet the needs of more people.
Mrs Pupatello: When you say there will be more people, are you including those who are now caught in another form of support, who should be in disability but are currently not because your administration is trying to move them into the disabled section and they are striving to do that, but they frankly at this point are misplaced? When you say there are more, are you counting the numbers who should rightly be in, or is it a function because you are expanding the definition of "disabled"?
Hon Mrs Ecker: I think it remains to be seen exactly why or how. We know that the number of people with disabilities has been growing, and one of the reasons and one of the messages we've heard loudly and clearly is that the current program, having to rely on welfare, has not been meeting their needs very well. So we want to make sure that there is no cap on this program and that it can continue to grow as the number of people with disabilities grows.
As you probably know, and I'll mention it, those individuals who are eligible for FBA and on FBA are going to be grandparented into the new program when it comes into existence. So there won't be any sort of new process, assessment or whatever for them. They will be grandparented into the new program.
Mrs Pupatello: Would you say, then, that given the way you are defining or will be defining in regulation, which we haven't seen yet, those who are considered disabled today, either by being grandfathered into the program or by whatever your definition will be, in the future people with a similar disability may not reach over the bar that you are setting in regulation for what would be considered disabled?
Hon Mrs Ecker: First of all, we have tried to be very clear in the legislation what the definition should be, and we have taken a fair bit of time to do that. For example, we had consulted on this, we had gone out with a draft of eligibility criteria or the wording in the legislation. It was not supported, so we went back and redid it. For example, instead of talking about the restriction expected to last two years, we said one year, and other changes. That is in the legislation, because we want to make sure that the legislative framework and the policy intent are very clear for what we're trying to do, and we want to make sure that those criteria meet the cyclical nature.
Some people in some circumstances can be fine, and in other circumstances -- for example, mental illness -- they may well need support. We want to make sure the program does that. For those individuals who can and do want to go back to work, we want to make sure that if because of their difficulties they are not able to work again, they can come right back on to the program. So there is no disincentive for them if they can and do wish to do this. We want to remove the label "permanently unemployable." These are all issues that have been raised with us as issues that needed to be addressed and needed to be reformed, and we are trying to reflect that in the wording.
As I mentioned in my statement, one of the things that had caused some concern was that because we were trying to talk about daily living, personal care and the workplace, there was a sense that somehow or other you had to meet a test in all three, and that's not the intent. If you have a disability in being able to meet your personal care needs, being able to function in the workplace or whatever, it's not an addition. Any one of those three categories would certainly be sufficient.
Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): Let me begin by just expressing my complete dissatisfaction with a process that puts two very different bills together and asks the committee to deal with what are very complex issues, as you said in your own words, Minister, over the course of two sets of hearings in Toronto and four days on the road. This is ludicrous.
As I have said to you on a number of occasions, I find myself largely in support of the aims and the purposes of the disability income support plan that is here, although I have specific concerns and I think amendments are required. I am absolutely opposed to the other half of this legislation and will not be able to vote in accordance with my belief on these two very different bills.
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Time for a couple of quick questions now, and I am going to concentrate on the disability income support plan. My colleague will have some opportunity later on to address the other half of the bill.
I wanted to ask you if you could explain why you are taking what I think is an extraordinary step to completely dismantle the vocational rehab services. I think all could agree that there are certain persons with disabilities who, with the appropriate employment supports, can enter competitive employment situations, and we would want that kind of service to be there for them. But we also know there are persons in the disability community who will never be able to operate within competitive employment and who gained such incredible support from the coordinated approach of not just employment supports, but counselling and career planning and a whole range of things that are now centralized in one-stop shopping at DRS which will now be fragmented between long-term care and home and vehicle supports and the service coordinators in the community doing the employment supports. It seems that for the hard-to-serve, as a group of persons within the disability community, they will not be better off after this legislation. I was wondering if you could address that.
Hon Mrs Ecker: First of all, I appreciate your concern about two pieces of legislation. One of the challenges, of course, is that because people who need welfare assistance and individuals who need welfare because of disability are both on the same system, we are having one piece of legislation to disengage the two of them. It's one of the reasons why we took as much time as we did in terms of consulting and listening before bringing it forward -- we introduced it in June and here we are at the end of September -- so that there would be time for people to assess it, to weigh it, to take a look at it. It's one of the reasons why I have met, and will continue to meet, with groups to answer questions or to get further input or whatever as we go through this process.
On the issue of vocational rehabilitation, there are certainly many people who are doing very wonderful things in supporting people with disabilities. There are many people with disabilities who have received very good support. One area we looked at was how much of the money was being wrapped up in administration as opposed to services, and we think with some of the changes, we can in effect double the amount of money that will be going for direct services, to front-line services, for individuals, from about $18 million to $35 million.
Second, many of the community agencies that are out there providing services for people with disabilities, we want to be using them more, to continue to provide employment supports, to continue to provide the other supports that may well be needed by someone with a disability as they seek employment, if they feel they can and are able to and wish to do it. What we want to do is to have those services provided by community-based agencies in an integrated fashion. As you know, many services with community and social services are provided like that now. It's a system that seems to work extremely well and provides a great deal of flexibility for individuals and communities, and I think will respond even better to the needs of people with disabilities.
The Chair: Thank you, Minister. I understand from the parliamentary assistant that the government caucus is waiving their three minutes, so we'll move to the opposition critic. Mrs Pupatello, you have 20 minutes. You can use your 20 minutes any way you want.
Mrs Pupatello: I would like to make some opening remarks regarding Bill 142 which, in the minister's own words, will be a significant change to these acts, the likes of which we haven't seen for decades. That alone speaks to the process we've been under.
The fact of the matter is that the detail will be in regulation, to see how all of this will play out in our future. Unfortunately, we haven't seen that. We don't know how that will change. It's very difficult frankly to believe a minister of this government, because unfortunately we've had a number of examples where they've just been plain wrong.
Continuously over the last several months we have brought examples into the House here at Queen's Park where people really are hurting and it's because of policies set out by this government. For us to simply hear a minister repeat the same phrase doesn't make it true. We'll continue to do that, in opposition to what we believe is searching under every nook and cranny and in the most inappropriate places for a way to fund a tax cut that this government has promised the people of Ontario.
May I say with regard to the changes concerning workfare, which will be a significant change for the people of Ontario, that what we do know from front-line workers is that so far the whole concept of workfare has been a failure. In fact, we have quite a bit of difficulty finding a jurisdiction in North America that has met with success when they've instituted workfare. The numbers the government has forwarded to date have been bogus. In fact, the ministry has been forced to go back and include a number of recipients who are not truly in the workfare program. They have included those in the numbers and have then purported to say, "These are the people who have succeeded through workfare." The numbers simply are inaccurate.
What we do know is that communities have been threatened to participate in workfare. When you're the government and you hold the purse strings, it gives the government quite a position to make things happen at the community level under threat of withdrawal of other resources that communities desperately need.
In my view, the majority of people who are on welfare are people who desperately want to be off welfare. For people who are on welfare, it is not a wonderful way to live. In fact, it's a very difficult way to live. I would submit, and my party's position is, that people are always trying to get off the system. Where you will have some limited percentage of fraud in the system, I believe the government has used that to political advantage to exaggerate the amount of fraud that is in the system.
I would also ask the minister to review the jurisdictions which she has continually gone to look at, only to find that other jurisdictions too have admitted now that most of the fraud or inaccuracy in the system actually comes back to government bureaucracy which has made mistakes. We have a bureaucratic group now in this ministry so under stress, so overworked, under threat of layoff, without the money or the tools to do their job properly that, yes, I believe they do make errors. The result of that is that people who may qualify and be very upfront about needing help are the people who are getting caught in this trap.
I have some sympathy for bureaucrats who are working under this regime because they are literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. They have a political master to show them how clearly they've managed to throw people off the system and then they have the public who they know are desperate and really, truly need help. So they're having a great deal of difficulty performing their job under this regime.
I will say, in answer to some of the comments the minister has made here today, that there is clause upon clause in this bill that very clearly shows positions to be unappealable. It is that simple. I know as we go through this process of public hearings, limited as they are, we will bring out example after example where people will be stymied by the system. They will be forced as recipients to access the legal system in order to show that they have some right to access some kind of help from this regime. The difficulty is that at the same time, this is the worst time for people to have to access the legal system. As you know, those are the services that as well are being withheld from the very people who need them the most.
We are very concerned with clauses in this bill that speak to a creation of special classes of people. I would like the government to be very upfront about what it is they're doing. When they say "special classes of people," what does that mean? At any point, a class of people can be created to do what? To be thrown off the system? Are we talking about single, male employables like Michigan state entered into not that long ago? Are we talking about refugees like the southern states are currently in the midst of? What does "special classes of persons" mean?
To someone who would have a less jaundiced eye, maybe that means that the government is going to take a special class of people and give them more benefits. I would submit that, likely, depending on the pollsters and depending on what the polls say at the time, if it's politically expedient, those special classes of people will be thrown off the system.
What's most unfortunate is that we won't know about it until after it happens, because the minister now is in complete control. There is a clause included in this bill that speaks to the minister's ability to write policy and have that policy supersede all other interpretations of the act. What that tells us is that at the minister's whim, she can change the way the very act will be interpreted by the front-line workers. We have a great amount of concern about that.
If I may speak to the disability portion briefly, we really do have difficulty not knowing the regulations in terms of the definition of "disabled." What does "substantially disabled" mean? How disabled must you be?
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We have experience today with this very same regime that says only those most in need will get things like special services at home, that pits one family against another and now, as will be the case, one disabled person against another. It's actually going to be advantageous to be more disabled to get you over the bar, and frankly, once you get over the bar, you're going to find manna from heaven. It's like the government giving you a Cadillac, but then you have a lottery to get the set of keys to actually get to drive it home. Operating in a system like this, we really don't have information that is vital for us to be able to look at the bill and say, "This is good." I would submit to the minister, while she is here, that this kind of regulation would have been very important to table so we could say maybe we can believe, because at this point we've had no indication that we can.
I'd like to speak briefly to the privatization of vocational rehab. People who will work with the disabled will be in private companies, which will be paid how? Will it be on a per-head basis? Will they be paid on commission if they manage to get a substantially disabled person into the workforce? Does that mean then that the private company will want to choose the most employable of the most substantially disabled to help, because that's the only way a private firm would be paid?
If you think this is unreasonable logic, I would submit that it is very reasonable. When you're a private firm, you are driven by your net profit at the end of your fiscal year, and it won't be long before any well-intentioned company will be driven to look at its bottom line. There are some things in the public sector that simply don't belong in the private sector, and I believe this is one of them.
With the level of skilled workforce that we currently have in the Ontario government, people who work with those with disabilities all the time -- if they lose their jobs, we have lost a significant level of experience and institutional memory that in the long run will be very detrimental to the government, because we won't be taking care of our citizens as we should.
Finally, I would like to mention that there are examples out there where other governments have gone through this same path. I think it's vital that we look at the errors of other jurisdictions. The Wisconsin model has been widely quoted. May I tell you that the assistant deputy and deputy ministers in that very same Wisconsin model are now on record as saying that they could not cut the system at the same time as they were trying to reform it. They knew that because of the cut they sustained at the same time, they couldn't pay the kind of attention to detail that they needed to make this work.
The Michigan example: My colleague Dwight Duncan and I both come from Windsor. Detroit city is a mile away from us. We watched what happened in the state of Michigan when single male employables were simply thrown off the system. Detroit city is not a place to throw single male employables into the streets, yet that is what happened. It has taken a new mayor a very long time to change the image of a tarnished Detroit city.
Finally, when we talk about where we're going to go, who we're going to hear from, I would ask all government committee members to see the people who present to our committee not as vested interest groups. That has been the case so far over the last couple of years, that everyone is labelled as a vested interest, some special-interest group. I hope, and from the list I see, that we are going to hear from people who are personally affected by these changes, and I hope we take them seriously.
I do believe that when a government makes policy, it is going to affect every citizen, and they simply cannot just look to those who might vote for them next election time, but must look at how government policy affects everyone. We can't afford to make mistakes, because in this case we are changing people's lives.
The Chair: You have about seven more minutes you can use. Mr Duncan, do you want to say anything? No. Very well. Third party, Ms Lankin.
Ms Lankin: I'd gladly use that extra time. No, eh? I'm going to speak very briefly on the disability income support program and then turn it over to my colleague to address the Ontario Works bill.
Minister, there are just a few things I want to touch on in response to your statement. First of all, may I say again that I think the combination of these two bills together is a travesty of parliamentary process. They are very different in their aims and their goals. There are individual constituencies that are involved that need time to respond to the actual proposals in the legislation, and your government is not allowing that by the process you have undertaken with the time allocation motion and the restriction on the number of hearings.
I want to raise concerns with respect to the eligibility criteria. I think the changes that have been made since you first put out the draft criteria are positive changes, but I remain very concerned when I see so much left to the unknown in regulations. Under the regulations section, subsection 9(1) and others, it indicates that the cabinet essentially can set out conditions of eligibility for income support "including, and without limiting the generality of the foregoing, additional conditions relating to eligibility for income support." That is wide open, Minister.
I believe if you truly are reaching a different level of supports to the disability community, if you are attempting to take it out of the welfare system, then you must be clear in the legislation with respect to eligibility. There cannot be such blanket unknowns left to be prescribed through regulation. Many people in the disability community remain concerned about that.
I also want to speak to the actual definition for disability eligibility and the exception that is placed in here: "A person is not a person with a disability if the person's impairment is caused by the presence in the person's body of alcohol, a drug or some other chemically active substance that the person has ingested, unless the alcohol, drug or other substance has been authorized by prescription as provided for in the regulations."
Again, we're not sure what the regulations will say, but I can tell you that there are people out there -- and I've received faxes and letters from individuals and organizations, such as the Harm Reduction Coalition of Ontario, which is a coalition of drug users, community-based health care providers and activists who are working to promote harm reduction strategies in working with drug users in our communities.
Many of these people actually at this time are disabled and are trying to find the strategies to move out of that capacity. For them to simply be disregarded as potentially qualifying as a person with disability with the kind of income supports that might be necessary seems to me like a punitive approach in which somehow you've placed blame and broad-brushed a stroke to a whole group of people, that somehow these are just abusers and therefore are not qualified. I think there must be a much different approach, one that is much more sensitive in dealing with people from that community.
I appreciate your assurance that no one in the disability community will have liens placed on their principal residence. It doesn't say that in the legislation. The legislation says:
"The director shall in prescribed circumstances, as a condition of eligibility, require a recipient or dependant who owns or has an interest in property to consent to the ministry having a lien against the property, in accordance with the regulations."
Again, what the regulations will say, how they can be changed by cabinet at any given time -- your assurance in this statement here is not assurance in law, and people are looking for assurances in law.
I also want to just very briefly address the next point you raised, which was the finding of non-capability. You specifically said that the authority to do this already exists for municipalities under the current general welfare system and this legislation just creates a similar authority for all recipients.
If this program, as your parliamentary assistant has said, is about moving away from a patronizing approach to persons with disabilities under a general welfare system -- although I believe strongly that a general welfare system shouldn't be a patronizing approach -- I fail to understand why you would recreate an authority that existed under the old General Welfare Assistance Act.
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Since the time of that legislative provision, there have been changes in the laws with respect to assessment of capacity under substitute decision-making and other pieces of legislation that have come in, the public trustee programs etc. It seems to me that there should be rights afforded to persons with disabilities with respect to a finding of incapacity as set out in other laws. In this particular law you have left that completely to the discretion of the director:
"12(1) The director may appoint a person to act for a recipient if there is no guardian of property or trustee for the recipient and the director is satisfied that,
"(a) the recipient is using or is likely to use his or her income support in a way that is not for the benefit of a member of the benefit unit."
Talk about patronizing. Again, your stated intent with respect to this is to move away from that.
Lastly, I've raised the concern in my question with respect to the privatization of vocational rehabilitation services. I believe there is certainly a portion of the disability community who will welcome support programs to help them enter into competitive employment, but you must recognize that there is also a portion of the disability community that will never be in that situation and that requires the fully integrated, full supports that have been provided through VRS which will not be provided through a fragmented approach of your service coordinators and long-term care, and the home renovations and vehicle renovations and all the other little programs that are out there. You really need to have that centralized and coordinated.
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): My concern here is one that I have to address with a little bit of a broader brush. To be dealing with this bill two years plus after the election of this government, when one of the first acts of this government was to slash social assistance benefits by over 21% effective October 1995 -- let's look at some of the hard numbers for just a minute.
What did that mean to a single mom with one child, a little kid, a child under 12? It meant a reduction in a maximum total possible allowance -- not necessarily what she or he would receive -- of $1,221, reduced by almost $300 to $957, providing a maximum shelter allowance of a mere $511.
It's rhetorical to ask where, in the city of Toronto or quite frankly most of Ontario, does a single mom with a young child obtain anything akin to decent shelter for $511 a month? Let's put this in perspective, because it's $511 per month provided as the maximum shelter allowance, and a mere $446 for all the other expenses for a mom and a child under 12. That's what this government did literally within weeks of being elected, although it became effective October 1 -- a significant attack on the poorest people in our province.
That also begs the question about who are the poor and why are they poor and why aren't we addressing that whole broader issue of who is poor in this province and why they are poor? Quite frankly, we've got some very strong and instinctive understanding. We know that seniors are poor. We know that children are poor. We know that students are poor. We know that women are poor by virtue of, if they are employed, being in workplaces that continue to provide substandard wages. Here's a government that by virtue of -- what was it? -- appendix J to Bill 26, wanted to deny even those women the prospect of some pay equity. We know that non-union workers and workers in a variety of areas like child care and the cultural industry are poor.
We know, tragically, that the numbers of unemployed, notwithstanding this government's claim about net job creation, have remained as they were, and certainly the percentage of unemployed people in this province has not diminished in any significant way. We also know that of the new net jobs this government talks about, the vast majority of them are part-time, temporary and/or minimum wage or subminimum wage because of the increased utilization of contract workers and commissioned workers, those sorts of things, in a complete abrogation of the Employment Standards Act.
Having said all that, we have to recall what this government did within but weeks of slashing the assistance, the funds available to, among others, single mothers: They increased MPPs' salaries in this Legislature by approximately 10%. Each and every MPP in this Legislature received a salary increase of approximately 10%, and it came down to a gross of $7,000 to $8,000 for each and every member of the Legislative Assembly. It is incredible that in conjunction with the slashing of assistance to the unemployed, to single mothers and their kids, this government would increase MPPs' salaries by a gross of $7,000 to $8,000 per MPP, which reflects an approximate 10% salary increase. It's a dirty little secret that they were disinclined to talk about or publicize but one which is reflected readily by a careful reading of the pay stubs of each and every member of this Legislative Assembly, predating the Harris government and post-dating it.
The minister talks about, "The welfare system must be fair to those who receive its benefits, and it must also be fair to those who provide the benefits -- the taxpayers." If we're going to be talking about poverty, maybe we should be talking about the wealthy who at the same time aren't taxpayers, or at least are not paying their fair share of taxes. We're talking in this vacuum, in isolation, in a context here in this province where great wealth has been generated over the course of the last two years.
Please, take a look at the bank profits last year. This year they're even higher than the record-setting bank profits of last year. Take a look at the salaries of CEOs here in Ontario. Take a look at the returns on mutual funds of 20%, 30%, 40% and even 50%. Take a look at the incredible concentration of that new wealth and again understand how much of a contradiction it is to sit here and talk about nickel-and-diming the poorest people in our province and effectively denying them a share of that wealth.
Quite frankly, I think a process that debates Bill 142 is a sham without a discussion of why we have poverty and who is poor, without recognizing that there is significant poverty in the midst of great new wealth. It's a sham when we're doing it without talking about means of ensuring that there's a fair distribution of wealth here in Ontario and across this country, because that's what it comes down to at the bottom line.
My friend Ms Lankin very properly talks about these two bills combined into one, but don't forget that this minister and this government have done a very shameful thing by pitting groups of poor against other groups of poor -- because they have. They are attempting to pit persons with disabilities who, yes, are among the poor in our province, against other poor people who are poor for many other and varied and oftentimes similar reasons.
At the same time, it's a government that talks about persons with disabilities and takes some great triumph in the amendments that will permit persons with disabilities to go into the workplace and return back to social assistance, but doesn't acknowledge that in the course of introducing this amendment to the traditional FBA structure, it has eliminated employment equity. It has basically slammed the door shut in the face of those persons with disabilities for whom employment equity legislation, albeit imperfect, would have provided some respite from the unemployment, from the denial of access to the workplace that being disabled constitutes.
It does it in the same context as it abolishes rent control here in Ontario, so that persons who have low incomes and persons who have no incomes and who are forced on to this government's welfare scheme -- because at the end of the day that's what it is. Call it by any other name if you wish, but this is a welfare scheme, as much from the 1940s and 1950s of this century as it is from any other decade. It's an era that I'm old enough to recall, without any great pride. There was an attitude, and Ms Lankin referred to that paternalism and the patronization. It was a matter of merely containing the poor in this province, rather than inviting them and acknowledging their right to share in the economic activity of this province and in the workplaces of this province with fair recompense.
The government has also done all this in the context of this whole orgy of privatization. Again, it talks about fairness to taxpayers, when it has invited its new partners in this particular crime, Andersen Consulting, to engage in the privatization of the delivery of social assistance benefits, where the incentive for Andersen is going to be how much money it can deprive poor people of their share of in what would be part of the pie available to the poorest in our province, at great profit to them.
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So here once again, this government has opened the door to its private sector partners, Andersen -- which already has a track record, .mind you. That American-based company has some fine track record down in New Brunswick. It has done its fair share of attack on persons with disabilities in the province of New Brunswick as well, with its meat chart system of assessing levels of disability, that incredibly depersonalized and barbaric approach.
I read with great wonderment Michele Landsberg's column on September 28. It was the result of a conversation, an interview she did with three women from Barrie, all of them single mothers it appears, commenting on what it means to be a single mother relying on social assistance. One of them, Monica Petzoldt, spoke of the phenomenon of these life skills programs. Here's a woman who was a spouse and a partner and a mother. The reason she's on social assistance -- let me quote her.
"Petzoldt is reminded of the programs designed to 'teach single mums five ways to cook a chicken.'" But what does she reply? She says, "'Just give me the goddamn chicken.... Most women are on welfare because they lost their job or they fled a bad marriage. So yesterday, when I had a partner, I knew how to budget and run a household. Today, I need Prozac and cooking lessons and my son needs someone to give him a muffin and a kind smile.'"
Laughter.
Mr Kormos: I agree it provokes laughter, but it's a cynical type of laughter, it's a tragic type of laughter, because this woman in her comments to Michele Landsberg hit it right on the head. This government very much wants to divide the poor in our province, wants to speak about deserving the poor and the undeserving poor. It wants to start to draw fine lines, and finer and finer lines.
I say the whole exercise around Bill 142 is a very dangerous one for us to condone, that we should be confronting poverty, the causes of poverty, who's poor and real solutions to it. I say that starts with a fundamental commitment to a fair distribution of wealth here in Ontario, something that Bill 142 doesn't even come close to doing. In that respect, it is a part of the crime rather than a part of any solution.
The Chair: Thank you, Minister, for appearing before us.
As we proceed with the public portion of these hearings, I'd just remind the participants that we're meeting in Toronto for two days. We are meeting today from 3:30 until 6 and then again from 6:30 to 9:30, and tomorrow we repeat that procedure. That is pursuant to a government allocation motion and on agreement by the House leaders.
Those of you who are here will have 15 minutes each to present, and if time permits, the three caucuses will ask you some questions. I thank you for your indulgence in this. I know the time lines are very tight. We want to hear from as many people as possible and we'll try to maintain those time lines.
With that, I'd like to call on Low Income Families Together, Josephine Grey, executive director.
Ms Lankin: Madam Chair, just while we're waiting for Josephine, I would like to put forward a proposal in the form of a motion. I'll have to get Mr Kormos, who is the voting member of our caucus, to actually to put his name to it. When preparing our lists for the committee, I inadvertently made a mistake with respect to the list and did not include the Ontario civil liberties union.
The Chair: The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, I believe it is.
Ms Lankin: I have spoken with Mr Borovoy and explained my mistake on that. I would like to ask, if there is a cancellation in Toronto, that the committee agree to, if possible, provide them notification and invite them to come. It's not likely that will happen and I recognize that, but I would ask for the committee's agreement if there is a cancellation that they be called. I think they provide an important point of view which is not partisan in its basis, and it's always important to listen to that.
The Chair: For the record, Mr Borovoy called me as well, and I concur with your view that his organization is non-partisan. Is there consensus that if there is a cancellation, we would ask the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to appear? Okay.
Ms Lankin: Thank you very much.
LOW INCOME FAMILIES TOGETHER
The Chair: Now, Ms Grey, you have 15 minutes.
Ms Josephine Grey: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address this committee. I've come here today on behalf of Low Income Families Together, which is a low-income group which works on solutions to poverty, both in terms of economic and social solutions. I also come as Canada's official observer for domestic issues to the United Nations for the World Summit on Social Development, and as a widowed single parent of four children and a former recipient of mother's allowance -- which is what we used to call it -- to discuss this bill, which I'm very concerned about.
I'll speak mostly to what we have read in the Ontario Works Act, although many of the measures affect the disability act as well. Although the regulations are not yet released, the premise and the intent of Bill 142 are self-evident. The legislation proposes the most sweeping and unaccountable exercise of power over people's lives in any western democracy, including the unprecedented power to disqualify entire classes of people without consultation or debate.
The Ontario Works Act strips the unemployed of security, removes freedom of choice and restricts access to justice as it introduces indentured labour. To quality for basic needs assistance, one must satisfy obligations to become and stay employed. Yet the government has no obligation to provide the very employment assistance clients are required to access. It is a trap, creating a permanent cycle of debt, as even dependants of recipients can be forced to pay back workfare income to the system. There is absolutely no mutual responsibility in this bill.
The indictment of anyone who now or in the future may need basic assistance in a time of personal economic crisis is loud and clear. So far, there is an emerging consensus among those who have looked at the bill that it is a recipe for social chaos and despair. This draft legislation has been dubbed "hate literature in legal language" by legal and academic experts, and as a likely future recipient I must say it terrifies me to read it.
Some of the more unique and controversial laws proposed within Bill 142 are:
The power of the minister alone to make and change regulations which prescribe most of the essential provisions and rules of social assistance without consultation or notice.
The power of welfare workers to assign workfare activities or placements without consent or right to appeal. This is how we create a situation of indentured labour.
The exemption of workfare activities from any and all laws applying to employment, including health and safety.
The power to redirect a portion or all of a person's or family's assistance income to a third party, such as a landlord or trustee, who is not required to report on how they spend the income -- and this can be done without the consent of the client or access to appeal the decision.
The ability to deduct other government debts, such as child support, OSAP, taxes or fines from basic needs assistance without consent or appeal. This will cause incredible hardship, as the money is already clearly not enough to support anybody.
The right to hold a spouse responsible to repay an overpayment incurred by a current or former partner: This is bizarre, particularly given that most women on assistance are victims of family violence -- I should say single parents.
They also have the right of the tribunal to refuse to hear any appeal which may be considered frivolous or vexatious. This is an extreme limitation to access to justice.
They have the power to privatize any aspect of delivery of social assistance or workfare programs.
The power to require finger-scanning of welfare recipients -- which is kind of ironic. There are people in the far north who may not even be able to reach the office to get their fingerprints scanned.
Police powers for welfare officers to obtain search warrants and lay fraud charges against clients: I think the police system is well funded to do this on its own.
The power to lay charges on others for withholding information about a client, for example, family members or social service workers who may wish to protect a client's privacy for personal or professional reasons. As an executive director of a community organization, I have a great deal of difficulty imagining how on earth any agency can undertake workfare under these conditions.
None of this has anything to do with respecting the rights of recipients. I take great exception to hearing the minister say that.
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Around fraud, as far as we can see, Harris's hotline has only produced nine convictions out of thousands of calls. We see the ministry constantly portraying the size of the problem by exaggerating it by including errors and overpayments.
The first offence of fraud, which can be for as little as several hundred dollars, will see the client cut off for three months regardless of need, and six months for the second offence. Fraud includes not reporting small occasional earnings and gifts of food and other basic essentials from friends and family. The cost of fraud measures will far outweigh the return.
Under appeals, the idea that the appeal system is somehow going to be improved is quite difficult to understand. I think any legislation that includes an appeals act has to have rules of fair procedure. There is no mention of the right to representation, and the onus is on the appellant to prove the administrator wrong, although there is no obligation on the government to provide information regarding the rules of the system to clients within draft legislation. I have a big problem with that.
It's important to note that when someone is cut off the meagre income of welfare/workfare, they immediately cannot buy food, pay rent or afford heat or electricity. If an appeal takes too long, homelessness and hunger result. Yet there are only a few decisions which can be appealed at all, and having to face two appeal systems will make the process much longer.
As has already been stated, the 21% welfare cuts and the increasing tendency to deny or cut off assistance have already had a devastating impact.
For all vulnerable people, particularly single parents, mildly disabled people, recent immigrants, who are usually highly educated, refugees and older people, there is an increasing sense of fear and panic as laws such as rent control and employment equity are replaced with legislation designed to exclude them from participating in society. When combined with the Tenant Protection Act, the loss of human rights protection in housing and things like user fees for essential services like water, the effect of Bill 142 can only be devastating.
The income which people on assistance receive goes directly to landlords, grocery stores, and straight into the local economy. This will dry up even further. In my riding, we lost $1 million a month when the 21% cut came in, and businesses and landlords have already been suffering. Many of these business owners will end up unemployed, will suffer the humiliation of bankruptcy, and will end up on workfare along with their former customers.
In a labour market which displaces 45% of workers in a three-year period, anyone -- friends, relatives and neighbours -- is in danger of ending up on workfare unless a person is very wealthy or about to retire with a healthy pension.
In Metro, one in three children is on some form of assistance. They are there in part because few employers choose to hire single parents and far too many have no access to day care.
According to the United Way, there are 50,000 people who are homeless in Metro, and this is increasing costs for Metro as it trys to provide shelter. As many as 80% of the immigrants you propose to cycle through endless six-month community placements, temporary jobs and futile job search assignments hold university degrees and could help boost the economy if given half a chance. This system will not do that. Many of the older clients have held jobs and built up their assets for over 25 years. They contributed to this system through their income taxes for a long period of time and should not be asked to repay it when they need it.
It is safe to say that the majority of single mothers and their children live in poverty due to family breakdown and violence, which is often caused by unemployment. There is no attempt whatsoever to take into account the trauma experienced by the victims of violence or to protect their safety. I myself was an abused woman and I can tell you that I take great offence at this. Most women who are murdered are murdered by an ex-partner, yet this system exposes them to greater danger in a variety of ways.
Unless anyone thinks that we shouldn't have had children in the first place, 93% of children on assistance were born before their parents or parent went on the system. What justification is there to rob them of the security and the conditions they need to grow into healthy and productive adults?
I don't understand where the savings are in this. One goal of the exercise is to cut $1 billion from the system. As the system will be far more complex and intrusive, the delivery costs can only increase, as has been shown in Wisconsin. This means the savings can only come from restricting access or transferring new costs to other services, such as the CAS. As access is restricted, the rising costs of health, shelter, child welfare, correctional and justice systems will outstrip any potential savings from social assistance as people's lives fall apart, their children are taken into care and some turn to crimes of desperation for survival. I don't understand what is effective about this.
The ability of the ministry to privatize any function in any town or city which allows the creation of a profitable market from the control of poor people is shocking, in my view. The profits will be made by private interests, paid for by people's taxes, while in the end costing the taxpayer more. Once a service is privatized, it cannot be regained to the public under NAFTA.
One thing we demand is an investigation into the legality, contents, projected profits and implications of the Andersen Consulting contract to set up fingerprinting and the privatization of the design of Ontario Works.
As for accountability, there is a need to reform social assistance, and there has been for a long time. There are many ways to do it. I know this because I was deeply involved in the development of draft legislation based on nine years of consultation and study. I was a person who carried out consultation with people on assistance. There's a report here which I'm sure none of you has seen, and you certainly won't find it in the library, that tells you what people on assistance think of the system, what they need, what they want. Let me tell you, the first thing they want is a right to information and dignity. All that research was removed from the ministry library. We didn't need more studies, but they could have read the ones that were done.
The objective of the draft legislation was to ensure an accountable, comprehensive and constructive process to assist people to find self-sustainability. The basic principle was mutual responsibility between the government and the client. It is extremely irresponsible of this government to ignore this body of work.
We're very concerned about accountability. It is very easy to misrepresent the effectiveness of training programs or of workfare programs. Most people leave the system within six months anyway, and tracking is virtually impossible, particularly in a government which makes no effort to do so. No matter how or why people are kept off or cut off, the public will never know the difference other than by observing the resulting social chaos.
Those with more barriers will not find employment under this system. It will not invest the resources needed to assist individuals to achieve self-sustainability, but they can always be accused of mere laziness. It is much harder to say where people go when they leave the system, whether they are homeless or won a lottery. That is why workfare funding in the United States requires in-depth evaluation. It is a condition of the funding.
As long as private sector profits depend on "savings," there is ample motivation and opportunity to profit from ruining people's lives.
The broader implications of Bill 142 threaten the health, wellbeing and stability of individuals, families and communities across Ontario, including your constituents. Taxpayers, including the poor -- and we do pay taxes -- have a right to demand full accountability from their governments. A public service which provides for basic needs of life has to be accountable to everyone affected or involved, including clients and workers, yet there are virtually no accountability measures of any kind in this legislation. This indicates a complete disregard for the rights and wellbeing of people in need and a blatant defiance of the laws of governance.
Overall, this act threatens to introduce a number of changes which are clearly unconstitutional and violate a variety of international covenants and agreements. Much of the new legislation would not have been allowed under the former Canada assistance plan, which was a framework of legal and fiscal conditions put in place to help ensure compliance with the United Nations' human rights charter, the 50th anniversary of which is next year, by the way, yet the elimination of CAP was carried out without full parliamentary debate.
This government has taken full advantage of the void created by an irresponsible lack of standards and protections in the Canada Health and Social Transfer Act to design a cruel and unjust system quite opposite to the values and principles of Canadian and international law. Whatever the minister may say about her actual intent and how she may tinker with regulations, as long as the wording of this act remains as it is, that is exactly what it is. There is no moral context or fiscal justification for punishing people displaced by global economic upheaval by denying them self-determination and an equal opportunity to participate in society. In fact, the social deficit which will be created will burden the people of Ontario with rising costs of damage control and a legacy of shame for years to come.
The process of examining, reviewing and even building this bill is totally inadequate, as it directly affects the survival of over a million people, half of whom are children. The government must provide the public with a full cost-benefit analysis, not only of the effect of Bill 142 but also the domino effect of related bills which serve to reduce income and raise the cost of living. What effect will this have on the economy and society of Ontario?
As members of Parliament elected to protect our interests and wellbeing, we believe you have a political, legal and moral obligation to withdraw the bill and re-examine the options. If this government believes in fairness, effectiveness and accountability in social assistance, let them prove it. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Grey. You've exhausted your time. We thank you very much for being here and making such a forceful presentation.
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ADDICTION RESEARCH FOUNDATION
The Chair: Could I ask the Addiction Research Foundation, Dr Perry Kendall and Dr Gourlay, to come forward. Welcome, gentlemen. We are looking forward to your presentation. You have 15 minutes. If time permits, we'll ask you some questions.
Dr Perry Kendall: Good afternoon. I am Dr Perry Kendall. I am the president and chief executive officer of the Addiction Research Foundation. This is Dr Douglas Gourlay, who is an addiction consultant to the foundation.
The Addiction Research Foundation is a provincial agency that conducts research and training in addictions. It provides treatment in Metropolitan Toronto and supports and advises community programs throughout the province.
I thank you for the opportunity today to comment on the provisions of the Ontario Disability Support Program Act, 1997, and the Ontario Works Act, 1997. Our submission specifically focuses on the impact of this legislation in its current form on people who suffer from alcohol and other drug dependencies. I'm sure others will be addressing some of the broader issues in the legislation; we will not at this time.
We are concerned that, given the provisions of these two proposed acts, there will be a potentially large number of people with addictive disorders who will not qualify for income support under the ODSP and will not have the capacity to meet the eligibility requirements that can be imposed under the OWA.
Specifically, we are concerned about the exception made in section 4(2) of the ODSP. A person is excluded "if the person's impairment is caused by the presence in the person's body of alcohol, a drug or some other chemically active substance that the person has ingested...." We believe this exception is discriminatory and would strongly recommend that section 4(2) of the ODSP be removed.
A disability should be defined on criteria such as those set out in section 4(l) only. The criteria should not include the reason for, or cause of, the disability. The disability status of persons suffering from addictive disorders should thus be judged on the same basis as for others. To do otherwise can be argued to be contrary both to the Ontario Human Rights Code and to section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Let me point out that the wording of section 4(2) is quite ambiguous. Construed strictly, it could result in the denial of disability benefits to a quadriplegic whose impairment had resulted from diving into a shallow swimming pool while intoxicated. However much we may wish to express disapproval of irresponsible patterns of intoxication, it would be poor social policy indeed to deny disability status in such a case. Another case comes to mind: An individual with chronic obstructive lung disease as a result of tobacco smoking could also be not eligible for disability classification under this act, whether or not he or she continued to smoke at the present time.
More generally, section 4(2) introduces into the disability system the idea of discriminating among impairments by the cause of the impairment. This is a fundamental break with the principle that impairments should be judged objectively in terms of the degree of disability they are presently causing, including an assessment of actual work capacity.
If a person cannot work, how he or she became disabled has no effect on the capacity to work. Differentiating among impairments on the basis of presumed status in moral worthiness is a big step back into practices from the last century. Going down this path could result, for example, in denying benefits to others who might be said to have brought their misfortune upon themselves: someone whose stroke is judged to have resulted from poor dietary habits, a person with osteoarthritis whose hip joints are seen to be disintegrating because he or she is overweight, or someone whose AIDS-related impairments are judged to have resulted from disapproved sexual contact.
There is no logic for discriminating against those whose impairments are caused by drinking or drug use and those whose impairments are caused by other behaviours which may be seen by one constituency or another as being morally suspect.
It should be noted that alcohol and drug dependence are recognized disorders in both the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. Alcohol and drug dependence have aptly been described as "diseases of the brain." As Dr Alan Leshner, the director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, has said, "Addiction is not simply a lot of drug use; it is a disease of the brain, reflecting fundamental changes...in the brains of drug abusers."
"Discoveries about where and how drugs act in the brain," Leshner has noted, "have repudiated the once popular and still too prevalent belief that drug addiction stems simply from a character deficiency or lack of willpower."
Dr Enoch Gordis, director of the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, is equally clear: "Alcoholism is a medical disorder....the disease concept of alcoholism has helped remove the stigma from a clinical disorder that is no more inherently immoral than diabetes or heart disease."
Studies by many scientists, including those at the Addiction Research Foundation, have traced the neurochemical pathways which foster and sustain these disorders. While the disorders are treatable, they are widely recognized as chronic and relapsing conditions. Like other chronic relapsing conditions, they often result in long-term disability.
If persons diagnosed as alcohol- or drug-dependent do not qualify for income support under the ODSP, they could be eligible for basic assistance under the OWA. Section 7(4) of the OWA allows the imposition of a number of requirements "as a condition of eligibility for basic financial assistance." These can include community participation, participation in employment measures, involvement in basic education and job-specific skills training, or acceptance and maintenance of employment.
Unfortunately, many people with alcohol or drug dependency may find it difficult or impossible to meet the requirements under this section. If they do not satisfy any requirements imposed under section 7(4), they may have their assistance suspended, cancelled or refused.
We presently lack the basic information to be able to tell you what is the size of the population potentially affected by section 4(2) and the requirements under the OWA. Neither disability and social assistance program staff nor researchers in this area have asked questions relevant to the proposed language of section 4(2). Neither are there Canadian studies of the prevalence of alcohol- and drug-dependent conditions among those on disability or social assistance.
There is agreement among those in the system that there is "a chunk" of cases which would be affected, but no sense of the size of the chunk. From the other side, there is little data on the proportion of those in treatment for alcohol or drug dependence who are on disability or social assistance.
Estimates from assessment and referral centres in the province that do ambulatory treatment indicate that about 30% of clients entering treatment are receiving some form of social assistance, and about 6% are receiving disability support. In other parts of the addiction treatment system, such as recovery homes, we would expect even higher rates. It is clear that removal of such cases from disability or social assistance would diminish their chances of getting their lives back together. One treatment service director told us that the clients usually want work, but in the short and medium term their history makes them unemployable.
It seems likely that there will be a number of people with addictive disorders who would not qualify for income support under ODSP and who would not be able to satisfy the eligibility requirements for OWA. We are very concerned about what would happen to these people with no legitimate source of economic support. We fear that there would be more homelessness, with the attendant health and social costs, more violence, and more property crimes as desperate people attempt to meet basic needs. Some people denied assistance might even end up in the court and corrections system, at greater cost than would be incurred under the basic assistance provisions of OWA. Many have families who would be deprived of the resources to meet their basic needs. If they have coexisting illnesses, such as HIV infection, they may not be able to access the drugs and medical benefits that would be available if they were receiving social assistance.
We would like to commend the government for their apparent intent to assist people to enter or return to the workforce. We believe most people in receipt of social assistance would be pleased to enter the world of work. We hope that programs under the ODSP and the OWA can help people build the necessary skills to get work that is available and accessible to them and that pays a sufficient wage to reasonably support them and their families. It is, however, of questionable wisdom to legislate in such a complete absence of data on the numbers affected and the likely impact of the proposed changes.
In conclusion, we would recommend that:
People suffering from substance abuse disorders should be treated the same as other people in terms of the definition of disability, and eligibility judged according to the same criteria. Section 4(2), as I've said, should be stricken from the bill.
People receiving basic financial assistance under the Ontario Works Act should not have assistance cancelled if a qualified person, as specified in section 4(1)(c), certifies that they are unable to comply with the conditions imposed under section 7(4).
If these recommendations are not followed through, many individuals who are struggling with addiction throughout the province will be exposed to needless harm and suffering.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have approximately two minutes per caucus. We begin with the third party.
Ms Lankin: I appreciate your presentation. This is a point that I've raised during second reading debate and again with the minister today. The bill as it now stands takes a very punitive approach, and a moralistic one, that doesn't recognize the disease of addictions and doesn't recognize the impact on people's lives. I really don't have any question. I'm in agreement with your proposal that that section be struck. Is there anything else you'd like to add to the comments you've made or impressing on the government members why it's important to strike this section of the act?
Dr Kendall: It may have been the intent of the framers of the bill to try to distinguish between abuse and dependence. Quite clearly, they have not done so in a fashion that is in any way workable; neither, I think, have they thought of the impact on tobacco smokers and the raft of people who are disabled because of their addiction to tobacco and nicotine in the delivery system. Quite clearly, I cannot imagine that it would be anybody's intent to move people with chronic obstructive lung disease, lung cancer, arterial disease or blindness from the disability rolls.
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Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your very objective comments and your suggestions at the end. The minister is on record as saying that if in fact the drug or alcohol dependency causes a disability of another kind, certainly that would be what would be judged. I think we've covered that one in her comments.
In the Ontario Works program, if the condition that a person who had a substance dependency had to meet was to take treatments, would that satisfy some of your concerns, as opposed to having to go out and do community work or those kinds of things?
Dr Kendall: You're raising the issue of mandatory treatment, which is a little contentious in the area. It clearly works in some areas. In fact, we are very supportive of the referral to treatment for people who drive while intoxicated. There is strong evidence that there are reductions in repeat offences and in mortality as a result of that. It isn't universally effective, however, and in some areas it doesn't work, nor in fact, I think, is the treatment capacity in Ontario, which can currently deal with about 60,000 people a year, sufficient to deal with the potential number of people who might be referred to treatment. Also, one of the sad facts is that just like hypertension, arthritis or diabetes, there is no real cure. There is ongoing treatment, but it does often become a relapsing disorder.
Mr Carroll: I have a quick question, if you could help me with this. A person on Ontario Works getting a benefit of $500-and-some a month becomes dependent on drugs. Do you think we can explain to people that that becomes a reason to transfer them over to a disability benefit and give them more money every month so that they can buy more drugs? Can you help me answer that?
Dr Kendall: Well, there are conditions, certainly. It's not merely dependency on drugs, because we have people maintained on methadone across the province who have been employed for 20 years, but they require methadone on a doctor's prescription. If you take the methadone away from them, they will be unemployable and back on the streets and probably, technically speaking, disabled. The issue is really disability, as opposed to the cause of the disability.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): Thank you, Doctor, for your presentation. I want to explore with you for a moment -- and let me preface my comments by saying I spent a little bit of time working in the field -- the voc rehab program that's currently offered through the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Addicts and alcoholics can access it now. The people I've seen and dealt with are in need of extensive counselling over longer periods of time, and, as you say, there's no cure. You're always recovering, if you will.
In your view, will this bill and the reforms to welfare and social services in general help that group of people? I believe your foundation has identified tens of thousands of these people in Ontario where, what comes first, the addiction or the dependency? I'm asking you, in your view, will this get more people to break the cycle, make them productive members of society, or will it help to continue to entrap them in the cycle?
Dr Kendall: If, as I read it, there is the potential to remove people from any form of income assistance because of a dependency that was caused by alcohol or drugs, whether it was in the past or ongoing, we don't think that could help them try to pull their lives back together.
Mr Duncan: So the kind of welfare reform I think we'd all like to see is a system that serves hard-to-serve clients, because that's what addicts who are on welfare are, they are hard-to-serve clients, welfare clients who are addicts. This isn't going to make the system better or more cost-effective in your view?
Dr Kendall: Not if they're removed from income assistance.
The Chair: Thank you very much for appearing before us today. We appreciate that you took the time.
Could I ask Mr Simon Kahn to come forward. Simon Kahn?
Mr Kormos: Chair, if I may, on a point of order?
The Chair: If I could just deal with this for a moment, I'll come back to you, Mr Kormos. Simon Kahn, one final time. Could I then ask the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Mr John Clarke, to come forward.
Mr Kormos: The parliamentary assistant referred to some comments that he says were made by the minister with respect to the interpretation of subsection 4(2). Is the parliamentary assistant advising us that there will be amendments tabled to give effect to what he states will be the new interpretation or the new application or new effect of subsection 4(2)?
Mr Carroll: The parliamentary assistant was reiterating the intent of the bill as outlined by the minister.
Mr Kormos: It's too bad the bill doesn't read that way. An amendment to that effect would sure be welcome.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, what's your point of order?
Mr Kormos: I've made my point, Chair.
The Chair: There is no point. Very well, thank you. Mr Clarke? We are a little ahead of schedule.
SIMON KAHN
The Chair: Oh, Mr Kahn. My apologies. I'm delighted you're here. You have 15 minutes for your presentation.
Mr Simon Kahn: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I don't appear before you representing any group or anyone specifically, simply an average Ontarian who has an opinion on this issue. Having read both the bill and background information regarding it, I thought I would make a presentation today.
Essentially, I would say that the problem, as I perceive it and in talking to many people about this issue, appears to be that people find that welfare as it currently functions is not really giving people a hand up, it is giving people a handout; and that in essence, by doing so, it was robbing people of dignity or a sense of self-accomplishment. That sounds simple and perhaps is oversimplified to some, but that is part of the flaw in the current system.
It also is a problem because I think we have a slight culture in our society today of a belief that, somehow or other, we're not responsible for ourselves. While it is important to be responsible for society collectively, which I think people would agree with, we also have to be responsible for ourselves. There's nothing wrong with helping people; there's something wrong with removing from people the responsibility to improve themselves, take care of themselves and direct their own lives.
I also think that a person who receives welfare on a certain level, especially under the current system, is being deprived of a certain element of self-respect. Therefore, welfare has a stigma in society in general. From the point of view of the person receiving welfare -- which I have never received personally, so I can speak only in a hypothetical sense -- I can't understand or see how you can be self-respecting or free of this stigma and -- specifically because the current system lacks real incentives to help you get a job -- how you can get out of the dependency cycle.
With regard to the average taxpayer, which I can speak more about, I think there's a certain belief that there's nothing wrong with helping people who are in need but that no one should be given, as I said, a handout instead of a hand up. No one should be able to abdicate responsibility for themselves. I'm not talking about people who now have a disability or people who can't function or have certain problems that I believe are outlined in the bill and the types of problems that would be defined, but about the type of person who decides, "I want to opt out." The taxpayer feels, "Why should you have the right to do that, while I have to keep working and paying taxes and supporting you?"
At the same time, there's a recognition, which I found in the bill and in the background material, that a person who has other responsibilities may not be able to just go out and work a regular 9-to-5, or whatever, day. In that case, there is application in the bill, for example -- and I don't know if this is specifically in the bill or in the background material -- helping single parents whose children are in school get work while the children are in school. Now, people will say that's not fair and that's not ideal. I know many people who are single parents and are working. No one helps them, and they work when their children are at school, because they have no choice. If they're doing that to take care of themselves and they are making ends meet, which is very difficult for them, no less should a person who says, "I can't find the solution," be able to abdicate responsibility to the extreme extent.
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I also think, certainly with regard to the OWA -- I don't really speak about the issue of disabilities; I make no pretence about that -- that if the money was going to help people get work and to help people re-enter the job market and take back more control of their own lives, people would feel that's a useful application of their tax dollars, as opposed to a wasteful one, which is how many people feel about the current system.
I think the changes implemented in this legislation would end that frustration and resentment, because I know many people I speak to on many issues every day -- and I'm quite interested in this particular issue; otherwise I wouldn't be here. Everybody I talk to says the same thing: There's not a problem with the principle of helping those who need help; there's a problem with working hard so someone else can have a free ride. Even if you could make the case that that's very few people on welfare -- and it's quite possibly true -- the important thing is to let the taxpayer know that case has been proven by taking those who would be required to work under the introduced legislation and giving them the ability to do so.
I think it's a matter of fairness, actually, and it extends on both sides. You have to be fair to the taxpayer who foots the bill, and you have to be fair to the recipient to help them no longer require that handout. That's essentially how I feel.
The Chair: Thank you. Is that your presentation, Mr Kahn?
Mr Kahn: You got it.
The Chair: We have approximately 10 minutes, three minutes per caucus. We begin with the government caucus.
Mr Carroll: Thank you very much, Mr Kahn. It's interesting in your comments how closely what you believe the program to be parallels what Ms Grey, the executive director of Low Income Families Together, said, and I quote from her presentation, "The objective was to ensure an accountable, comprehensive and constructive process to assist people to find self-sustainability." I guess what we have is a difference of opinion about exactly how to get there.
I want to take this opportunity to set the record straight on a couple of things that I think, left as they are, will be disconcerting to people. Mr Kormos went to great length to explain that, coincident with the reduction in payments to people on social assistance, which by the way left us 10% higher than the average of the rest of the provinces, we also increased MPPs' pensions by 10%. That's categorically untrue.
Mrs Pupatello: He said "pay," Jack.
Ms Lankin: He said "pay," not "pension."
Mr Carroll: I'm sorry, pay. "MPPs' salaries were increased by 10%" were his words. Mr Kormos is one of the few people in here who takes advantage of a gold-plated pension plan that we have now cancelled. But he gets to take advantage of that. We did away with tax-free allowances --
Ms Lankin: Madam Chair, that is a personal attack.
Mr Carroll: I have the floor.
The Chair: Mr Carroll, I wonder if you could restrict your questions to Mr Kahn.
Mr Carroll: It's my three minutes. I just wanted to set the record straight on that, okay?
I want to set the record straight on a couple of other things. We talk about classes of people and are concerned about classes of people. Classes of people could be persons who are incarcerated. I think we would all agree that this particular class of people should be eliminated from social assistance.
The idea of recipients being forced to pay back workfare from future income, those assignments will only be required where there's expected to be a payment from another source, such as CPP or a pension of some kind. I think we believe that double-dipping would be unfair.
I just wanted to set the record straight on those particular issues and to thank Mr Kahn for his presentation.
The Chair: Mr O'Toole, you have about a minute.
Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): Thank you very much, Mr Kahn, for your presentation. Actually, the nature of your approach was that able-bodied people really do want to work. Is it your sense that the current system failed that?
Mr Kahn: I don't see the current system encouraging it. I don't think there are structures in place currently that are doing that, which seems to be the motivation behind the current bill.
Mr O'Toole: Do you think this bill moves us closer in that direction, where it really makes it worth your while to make every effort, with a partner or some kind of help, to get full-time employment if that's available?
Mr Kahn: I think it does in two areas. There's the actual logistical way it will do it in the implementation of the legislation and the agencies related, and I think there's another factor people have to take into account, which is creating a culture or the understanding that you have to do this, you have to take responsibility for yourself. I think that's extremely important.
Mr O'Toole: Let me make one more point. I will read into the record a line that I feel is important. "Our plan will focus on helping people to get back to work." That's the Liberal position.
The Chair: Mr O'Toole, you're out of time.
Mr O'Toole: They had mandatory opportunity. That was their program.
The Chair: I think, on that note, we'll move to the official opposition.
Mrs Pupatello: Do you feel as strongly about corporate fraud as you do about welfare fraud, Mr Kahn?
Mr Kahn: Absolutely.
Mrs Pupatello: I expect to see you in the future speaking to a government committee in that regard and hoping they would move forward with that kind of legislation as well.
Mr Kahn: If, at the time, I feel as aware of the legislation, as interested, I certainly will.
Mrs Pupatello: I find it amazing too that you managed to get on the list, given the huge numbers that were trying to get on. Everyone who managed to get on, actually it was like winning a lottery there were so many people who wanted to speak.
Mr Kahn: I guess I'm lucky.
Mrs Pupatello: I beg your pardon?
Mr Kahn: I said, "I guess I'm lucky." You likened it to winning a lottery.
Mrs Pupatello: Yes. Do you think if the Minister of Finance put a figure in a budget that should be spent on something specific, the Minister of Finance and then the government is obligated to spend what they budgeted when they put it out there?
Mr Kahn: That's a very hypothetical question, because there are many issues involved in budgeting.
Mrs Pupatello: But do you think if the intent was there, if it has been budgeted, that it actually should be spent in that area? Would you go along with that line of thinking? For example, if the Minister of Finance budgeted $40 million for day care for children -- because child care in Metro Toronto alone, for example, is the most significant barrier for single moms to get back to work -- and then we get to the end of the fiscal year and Mr Eves admits on national news that he in fact did not spend $40 million on child care, he has to admit that to one of the reporters, that would be somehow an abdication of responsibility on the part of the government to help those same people you talk about needing that hand to get into the workforce, because there just aren't child care spaces for everyone who needs them, in particular in the Toronto area. What do you say to the minister about that sort of thing?
Mr Kahn: If I knew more about that particular aspect, I would have more of a comment. I would say in principle people should keep their promises. That's something I think the current government is actually doing.
Mrs Pupatello: Even if you knew that the minister had to announce himself that they didn't spend the $40 million they budgeted and that alone would have helped a whole group of people, as you say, get into the workforce?
Mr Kahn: I can't comment specifically about the $40 million. I don't know about it, right? So I can take your word for it or not, as it were. I can say that, based on the record of this government, I have seen that the government has tended to deliver on its promises. So I'd be surprised if that were exactly the case, as you put it, but I can't be sure.
The other thing I would say, though, is that I think it's a matter of keeping commitments. What you say may be quite true, but then I look at people I know who are single mothers, who have found some solution for child care.
Mrs Pupatello: Give up your kids.
Mr Kahn: The point is, very simply, ma'am, that a person has to decide who is responsible for them. I have been in situations in my life -- this may be surprising. I was in a situation in my life at one time where I had no employment, almost no resources whatsoever and I was not eligible for any assistance other than welfare, and I didn't take welfare. That was a very hard time in my life, but I did not take welfare. Now, I'm not saying that people who do are wrong to do so, but I felt responsible for myself. Before I would make that step, I took all sorts of odd jobs and did all sorts of things that, frankly, weren't highly pleasant or stimulating in order to be able to support myself. I think somewhere in our society is the need for that culture, to say to people, "You too have to support yourself." I'm not suggesting that it's easy. Life isn't easy. But I do think that before people rely on the government to solve their problems, they should also try to solve them themselves. I'm no better than they are.
The Chair: For the third party, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: With pleasure and some relish, I want to give the numbers.
The Chair: You have three minutes.
Mr Kormos: Yes, ma'am. I want to give the details on the salary increase the Tories gave MPPs shortly after they were elected. The base salary for MPPs was $42,000 a year plus $14,000 tax-free. Now, bear with me. That was tax-free, so if you gross that up to convert it into a taxable income, let's assume at a 50% tax rate, that $14,000 becomes $28,000, and $28,000 plus $42,000 is $70,000 a year. The minimum wage for MPPs in this building right now -- and I say the minimum wage, because most MPPs have perks, vice-chairs, chairs, PAs, what have you, that add to their salary -- is $78,004. That, to me, is a 10% salary increase, because it's the difference between $70,000 a year and $78,004 a year.
The pension plan was abolished, but the government still contributes 5% of your gross salary into an RRSP, which is an additional $4,000 a year, which is not taxed, of course, and is contributed into an RRSP on your behalf.
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So MPPs at Queen's Park have done a hell of a lot better under the Tory regime than have the poor people in this province who suffered a 21.6% cut in assistance and the thousands more who have been denied assistance by virtue of the recent regime of inflexibility and just intolerable cruelty imposed on them by a government that wants to pay off its rich friends with a tax break, pay itself a 10% salary increase, Mr Carroll, and yet deprive the poorest in this province of a liveable level of assistance.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Kahn, for coming here today. I see we have the makings of another debate at another time.
Mrs Pupatello: Mr Kahn, just before you leave, if I could, the next time you are presenting could you call my caucus for our speaking notes so that you're not just beholden to the government for theirs?
The Chair: We want to make sure that everyone gets a chance to be heard.
ONTARIO COALITION AGAINST POVERTY
The Chair: Could I ask the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty to come forward. Could I ask Mr Clarke to come forward. Might I ask you to identify yourself for the record. You then have 15 minutes.
Mr John Clarke: Yes, certainly. My name is John Clarke. I am the provincial organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. I shall be making the presentation. Other members of our coalition are in the room; we thought we'd fill the seats.
I have to begin by acknowledging that we don't do a lot of presenting before government committees these days. We generally find it to be a less-than-useful exercise. But Bill 142 struck us as something that we should respond to in the form of a public statement on the record.
We believe that the bill has to be assessed in a certain context. I should begin by explaining that, as a coalition, we are not social policy analysers so much as an organization that actually directly represents the people who are the victims of things like Bill 142. We see at first hand the misery and the suffering that is involved. We've seen the misery and the suffering that has ensued with regard to the social assistance and other policies that have been adopted over the last couple of years.
We know, and our own experience bears this out, that within this municipality, for example, there is now a rampant crisis of homelessness. The United Way acknowledges some 50,000 people without permanent address, the only meaningful definition of homelessness that we're aware of, and another 135,000 people at risk of being placed in the same boat.
We deal with the institution of Seaton House, one of the main men's hostels within the municipality. We are aware of the fact that now mattresses are being laid down in the corridors and they are at an absolutely overflow situation. The motels in which hostel division places homeless families are so overfull that people are being shipped down to Niagara Falls. That is the context. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to realize what is going to unfold during the course of this winter on the streets of this municipality.
Now we're presented with Bill 142. Like most Newspeak, Bill 142 is assigned the label of something progressive, something that's going to change things for the better. What strikes us is la plus ça change, as they say: The more a bill like this is implemented with flourish, the more we become aware of the fact that it in fact represents a turning back of the clock in a very livid and compelling fashion.
We see the bill as part of an ongoing process of dismantling income support payments to people who are unemployed, people who are poor and people who are homeless. It has to be seen as being linked to federal initiatives that have unfolded, the weakening fundamentally of unemployment insurance so that at the beginning of the 1980s some 89% of people qualified for unemployment insurance and now some 31% of people in this province who are unemployed qualify; as well, of course, the elimination of the Canada assistance plan, which has made possible many of the measures that are contemplated in Bill 142.
This is a bill that talks in terms of responsibility. The rather sycophantic gentleman who showed up before me was full of the term "responsibility." Persons in need, elimination of poverty and all the goals that once were set, however hollow they may have rung in practice, seem to have gone out the window, and we're now dealing with a situation where responsibility to taxpayers and responsibility to the work ethic and responsibility to whatever else becomes the guiding term.
I have to say that this bill takes place in a context where, even in the midst of recovery, unemployment is still a pervasive problem and the central bank of this country still talks in terms of a natural rate of unemployment of 8% or more. Yet, in that situation, the people who are the victims are labelled the architects of their own misery and are told to stand on their feet.
The former legislation offered precious little enough, but I believe that with Bill 142 we are seeing a government begin to grapple with US-style policies of totally abandoning people. We see that in the redefinition of disability, the downloading of single people and large chunks of disabled people to the municipalities, the stepping up of so-called anti-fraud and investigation measures, the toughening up of assets policies, reclaiming earnings, liens on houses and other measures that will ensure that poverty doesn't become a phase in anybody's life but becomes a permanent phenomenon. We are seeing the weakening of the appeal system, the opening of the door to privatization and, lastly and most infamously, task labour as a condition of receiving assistance becoming widespread in the normal form of receiving assistance.
If anybody knows anything about the history of social provision, you're struck by the fact that this new approach is in fact nothing more than a return to the old days in every sense of the term. Moreover, the vagueness contained within the bill, the large numbers of areas in which regulatory powers will settle the matter down the road, means that the process of denying and neglecting people can be refined for years to come.
Whole categories of people might be denied assistance in the future. There's nothing new about it. In reading this bill and the assumptions and measures that underlie it, we're struck by the similarities that could be drawn to not the new century but the last century. When they put together the English Poor Law Reform Commission in 1834, the people who sat on that committee could have sat round this table and nodded their heads in sympathy with the provisions in Bill 142. The comparison is interesting; I don't make it flippantly. In 1834 they were looking for lots of cheap labour for the Industrial Revolution. Today, the cheap labour that's being sought is cannon fodder for the globalized market.
The US Economic Policy Institute talks in terms of the denial of benefits -- aid to families with dependent children -- to one million recipients in the United States as being something that would reduce wages by 12% for the bottom 30% of wage earners in that country. We have long believed in our coalition that regressive measures such as are contained in Bill 142 and the previous 21.6% cut have a lot more to do with cheap labour and desperation than they do with anything regarding the meeting of people's needs.
I'd like to make this final point. About a year ago, when we were on our way, rather fittingly, to a protest at this Legislature, we were going through Allan Gardens and we came across the dead body of one of our homeless members, who had died in that park. Every day when I sit in my office with the other organizers and volunteers and members of this coalition, people come to us because they've been denied benefits, because they can't survive on what they are receiving. It has become routine for us to see people break down and cry. We see the misery that's out there, and we know the misery that is going to be increased by Bill 142.
I don't know how politically astute it is to say this and to do this, but I think we would be insulting the people who have come to us in desperation if we engaged in some polite conversation and fielded your questions about welfare fraud and all the rest of it. We're really not interested in doing that.
I'd just like to close by saying, before we leave, that this last weekend we were in North Bay and it seemed to us about half the city was out calling for the defeat of this government. That's what we're working for. I'd like to say that the people you thought were going to be your helpless victims are going to dance on your political grave, and we'll be there dancing with them.
Interruption.
The Vice-Chair (Mr Dwight Duncan): Order, please. I remind the audience that demonstrations of any type are not permitted in committees of the Legislature.
Mr Kormos: I think they knew that.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Kormos, thank you.
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STEERING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Steering Committee on Social Assistance, Lynn Wheatley, chair, Madelene Reed and Felicite Stairs.
Ms Lynn Wheatley: Felicite Stairs was not able to be here today for personal reasons.
The Vice-Chair: Could you just read your names into the record, please. You have 15 minutes, starting now.
Ms Wheatley: My name is Lynn Wheatley and I'm chair of the Steering Committee on Social Assistance. I'm here with Madelene Reed, who is a member of that committee also. I thank you very much for allowing us to speak today.
The Steering Committee on Social Assistance is a provincial organization of lawyers and community legal workers from community legal clinics across Ontario, all regions, north, east, south, west and Toronto. We advocate on behalf of social assistance recipients. We've been active in social assistance reform issues in Ontario for more than a decade, and our members have decades of combined hands-on experience with the social assistance system here in Ontario.
As has already come out today, this government has already imposed major cutbacks on the most disadvantaged groups in Ontario through a 21.6% cut in social assistance rates and reduced funding to essential health, social and educational services. This government claims that people are not hurting as a result, but we in the legal clinics across Ontario see daily how people are paying the price of cutbacks through homelessness, child poverty and lack of hope.
This Bill 142, which is currently before the Ontario Legislature and will be law by the end of the year, does nothing to solve the current problems of the system. Instead, it sets efforts at progressive social policy back by decades.
We have many criticisms specifically about this bill and we've provided you with a brief. I believe the clerk has it. It's an 80-page brief. I don't want any moans or groans because it is an 80-page brief. It's what you've asked for. It is a reasonable approach. We've looked at the bill, knowing it's going to be law, knowing that you're not going to change your minds about that, but we have looked it over and made reasonable suggestions on how to amend this so it will be a just and fair bill. It's a long brief but it's an important brief, and we've looked very specifically at how the bill can be improved. We've also submitted a two-page statement of concerns, and a lot of that I will bring out today.
We must say, although we have provided this brief and done the work, we do think Bill 142 is fundamentally flawed in its basic assumptions, but on the basis, as I say and you have said, that it's going to be law, we've proposed these recommendations to address the technical problems with the bill which are going to cause injustice and hardship if they are not changed.
Our recommendations will provide a better balance between the government's social assistance system and the rights of the people served by this program. That's what we can't forget: the rights of the people who are served by this program and need this program. We do not believe that any of our recommendations would unduly interfere with or obstruct any reasonable social policy goals of any government. This would be a better piece of legislation if you read and apply our recommendations. We ask you to consider our recommendations carefully, as we have contributed our years of expertise to our recommendations and we believe we have been quite reasonable in our approach.
Before I go any further, I have some general comments to make too. I would like to also comment on something that Frances Lankin has mentioned. We are disappointed by the lack of consultation on this bill. We believe the government has deliberately hampered the process of consultation by combining two important and different acts in one bill. The government has continuously stressed how important it is to separate people on disability from the welfare system -- that's not what we say; that's what the government has said -- yet here we are discussing the Ontario Works Act and the Ontario Disability Support Program Act at the very same hearings, at the very same time, because we're talking about the same bill. Isn't it ironic that in most respects the two systems are still identical? When you look at our brief, we go through section by section, this section on the OWA and this section on the ODSPA; they're the same. That's not what the government said they were going to do. So it's our position that there's certainly not enough time to hear our comments on one bill, let alone two.
Just some general comments: It is our position that Bill 142 is an affront to basic democratic principles. It gives the government unlimited powers over the welfare system. It contains sweeping powers to pass regulations without notice, consultation, public debate or legislative action. No citizen of Ontario has any rights under this bill that cannot be removed by regulation. This is offensive both in substance and process. It's offensive in substance because we do not believe that any government program should give such unrestricted powers to the cabinet or any one minister, especially when people's basic needs are at stake. It is offensive in process because it means that the people of Ontario are being denied the basic democratic right to a full and educated debate on what our most basic social program should look like at a time of great economic upheaval.
We also believe that this bill abandons the value of compassion that we as Canadians believe in. For decades, the most fundamental principle of our social assistance system has been that we would provide at least a bare minimum of assistance to people in need. Bill 142 abandons this principle. Ontario no longer makes any commitment to provide assistance to people in need. The bill allows the government to pass regulations at any time that would cut off whole groups of people: immigrants, single mothers, single employables, anybody. They could just pick a group and they're gone. The government can set time limits for assistance or impose any other restrictions they want without any notice, consultation or debate. Even in the US, where many of these ideas come from, these proposals were the subject of open and vigorous political debate.
This bill also abandons the principle of mutual responsibility between citizens and the state. The government has said that this bill introduces mutual responsibility, where "the recipient has a responsibility to participate in program activities as a condition of eligibility for financial assistance" while the government "has a responsibility to offer employment assistance to the recipient to enable the person to prepare for and obtain employment." This is simply not true. All the responsibilities in Bill 142 are on the individual. There are no corresponding responsibilities on the government. The government has no legal obligation to provide employment assistance. Recipients have no right to such assistance or services no matter how clear their need. There is no right to appeal a refusal of services or the provision of inadequate or inappropriate services.
This whole bill is an attack on the basic rights of citizenship for the poor. As has been already stated, this is nothing more than hate literature in legal language. This bill is deeply rooted in false and offensive stereotypes. The bill says that the needs and interests of people getting welfare are second to the interests of taxpayers, although most welfare recipients had not worked and paid taxes for years.
Poor people are patronized throughout the bill. Welfare workers have unrestricted powers to declare recipients incompetent to handle their own money and to demand endless documentation from recipients, whether or not they are able to produce it. Workers can order people into employment activities regardless of their real needs or whether these activities have any value. None of these decisions will be appealable, no matter how arbitrary or capricious, and the welfare system is notorious for arbitrary decision-making.
For issues that are appealable, the new appeals system is neither fair nor independent. The honourable minister has claimed that there is still a right of appeal, but there is no right of appeal if there is no meaning to that right of appeal. Bill 142 severely curtails the appeal rights of applicants and recipients. Many types of decisions just cannot be appealed, including the decision to pay a portion of a welfare cheque to a landlord for rent, which can result in all kinds of problems if there are issues about legal rent and repair problems.
No decision can be appealed to the tribunal until after an internal review process. The minister has said this will streamline things. It might. It might end up that some decisions are streamlined, but it could also mean there's a process that's lengthy and doesn't accomplish anything, and people end up losing needed income. The new Social Benefits Tribunal will be fettered by government policy and will not be allowed to interpret the law. To cap it off, the government has reserved the power to take away the grounds for appeal that do exist in the bill. There has to be a right to challenge decisions and a right to be heard.
We have specific recommendations about the internal review. We have concerns about the appeals to Divisional Court, which should not be limited to just a question of law alone. In our brief, from pages 50 to 71, we have covered appeals in detail.
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We're concerned about privatization, which has also been addressed today. The government has already started to privatize some welfare services. Bill 142 creates the necessary legal framework for the government to privatize some or all of the welfare system on any terms and conditions the government chooses. Under Bill 142 the Ontario government could sell off welfare to private companies without political debate, public consultation or scrutiny.
We do not believe the people of Ontario are ready to see welfare run for the profit of private companies at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens without full public debate on such a radical shift in public policy.
I want to conclude by saying that there are over one million people on social assistance here in Ontario, including people with disabilities, single parents and hundreds of thousands of children. Bill 142 will do nothing to solve their problems. It is a mean-spirited and punitive initiative. The people of Ontario deserve better.
The Chair: We have about a minute per caucus. We begin with the official opposition.
Mrs Pupatello: I'd like to talk about liens on property. It's a significant move by this government that in essence has changed Ontario's welfare system forcibly into a loans program. What I see about that is, never mind whether people think that's a great thing or not, I view the lien on property as a bar that will prohibit people getting over it when people are in a position of needing assistance, or the process becomes one of divesting oneself of everything before you are eventually forced on to the system. There is about 1% of those who receive assistance -- it's a very low percentage -- who actually own property, which is interesting, that they would make hay with an area that actually affects very few people.
What is your view of the whole liens issue and the fact that it is essentially a loans program, that they are turning this into the possibility of being a loans program?
Ms Wheatley: We have great concerns about imposing liens on people under both acts. We've addressed that in our brief. It is offensive to us to create a loans program for a program that is supposed to help people in need. It could possibly take away the only asset someone has been able to accumulate. For example, if a single mother ends up with the matrimonial home, why should she have a lien on that home when obviously the division of property was based on her getting the matrimonial home? We're very concerned about liens and we don't think they're appropriate for a social assistance system.
If there are going to be liens -- we've also looked at that; the government may not change their minds -- there should be certain restrictions. It should never be on the principal residence. It should be only on the shelter component, not on the whole assistance. When we're trying to give some people help to get back on their feet and we're going to take that money back, it should only be for the shelter component. It should be very restricted. We've listed our restrictions in our brief.
The Chair: Very briefly, the third party, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Thank you kindly. You referred to the privatization issue, and others have. I just noticed an article in Harper's magazine of August of this year. It's titled "Spinning the Poor into Gold -- How the Corporations Seek to Profit from Welfare Reform". It speaks of a major conference that was held at the Park Hyatt, one of those $300-a-night or $400-a-night hotels in Washington. Participation cost you $1,300. Andersen Consulting, a good friend of this government, an American corporation, spoke of "surfing the privatization wave as it sweeps the world."
I should just issue this as a warning: It seems there's going to be all sorts of money gleaned from things like Bill 142 and the privatization component. The problem is that it's going to be pocketed in the tune of, I'm sure, millions and millions of dollars by corporations like Andersen Consulting, and it's going to be stolen from the poorest among us. If that isn't a crime, I don't know what is.
The Chair: For the Conservative caucus, Mr Carroll.
Mr Carroll: Quickly, the policy intent on liens on ODSP is that they would not under any circumstances apply to a principal residence. We've stated that, okay? The policy intent under Ontario Works is that if there was a long period of a person being on Ontario Works, possibly consideration could be given to a lien on a principal residence, say 12 months. How would you react to those kinds of policy intents?
Ms Wheatley: First of all, if it is your intent not to place a lien on a principal residence, we suggest strongly that it be put in the legislation. Why isn't it in the legislation if that's your intent? The second thing is that if someone's on for 12 months, that's a long period of time on welfare. It could be 12 months. Most people are on for shorter periods of time than that; still, they've just been beaten down and beaten down. They've lost their job. They've had bills up to here. They've been beaten down and the lien is just one more whack of the stick to beat them down even further. If they have any equity in their home, and the government is going to grab it, the people who are on the system are trying to get their families back into the mainstream, if you will, the mainstream of the financial classes, and that is not what this system is for.
The Chair: Thanks very much for coming here. I appreciate your being here.
Mrs Pupatello: I have a question to the ministry for information, by tomorrow if possible. Are there currently amendments prepared by the government on this bill that we're not aware of, such as the liens not being relevant to the principal residence? Number two, in the comments the parliamentary assistant made earlier in reference to the special classes of people, he indicated that one example of those special classes could be incarcerated individuals. Could you have a ministry response for me that indicates what would happen to the dependent of the individual being incarcerated, if that is going to be one of the classes of people?
Mr Carroll: No problem. We will get back to you by tomorrow with answers.
AIDS COMMITTEE OF TORONTO
The Chair: Could I call upon the Aids Committee of Toronto to come forward. Welcome to our hearings.
Ms Joan Anderson: Thank you, my name is Joan Anderson. I'm with the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Together we're all members of the HIV/AIDS Community Ad Hoc Committee on the Definition of Disability. We've made the brief this coalition did available to you. However, we're not going to read it to you. We want to highlight some key points and you have the brief as an opportunity, as a reference point, after our presentation.
Mr Matthew Perry: My name is Matthew Perry. I'm the community legal worker at the HIV and AIDS Legal Clinic (Ontario).
Mr Mark Freamo: My name is Mark Freamo. I'm the executive director of the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation.
Ms Anderson: There is one section that is not in the brief that we want to open up with and that is our comment on the Ontario Works part of the act. We want to focus in just for a moment on the Ontario Works portion of the act.
We are also all members of the Ontario AIDS Network, which has a policy of non-support and non-participation for workfare, the community participation as the government defines it. Essentially we oppose this part of Ontario Works because it's contrary to health promotion and voluntarism. We believe welfare recipients should be allowed to do volunteer work with community agencies on the same terms and conditions as any other member of the community.
We believe workfare is a demeaning, punitive approach to people on social assistance. It is regressive. It is simply forced, menial work. It does not provide training or skill development. It does nothing to challenge the stigmitization of people on social assistance, but rather further perpetuates the stigma. We are all health organizations and we know very clearly the links between poverty and disease, and the vulnerability that is created for the poor in terms of health issues. This government is not recognizing the links that are very important in terms of poverty and health promotion.
If our organizations became participants in workfare it would place us in an untenable position of power with clients and volunteers who are also welfare recipients. If problems arose it would be our responsibility to report people to the government and their benefits would be cut. We simply cannot participate in this kind of a system. As you heard earlier, there are also now police powers in this legislation. All of these issues make it impossible for us to support and participate in this program.
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We would also like to emphasize another point that's been made here today, that we do not support a distinction between people who need income support for being disabled or people who need income support for other reasons. We do not believe people who need income support should be separated into the deserving and the undeserving.
We'd like to move into the part of the bill specifically on disability and the definition of "disability." We were very pleased today to hear the minister indicate that there is confusion about the language in the bill and that some parts of the bill are clearly not saying what she intended the bill to say.
At one point -- I think this is absolutely critical in the whole area of the definition -- the definition talks about there needs to be restrictions in daily living activities in three spheres of life: personal care and the workplace and in the community. We believe that a restriction in one area of activity should be sufficient. The minister today was agreeing with our position and we're very greatly relieved and pleased at that.
She also commented that if the language wasn't clear, it would be changed. We emphatically state it is not clear. It must be changed. It must be changed from "and" to "or," so that this aspect is very clear. Otherwise many people with HIV and other chronic illnesses will be taken off disability benefits.
I'd like to pass over now to my colleagues to talk about other areas of the bill that we have a lot of concerns about.
Mr Freamo: My name is Mark Freamo, as I mentioned earlier. I'm from the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation. We're a social services organization and over 90% of our clients are people who rely on social assistance to meet their daily needs. This legislation has potentially a large impact on them and a large impact on us, in that they rely on us to manoeuvre their way through the system. It also has a larger implication on the HIV and AIDS community sector in general in that there's a significant public health policy impact entailed in this legislation.
I've decided today to speak on two issues specifically. The first concerns the addiction exception and the second concerns appeal rights.
The addiction exception has already been read out twice here today, once by Sandra Pupatello and the second time by Dr Perry Kendall, so I won't read it again. I take it everybody is familiar with it. Quite frankly, especially in view of the increasing epidemic of HIV infection in the injection drug use community, we see this section of the legislation as a public health catastrophe akin in nature and scope to and potentially exceeding that of the tainted blood scandal of the 1980s. Blood will be on the hands of the government that passes legislation which includes this exception.
Apart from the human rights legislation and court decisions which prohibit discrimination against any particular category of disabled people and which have consistently viewed those addictions as disabilities, the government's rationale here must be seriously examined. The government has argued, when we've asked it to justify the exception, that some US studies have demonstrated that disability income support causes addicts to remain addicted and avoid treatment for longer periods of time. What we have to ask here, though, is whether this is really the point. Public health strategy now views harm reduction rather than abstinence-based analysis as key to serving the public interest in preventing HIV infection in the injection drug use community.
The Canadian Public Health Association's national action plan on HIV, AIDS and injection drug use, drafted to respond to an emerging crisis which potentially affects 30,000 Ontarians directly, based on Ministry of Health IDU population estimates which I have here -- Perry Kendall didn't have statistics earlier but I have the report here -- notes that discrimination and marginalization are key components in promoting HIV infection in this population at risk.
The Canadian Public Health Association, a mainstream and generally conservative organization, bluntly states in its action plan that abstinence is not always a realistic or feasible short-term goal for the individual using currently illegal drugs, and that in the interests of public health, alternative methods must be considered.
Bill 142 is catastrophically and potentially fatally out of step with state-of-the-art analysis in this area. The Canadian Public Health Association document is also available and this committee can have it if it wishes.
Further, the government appears not to be concerned about the corollary impacts of marginalizing an entire population at risk. It may be able to sell its own brand of revulsion to the general public regarding substance users, but what about the sexual partners and their children infected by contact with injection drug users? They will lie at the doorstep of officials who promote this policy, and the culpability of those officials will be as obvious as was the case in the tainted blood scandal. You have the choice here to avoid this tragic outcome to the degree that you do not have to encourage it and you can remove the exception from the legislation. In our opinion, neither moral prejudice nor ideology justifies murder.
We are adamantly opposed to the appeal provisions outlined in Bill 142. We feel that appeal rights for social assistance applicants and recipients are being reduced so drastically as to render those rights meaningless. Essentially we have two general concerns.
First, ministry policy will supersede the law under the new appeal system. Under the Social Assistance Review Board structure which currently exists, ministry policy which directs decision outcomes for applicants and recipients can be challenged at SARB based on the act and its regulations. The new system, which allows an appeals tribunal only the authority to interpret decisions in relation to ministry policy, will force appellants into litigation to seek redress relating to violations or interpretations of the act and/or its regulations.
Given the lack of resources available to most social assistance recipients and applicants, and the time entailed in litigated solutions, the proposed legislation constitutes a denial of fundamental justice. This is more odious in the case of disabled persons in that the government has stated it would do nothing to harm their interests. This will clearly be a lie once Bill 142 is enacted.
Second, the appeal system which exists in the new legislation designates an entire range of administrative decisions unappealable and it prescribes this restriction for residual matters not specifically addressed in legislation.
Appeals may be cumbersome and costly as far as administering social assistance is concerned, and we heard about the time element earlier and, inferentially, the cost element, but we have to ask whether society's most vulnerable members should be asked to forfeit their rights, especially when the rest of us would ask that our rights be upheld at all times. We don't think cost should be an issue as far as the ability of the government and the ability of this Legislature to uphold basic concepts like justice and democracy is concerned.
Mr Perry: What is clear from the appeals process as proposed in Bill 142 is that the most vulnerable individuals in our society stand to lose even more of their basic rights. I want to present to you today three examples of the way in which the proposed appeals process is a fundamental breach of those rights.
Talking about the internal review process, as it stands now the right to appeal a decision about the amount of or one's eligibility for assistance is too easily lost. Bill 142 says that no individual has the right to appeal a decision unless an internal review of the ministry's decision is first requested and carried out. The legislation, however, provides no framework for the carrying out of the internal review process. Time limits for requesting an internal review, as well as the time frame for completion of the internal review, are left to regulation and are therefore both unknown to us and subject to change without notice or public consultation. There is no right to appeal a decision once the time limit for requesting an internal review has expired and no review was requested. There is no mechanism for seeking an extension of the time limit for requesting an internal review.
Bill 142 contains no requirement on the part of the ministry to have benefits continue during the internal review process and the ministry is not required to notify you of any of its decisions during or after the internal review process. If the ministry simply never completes its internal review, you have no remedy and you never get the right to appeal to the tribunal because the internal review has not been completed.
Let me show you how the appeals system as proposed in Bill 142 would work in real life for someone with HIV or AIDS. Imagine you go into hospital with a bout of pneumonia, and while there or on the day you go in, receive a notice that you have been cut off benefits for failing to provide a rent receipt. While you are in the hospital being treated and recovering, the time frame for requesting an internal revenue is passing or has elapsed. Failing to request the internal review has caused you to lose all right to appeal the original decision to cut you off and that decision becomes final.
Your only recourse at this point would be to go to court to force the ministry to start the internal review process. Remember, though, that while you are doing all this, there is nothing which guarantees you will continue to receive benefits, so you will have been without any income support for that entire period.
But that's not all. Imagine, in the same scenario, that you do get the notice and you do request the internal revue within the time limit. Bill 142 does not require the ministry to notify you of any of its decisions in the internal review process. They may decide the original decision was correct, but without any notification, how would you know to request an appeal? Once you miss the deadline for appealing the internal review, you lose all right to appeal that decision.
This legislation, and not the regulations, must include the requirement on the part of the ministry to notify individuals of any decisions it makes during the internal review process. The legislation, and not the regulations, must include the time limit for requesting an interval review, for the completion of the internal review, and a legal remedy for individuals whose internal reviews are not completed within the time limit. The legislation should also not include an open-ended list of items which are not appealable.
Minister Ecker speaks of the disability support plan as promoting and ensuring personal control, choice and effectiveness. These were the words she used this afternoon. In the Ontario disability support program no appeal lies to the tribunal with respect to a decision to appoint a person to act on behalf of a recipient. The fact that appeal rights are listed in Bill 142 in the negative is evidence of how deeply problematic they are. Denying individuals the right to appeal the appointment of a trustee or direct payment of benefits to a third party is completely unacceptable. We already see abuses arising out of powers of attorney. Bill 142 sets up the possibility for such abuses, but provides no legal remedy.
Imagine a man living with HIV or AIDS in a same-sex relationship who lives with his partner. The ministry appoints his parents as trustees because they feel he is not managing his benefits appropriately. His parents have never approved of their son's sexual orientation or his choice of partner. As trustees who are not, according to Bill 142, accountable to their son, they stop paying his share of the rent, resulting in his eviction. Because they control his finances, his parents can dictate where their son will live. His partner, meanwhile, has lost his home and lost his partner. The son has absolutely no legal recourse because he has no right to appeal the appointment of his parents as trustees. The potential for this kind of abuse is not insignificant within our community, where a majority of individuals currently living with HIV/AIDS in Ontario are gay men.
No appeal lies to the tribunal with respect to a decision to provide a portion of income support directly to a third party. Take the example of the individual who lives in an apartment where a toilet runs constantly. The ministry has decided to pay your rent directly to the landlord. After complaining to the landlord about the problem, he tells you to fix it yourself. But you can't use a portion of your rent to fix the running toilet because it's being paid directly. The landlord gets his rent and you lose the right to withhold your rent for disrepair.
The examples I have listed above are common to those in the HIV/AIDS community. Individuals with HIV/AIDS are already stigmatized within our society. Poor people with HIV/AIDS face a double burden. To force these people to ensure their right to appeal decisions made about their income support through the courts is to guarantee hardship, stress and resulting ill health. I ask, does this government want that responsibility?
Finally, I would like to take a moment to address the issue of those individuals who will be transferred on to the new legislation when it comes into effect.
We have been told that individuals with HIV, and all people currently receiving benefits, will be transferred on and those with HIV will not reassessed in the future. We need to see that promise carried through. We take the position that if individuals who are currently in receipt of benefits are to be grandfathered on to the new legislation, there should be a guarantee, should they become subject to reassessment after the enactment of Bill 142, that they be reassessed under the eligibility criteria through which they were originally deemed eligible. To do otherwise would change the rules of the game in midstream and have a serious effect on individuals' abilities to maintain stability in their lives.
I would like to remind you that I am before you as a representative of the HIV/AIDS community. In no way, however, do I or any of us here wish to convey that the difficulties and problems we have outlined in Bill 142 today are exclusive to this population. The drastic changes to the appeals process would have a devastating effect on every individual who comes into or who may come into contact with this legislation.
The Chair: Thank you all very much for coming here today. On behalf of the committee, we're very grateful.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are recessed until 6:30.
The committee recessed from 1755 to 1831.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. For those of you who are joining us for the first time, I want to review briefly that we are operating under a time allocation motion of the government. In concurrence with the House leaders, we are meeting in Toronto today and tomorrow from 3:30 to 6 and from 6:30 to 9:30. To accommodate as many people as possible, we have a time limit of 15 minutes per presenter.
DAILY BREAD FOOD BANK
The Chair: I call upon the Daily Bread Food Bank. Welcome, Ms Cox. I'll ask you for the record to introduce your fellow presenters.
Ms Susan Cox: But we can have a minute to gather the flock around us, right?
The Chair: Absolutely.
Mr Kormos: Chair, there's already a quorum call in the House, and they expect to sit till midnight four days next week? How are they ever going to keep a quorum next week?
The Chair: That's out of consideration for this committee, Mr Kormos. Thank you for bringing it to our attention, though.
Mr Kormos: Chair, if I may, the quorum problem is not just in the Legislature.
The Chair: There are five of us. Mr Cullen is substituting for Mr --
Mr Kormos: But if Mr Cullen has to leave for a phone call, we'll lose quorum.
The Chair: For the moment we have quorum, Mr Kormos. I appreciate that it's the opposition that is maintaining quorum at the moment. Ms Cox?
Ms Cox: It certainly is disappointing not to have many members of the government here, since it's to them that my remarks are addressed. But I do welcome the opportunity to be here and I'm sure they'll take the opportunity to read our brief.
First of all, let me introduce who is here. I'm Sue Cox, the executive director of the Daily Bread Food Bank. Beth Brown is one of our researchers, Alexandra Humphrey is a board member at Daily Bread Food Bank and George Panagapka is a volunteer at the food bank, particularly working in our drop-in centre.
There are lots of things in this bill that we find upsetting that we can't go into because of time constraints, although some of them are outlined in the brief. I think it's fair to say that we have an overarching concern about this bill, which is that it drastically changes the nature of welfare, in the way we give help to our neighbours in the province of Ontario. I don't think we should even talk about welfare, the unemployed and victims of family breakdown any more. I think we've kind of reinstituted the workhouse right now, even if we don't actually have a building to put it in.
One of the really startling examples of this is in the relationship between income support and loans. Let me turn to Beth now to talk more about that.
Ms Beth Brown: Having read the 86 pages of legislation, I would like to highlight a key piece that worried us particularly. The new legislation allows welfare to be considered a loan. There is a specific clause within the legislation called "assignment of expected income." As many of you are aware, this is a concern we have about people having a debt load after they leave social assistance.
With this assignment that people would be forced to sign before becoming eligible for welfare, we envision that they could leave welfare by getting a job and then be forced to pay back any assistance they received to the province as they're working and suffer quite a severe level of poverty because of a debt they owe the provincial government, ultimately a debt that may put them back into poverty and back into a food bank. We are very opposed to that piece of the legislation, which is quite explicit about expected income. We don't know what "expected income" will be in the long term, with the regulations, but the way it's worded in the legislation it leaves us little doubt that welfare is now a loan.
Ms Cox: We've been worried for some time about people with disabilities, and we've spoken out about this before. People who have disabilities who are on the family benefits plan are a small percentage of food bank users because FBA benefits are normally adequate enough to have people avoid having to go to a food bank for extra help.
We do appreciate in this bill the fact that it will make it easier for people with disabilities to work. We think that's a plus. We also appreciate the fact that those who are on FBA and are disabled will be grandfathered, but we see in the future, with the redefinition of "disability," that a lot of folks are going to end up in food banks as a result. We're talking particularly about the classification we call permanently unemployable, with serve constraints to employment but without a severe disability. In future they will not be able to get on to family benefits.
Six per cent of food bank users who are on general welfare classify themselves as disabled right now; they are never going to be able to get on to the family benefits plan. As more people become disabled and enter into the Ontario Works program, they're never going to get out of it and on to disability, so they're never going to get that adequate income.
We're also concerned about people with addictions who are no longer defined as disabled, yet for a lot of them it's the ability to be on family benefits and have adequate support that has enabled them to overcome their addictions and get out of that situation. We think this is a very shortsighted policy. I'd like you to meet one of the people who falls into that category. That's George, who is here at my left.
Mr George Panagapka: I'm George Panagapka. I'm 40 years of age. Until recently, I had used drugs and alcohol for 25 years. As a result of that, I've ended up on welfare and eventually on FBA the last couple of years.
On November 8, 1996, I had my last drug and my last drink. Essentially, since then I have rebuilt my life. I work two afternoons a week at the Daily Bread Food Bank at a drop-in there; I run a drop-in. I want to stress that I am a volunteer. I'm also a volunteer at Parkdale Community Health Centre. I work with the street health program there. The fact that I'm here is a result of that program. I also volunteer on other homeless- and addiction related-issues throughout the city.
The goal I have in my life right now is to go back to school next September. I want to become a community worker so I can do this kind of work and get off welfare and become a contributing member of society. But I have to ask myself, how does this legislation affect me and how does it affect my plans? What incentives will I have to become again a contributing member of society? What incentives do the people who are where I was at a year ago have under this new legislation?
Finally, I'd like to point out that this legislation will have a drastic effect on people with alcohol and drug addictions.
Ms Cox: Let me turn you over to Beth again to talk about workfare.
Ms Brown: There are many things we could say about workfare. I'm sure it's been noted on the public record that the Daily Bread Food Bank is opposed to workfare and we really don't like the assumptions underpinning workfare at all. We'd like to point out a few assumptions that people have in the world about food bank users, particularly those on social assistance, that are perhaps erroneous -- in fact, we believe they are -- that underpin some of the ideas around workfare.
We find that 56% of the respondents who answered our annual survey last year had never received welfare in the past. Most importantly, the majority of the people receiving food assistance and social assistance have only been on the system for less than 18 months. So it's not this profound poverty that people seem to think is a cyclical system. It doesn't seem to manifest itself that way in Canada. It does in the United States, but not here yet.
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The majority of the children in our 1997 survey were not newborns, were not born of parents who wanted to stay on the system so had a child. The average age is between 5 and 12. They are mostly families who have suffered either unemployment or family breakdown. Those are the people we're seeing in our food banks and those are the children who are suffering child poverty, and those are the people we are hoping will not be further impacted by workfare. Unfortunately, the legislation doesn't seem to support that.
We would really like you to know, most importantly, a bit about their situation and what it means to be a single parent with children. To further your information on that, I'd like to pass it over to Alexandra Humphrey, who is a volunteer and a single mother.
Ms Alexandra Humphrey: Good evening, Madam Chairperson, members of Parliament. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to come here and address you this evening. I am a single parent of six children. Four years ago, as a result of a divorce, I became the sole-support parent for my children. At that time I determined that I needed to have additional upgrading of my skills to be able to access a job that will give me enough income to support my family. I entered post-secondary education; I went to university. It was a struggle during those four years, particularly during the last year with the many changes that came down, almost every one of which impacted me personally. Right now, I do have full-time employment.
When I look at this bill, I wonder how a person like me will be able to upgrade and access a job, through the types of changes being put forward in this bill. People like me need to be supported, not punished. Many of these changes will mean that someone like me will remain in poverty for the remainder of her life. It's an issue that needs to be looked at very seriously.
Ms Brown: In particular, to pick up on Alexandra's point, if you're going to implement workfare fully, we would really like that single parents are exempt from the employment requirements, particularly parents with children under school age or children with special needs.
Ms Cox: We're running out of time, but a few other things we'd like to touch on. We wonder why the bill wants to punish older workers, the 60- to 64-year-olds. I'm almost there myself. Right now they are only 4% of food bank users. Their opportunities to work are limited. They suffer discrimination in the workplace. Their health is poorer. Please let them stay on family benefits so they can enjoy at least some level of dignity as they are getting older.
Ms Brown: I'd like to quickly touch on one last piece of the legislation that bothers me as a Canadian and as an Ontarian. We always assume in Canada that if you're of sane mind you have control over your own affairs. The new legislation allows the government and the welfare worker or the Ontario disability support program director to appoint an informal trustee that can manage a recipient's affairs. That is only if the worker thinks the person is going to misuse or is likely to misuse their benefits. In other words, if the worker thinks the person is going to spend their cheque inappropriately, they can appoint an informal trustee.
That informal trustee could be a landlord, it could be a sister who doesn't like you, it could be a service provider. It could be anyone the welfare worker deems is appropriate. That decision to appoint the trustee is not appealable and the decisions of the trustee are not appealable. If we can look at something that we as Canadians would really not like to be in the bill, that would be a piece that we'd hope would be removed.
Ms Cox: Finally, all of these things, including that one, are no longer as appealable as they once were. The right to appeal is severely curtailed in this bill. You can only appeal, basically, if the welfare office lets you do so. I think this is an affront. Most of us are used to being able to appeal anything from our Sears bill to a parking ticket in our society, but that right is removed. Our final recommendation is that there be no reduction in access to the ability to appeal; in other words, that that stay the same as it is right now.
I'd like to stop right now and see if there are questions. I did okay.
The Chair: You did very well. We have less than a minute per caucus, so if we can limit it to one very brief question, we'll start with the third party.
Ms Cox: No, we started five minutes late, Madam Chair. I hate to be pushy, but --
The Chair: That's okay. The three caucuses have a tendency to run on.
Mr Kormos: I was just earlier today referring to the cut in assistance that happened in October 1995. I saw that a single parent and a child under 12 receive are eligible for a maximum of $957: $511 for rent, shelter allowance; $446 for everything else. Can you tell us what that budget means to a single mom with a 10- or 11-year-old child in Toronto?
Ms Cox: Do you want to talk about that, Alexandra, from your perspective, or would you rather we did?
Ms Humphrey: This is something that I was referring to with regard to hardships coming upon me in the last year particularly. As a result of those cuts, I've had to do a lot of things I never thought I would have to do to be able to feed my children. One of them was to accept leftover food from the child care centre my children went to in order to have enough food for them to eat for the month on the type of money I had to live on throughout my education.
I can't see how anybody can live on that kind of money. My rent is $1,100, and I couldn't get anything less than that. It has been a tremendous hardship, on top of being a single parent and having to do all the work to upgrade myself to be able to get a better job.
Mr Carroll: Just a quick comment on the welfare-as-a-loan issue. I understand your concern with that and I appreciate your concern. The intent of the bill that has been stated and that I will reiterate today is that the government should have the right to ask somebody who is expecting income from another source, such as CPP or a pension or an accident or a settlement -- they should expect those people to agree to an assignment so that when their award or whatever does come through, if it covers the same period of time for which they received social assistance, they would in fact pay that money back to the taxpayers. That's the intent of the legislation. That does not make Ontario Works a loan program and it is not our intention.
Mrs Pupatello: If the Conservative members are going to continue to put that forward, I suggest they forward an amendment so the intent is actually written into the law we are debating, because it certainly isn't like that to date.
I would like to ask Alexandra what you would tell Simon Kahn, who spoke to us this afternoon. He said this is your responsibility for being in the shape you're in right now. He said he's been in hardship before and he refused to go on the system. Frankly, I found him pretty offensive, because he gave everyone the impression that it's really your fault that you are where you are. What would you tell Mr Khan?
Ms Humphrey: It's difficult to respond to something like that. It isn't my fault, and it's not people's fault when they have needs. In this society, in Canada, we are neighbours to the people who are in need and we help the people who are in need. We don't kick them and slam them into the ground with policies that are seemingly designed to keep them down below.
I just can't describe the hardship it is to be a single parent and to have to live on that kind of income, it becoming less and all the other supports being taken away. It's not possible for a single parent or any person to upgrade themselves to be able to get a job when all those things are happening at the same time, things that tear away at support.
The Chair: Thank you very much to all of you for coming, particularly to Mrs Humphrey and Mr Panagapka for sharing your stories with us.
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ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
The Chair: I call the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Ms Casselman. Welcome to our committee. We're pleased to have you here. You have 15 minutes.
Ms Leah Casselman: I've come in out of the rainstorm. Mother Nature is celebrating our victory on 136 with us tonight.
The Chair: We're anxious to hear you on Bill 142 as well.
Ms Casselman: We'll hope for a victory there as well.
I'm pleased to be here today to present our views on this piece of legislation the government has brought forward. I come with a warning to the government -- surprise. You are about to make one of the most costly policy mistakes of your tenure. Even your friends and allies think you're wrong on this one.
OPSEU represents 1,900 income maintenance officers, support staff and service specialists who work on the front lines of Ontario's social assistance system. They of course are not the ones who make the policy; they are merely the ones who have to implement it.
We are the professionals who deliver the family benefits assistance program to more than 250,000 households across the province. Among other things, we determine eligibility and are responsible for the day-to-day caseload management of the program. As you can see, we are in a unique position to comment on Bill 142, the Social Assistance Reform Act.
To put it bluntly, Bill 142, with its creation of the Ontario Works Act and the Ontario Disability Support Program Act, has all the makings of a social policy disaster. It's a disaster for the poor who want good-paying jobs but instead will be transformed into an army of cheap labour. It's a disaster for the rest of us, who could see our paying jobs being replaced by work-for-welfare. After all, given the choice, wouldn't an employer prefer to hire a welfare recipient at miserly wages over workers covered by a collective agreement? Last, it is a disaster for the communities that will now be expected to contribute 20% towards the cost of welfare benefits and 50% of the delivery costs.
In the meantime, the expertise of those who work in the system may be lost. Cash-strapped municipalities feeling the squeeze may opt to privatize their social assistance system. Bill 142 allows them to do that, putting the quality of our services at risk and threatening the livelihoods of 1,900 public sector workers, dedicated professionals who contribute to their communities' economies all across the province.
I'll expand on these themes in my remarks today. Our brief is a more detailed critical analysis of specific sections of the legislation.
Bill 142 creates the Ontario Works Act, legally mandating workfare for 100,000 sole-support parents in this province. I'm sure the committee will hear from many knowledgeable critiques of workfare, so I will limit my comments to the following.
Workfare doesn't work. Making people work for measly welfare payments will not solve the ever-growing caseloads of social assistance recipients. It's simple really: There aren't enough decent-paying jobs to go around. With an unemployment rate of 8.2% in Ontario, the demand for work far exceeds the supply. If the government were really interested in reducing the social assistance caseload, it would pursue a job creation strategy, giving people the opportunity to contribute to their community without demeaning them in the process.
Workfare replaces paying jobs. Not only does workfare not work for people on social assistance, it's a threat to the rest of us. Experience shows us that workfare programs do not create new jobs; they replace existing ones.
For example, the Alberta community employment program, ACE -- Klein must have thought up that name -- provides jobs for people on welfare at $6 an hour. In early 1996 the Red Deer hospital laid off full-time permanent workers and replaced them with inexperienced and inadequately paid ACE workers.
In the province of Quebec, more than 50% of participating companies admitted that they would have hired people at full wages if not for the provincial employability programs. McDonalds, Canadian Tire, Harvey's, Dunkin Donuts and Zellers are just some of the companies that benefited from workfare labour.
In New York, close to New Jersey, where Mr Harris's idol comes from, the figures are even more devastating. In a state where 22,000 public sector workers have lost their jobs, 35,000 social assistance recipients have replaced them. That's 22,000 decent-paying jobs, putting cash into the local economy, being slashed in favour of jobs that pay recipients -- this is American money, so you'll have to convert -- $1.80 an hour. How much business is a local grocer or a local hardware store going to get from that tiny amount of money? Not a whole lot, I'm pretty sure.
We regard workfare as an attempt to lower wages and to lower the standards of work in the public sector. Rest assured that OPSEU members will not stand by as our collective agreements are circumvented by near-slave labour.
Let's make one point very clear, though: People are not social assistance recipients by nature, but workers without jobs. Wouldn't it make more sense to find them long-term, decent-paying jobs so they can be contributing members to the community once again? It's the community that's the loser in all of this.
Bill 142 offloads social assistance to the municipalities, shifting the cost to the property tax base and in the process creating 50 new bureaucracies. Does this new system sound like it will eliminate overlap, waste and duplication, as the government claims? It sure doesn't to me or to the 1,900 OPSEU members who work in the system now. If anything, it will create more of a tangled mess, especially since the experts all agree that helping communities cope with poverty is a job for the entire province. When communities lose jobs, social assistance costs go up just as the property tax base is going down. Pooling the risk makes the most sense. We would agree with Minister Leach -- although he needs to expand his horizons beyond the GTA -- that pooling across the province is what works.
Paying for social assistance out of the property tax base does not work. Even the government's friends and allies think it's making a big mistake. They've all made the point that I'm about to make to you again: Social assistance is about redistributing income, not servicing poverty.
The end result of this downloading disaster will be a patchwork of fragmented services. Some places will have better benefits, some will have worse benefits and some will have no programs at all. Poor people will suffer and so will the municipal ratepayers.
The social assistance selloff: The only winners in this mean-spirited, regressive legislation are private contractors. Bill 142 opens the door for the privatization of the system, whereby our social services are handed on a silver platter to private companies, treating our vulnerable citizens as if they were pawns in a corporate world. This invitation to privatization may be too much to resist for cash-strapped municipalities anxious to avoid rising taxes to pay for increased social assistance costs.
The provincial government has already started to sell off by hiring a US-based firm, Andersen Consulting. This company, one of the world's biggest corporate consultants, could make as much as $180 million over the next six years for advising the government on how to cut costs in the management of welfare. As an aside, though, they were fired by a couple of other provinces for being quite incompetent, but it seems Ontario hired them anyway.
Could the Texas solution be too far behind? In Texas, Andersen Consulting competed with Electronic Data Systems and Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defence contractor, for a five-year contract to run the state's entire welfare system. Do we really want to leave our vulnerable citizens to the mercy of private companies whose sole interest is making a profit off their need?
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The expertise of OPSEU members is lost. Just when their expertise is needed the most, the 1,900 OPSEU members responsible for delivering welfare in the province face being laid off by municipalities anxious to cut costs. Under the Conservative government's regressive labour law, Bill 7, these employees will have no union and no collective agreement when they are downloaded. Bill 136 continues the government's attack on public sector workers by treating them as non-union employees. Now AMO officials are complaining about being forced to hire OPSEU members.
We are putting the government on notice that we will expect the province to live up to its reasonable efforts, which we negotiated after that five-week strike last year. You have obligations under the OPS collective agreement, which I know Mr Johnson is painfully aware of. This requires the government to find employment for OPSEU members whose work is transferred out of the public service. This employment must have wages and terms of conditions of work as similar as possible to those in the Ontario public service.
The government has already been ordered by an independent arbitrator to live up to the agreement and we demand to know what the government is going to do to ensure that OPSEU members have jobs with the municipalities. We will keep pressing the government on this point until we receive assurances that our members' expertise won't be lost when the downloading goes ahead.
Provincial delivery is best. OPSEU has a solution for the government: Scrap Bill 142 and replace it with a single-tier social assistance system that is provincially funded and administered. After all, that's how every other province does it. Why? Because they recognize that an integrated welfare system is the best way to ensure an efficient and accountable system. For over a decade now, OPSEU has been advocating for such a system. Funding it through income tax and having it administered and delivered provincially makes a lot more sense than setting up 50 new bureaucracies on the backs of the municipal ratepayers, who can't afford them.
Before I conclude my remarks I want to say a few words about the other piece of legislation created by Bill 142, the Ontario Disabilities Support Program Act. OPSEU is concerned, as are advocates for people with disabilities, that the narrower definition of disability outlined in the ODSPA will deny some disabled people from accessing the income support they need.
We are also concerned about the termination of vocational rehabilitation services. OPSEU represents 150 counsellors and support staff who work in this program. Your committee will hear from them later this evening, so let me just say at this time that we are concerned that the elimination of this program will make it harder for people with disabilities to receive high-quality supports, if any at all. Replacing VRS with private service providers threatens the quality and accessibility of these very important programs.
In conclusion, let me say that OPSEU doesn't normally have much in common with business groups like the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Trade, but when board of trade president George Fierheller said that the downloading of social assistance was "not logical, not sensible, not reasonable," we think he hit the nail right on the head.
Bill 142 is not logical, not sensible and not reasonable, for the very reasons I have outlined above. Forcing people into short-term jobs with few meaningful career opportunities won't lower social assistance caseloads. Making municipalities pay for the whole new bureaucracy out of their property tax base won't eliminate waste or duplication. Threatening the jobs of the people who have the most expertise in the system won't make the transition any easier. I urge the government members of this committee to rethink the bill.
The Chair: You've all but exhausted your time. We thank you very much for making the presentation to our committee.
ONTARIO COUNCIL OF ALTERNATIVE BUSINESSES
The Chair: I call upon the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses, Diana Capponi. Thank you for being here. You have 15 minutes for your presentation. If there's any time left over, we'll ask you some questions.
Ms Diana Capponi: Thank you. I guess I'm supposed to thank this committee for having me here to speak; I don't know what the protocol is. My name is Diana Capponi. I'm with the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses. I'm a psychiatric survivor, otherwise known as a crazy person, or a consumer-survivor of mental health services.
I came here to talk specifically about the Ontario Disabilities Support Program Act, which is in schedule B, and the employment supports programs proposed. I need to say on behalf of a lot of the folks that I represent that we do not, as an organization, support the Ontario Works Act, but I think there's going to be enough people here talking to you about that. We're going to focus on the employment supports program.
Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses is an organization that has been in existence for approximately four years. We represent a number of community businesses that are owned and operated by other crazy people like myself, psychiatric survivors. There will be someone speaking to you later tonight from A-WAY Express Courier Service. We have businesses right across the province that employ and are driven by psychiatric survivors that have absolutely no involvement by the vocational rehabilitation system. In fact, we exist and our businesses exist largely because of an impatience and a frustration with the lack of employment opportunities that were provided to my community through these organizations. We believe that the voc rehab system fundamentally supports and employs professional service providers and leads to very few jobs for our community.
It's important to understand that once you have a psychiatric label, once you're deemed a schizophrenic or a manic-depressive or a borderline personality disorder, very few people think you can or will ever work. Very few people think you have anything left to offer the community. It's one of the few medical labels that you can have that just about destroys your life and makes your identity strictly that illness or that perceived illness or disease.
I was in Thunder Bay last week. There were 18 consumer-survivors in the room, and I asked how many of them had been through the employment support program's voc rehab system. Every person put up their hand. I asked again, "How many of you ended up with a job at the end of your involvement in this particular program?" There were no hands raised. This was a typical scenario in my community.
The Ontario council believes that everybody has skills, everyone wants to work, everyone can work. The work should be real and we should pay people appropriately for their work.
The council is right now, in the city of Toronto, developing three new initiatives. One of them includes a 70-seat restaurant on Queen Street West called the Raging Spoon Café. We have also developed a new cleaning business, New Look Cleaning. The businesses across the province at present employ about 500 people who have been deemed permanently unemployable, people who have been written off. We understand that we are not even considered part of the labour force. When you hear the unemployment stats in the province of Ontario or nationally, they don't include our community. Through our businesses, through our delivering of goods and services, we have demonstrated that not only can we produce, not only can we work, we can also build our community through the businesses we develop. We also run our businesses and manage them.
Voc rehab system, as it stands today, is a system that has basically told my community what we can't do. It has not encouraged us to go out and do things for ourselves. Basically, the assessments and the counselling have been ways through which our community has been kept down. Many psychiatric survivors can attest that they've been told not to go to school, told not to pursue work, that all this may be too stressful, that they need to focus on taking their medication, getting their counselling or whatever other services, but not to ever dream about working.
We recently have been through an evaluation process with the Ontario Ministry of Health, and it has been deemed that for the workers in our businesses, not only is the rate of rehospitalization reduced by one third, but when people are productive and are parts of their community, they are released 40% sooner from hospital. If this government is merely interested in fiscal issues, that's one that I suggest should be paid attention to.
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The voc rehab system that we have today treats people like they're ill; it doesn't treat people like they have something to offer. It doesn't treat people like they should take a risk. Our businesses have demonstrated clearly that not only can people work, but that people will take risks and people become healthier through working. I guess having a label as mentally ill is very different in many ways from having any other kind of disability label. We're often invisible. We often smell funny; we look funny. We're often overmedicated.
We don't believe a whole lot in the notion of integration. You can't build something that's going to accommodate someone who's been deemed crazy. Unfortunately the stigma that goes along with that label makes it virtually impossible for people to get into mainstream employment, not that there is much mainstream employment any more. But it makes it virtually impossible for us to get work, to maintain work and to secure a job.
Personally, when I was in the voc rehab system, I was told I was setting standards too high for myself; that I couldn't stand the stress; not to pursue an education; not to even care for my daughter -- I had a child at the time. Had I listened -- thank God I'm a person who can't hear "no" -- I wouldn't be where I am today. I've been very involved in community economic development for a number of years, and I'm very proud of the work our folks are doing. We have two cleaning companies in town, and not one cleaner makes less than $10 an hour. Their work is recognized and it's well paid for. We are also aware of affirmative businesses or other types of sheltered workshops that pay people anywhere from $1.30 an hour to $15 a day for an eight- to nine-hour day; work that is not set up in a way that supports the people who work there.
We are really happy that the employment support system is going to be revamped. People go to voc rehab because they want a job; people don't go to voc rehab because they need to be assessed for what they can't do or because they need counselling. If you get people jobs, they don't need the counselling and they don't need the services. They've got money in their pocket and they've got the dignity that goes along with that. Even crazy people benefit from employment.
A number of people have started work in our businesses. Recently a woman started work in our businesses who was living in a shelter here in the city of Toronto. She participated in the development of that business and now has a full-time job in that particular business; she has been working for a couple of months and has housing. We have other people who have come to us from the street, people with what is deemed dual diagnosis, who are now working, having management positions within our companies. We believe in a self-help approach to employment. We believe that our community is developed once we start to see one another performing, contributing to society, paying taxes etc.
In terms of the employment support program that's proposed, we believe we need to have all the stakeholders at the table. We need to have representation of people with disabilities who are going to implement or develop the employment support program. We hope the employment support program looks at job creation strategies, ones that develop real jobs, not just numbers of people who have gone through. I think the voc rehab system can tell you reams and reams of numbers of people who've been through different and various employment support programs. What you'll find, I'm confident, is that people go from one program to another program. It seems like having a disability often is keeping a whole industry employed, not us, supposedly a system that's set up to get us jobs.
We can say and our way can say that we have 500 people deemed permanently unemployable working in the province of Ontario. We don't want a rehabilitation program. We believe that having an illness does not necessarily imply that you need to be rehabilitated; it means you need to be accommodated. We want to ensure, and we hope this committee will consider, in terms of the implementation of the employment support program, that people with disabilities' needs are met. Our way of ensuring that is having representation at the table.
We hear every day from our workers the fear that they carry about working, the fear they have that their drug benefits will be gone, the fear they have that "Maybe we have a cyclical problem here, and if I work for nine months and I go down again, does that mean I'm going to have to beg and borrow or do whatever to try and get back on a support program? What happens to the medications I require? If I work, I can't afford to pay for them." These are issues that are really critical and they're often barriers to people participating more in the workforce.
Right now, the council has been given support to develop regional councils across the province. We're looking at taking our model of employment, job creation, across the province to other communities of psychiatric survivors. Last week I'm sure we all heard in the news about the man who shot his doctor and his landlord as a result of being denied disability pension and what an impact that has. Our concern about Ontario Works is that there will be many people with disabilities who may be denied benefits.
It is mentioned in your legislation that you are going to have local service coordinators. I would implore that a healthy percentage, if not 100%, of these coordinators who are coordinating employment supports for disabled folks come from the disability community. I think it's widely understood that people with disabilities are best understood by others with disabilities, as well as their needs.
We're right now starting a business development in Sudbury. It will be the first time that we've participated in a business development with a range of people with a range of disabilities. We are going to have our first cross-disability business happening in Sudbury, Ontario. We're very excited about that.
I have brought you tonight an abridged version, because of where we've been, of The Business Behind the Business of Psychiatric Survivor Economic Development. I believe psychiatric survivors make up a very large percentage of people on disability pensions. This is an abridged version you have that I find really boring, but because Caledon printed it, it's more legitimate I suppose. If any of you are interested, feel free to call and we'll send you the longer version.
A-WAY Express is here tonight, and I encourage you to read their most recent newsletter.
We have a store in downtown Toronto that retails not only products made by psychiatric survivors but by people facing long-term poverty. It's called Presents of Mind; it's on Queen Street West. I encourage you to come and bring your wallets to our store.
I am very pleased that this government is looking at the vocational rehabilitation system. I am very pleased that you are going to be looking at more appropriate employment support. However, there's not enough information here to make me feel really comfortable about the implementation of those supports. We have at least 1,000 people waiting to work at all of our businesses. People want to work; people don't want to be dependent on government. That includes crazy people.
The Chair: You've used up all your time. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
INCOME MAINTENANCE GROUP
The Chair: I call Income Maintenance Group, Mr Scott Seiler. Welcome. I note you have Ms Denise Feltham with you and Harry Beatty, who's well known to our committees. You have 15 minutes. You've been here all evening, so you know the drill.
Ms Denise Feltham: I am Denise Feltham, acting chairperson for the Income Maintenance Group, which is comprised of consumers and service workers who address income support issues for people with disabilities.
As an unemployed, invisibly disabled person on FBA, I would like to present the advantages and dangers of the proposed Social Assistance Reform Act from a recipient's perspective. Depending on regulations not yet developed, some components of OWA and ODSPA will improve the quality of life and provide more opportunities for people receiving social assistance.
Provision of dental and vision care coverage for all children reflects acknowledgement of necessary conditions for child development and allowance for preventive care, which will ultimately save money. Provision of employment supports to help disabled people overcome employment barriers reflects acknowledgement of this population's special accommodation needs. Rapid reinstatement of benefits for disabled people who attempt and lose jobs will reduce the anxiety of unemployed people who attempt to work. Removal of the 25% copayment for the assistive devices program will reduce the financial inaccessibility of these devices. The increased limit of liquid assets and personal injury awards, the protection of life insurance policies from liquid asset status, and the increased allowance of financial aid from family and significant others provide the recipient more freedom to secure income for present and future survival.
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However, the definition of disability excludes all but the most severely incapacitated people. It ignores the complex interplay among various medical, psychological, social and environmental factors that render an individual unable to work. The Ontario Disability Support Plan Act does not take into consideration those who face discrimination, unrealistic expectations and rejection from demanding employers in a competitive job market. The severe definition of "disability," requiring substantially restrictive functioning in all areas of personal care, community involvement and employment, puts those previously classified as permanently unemployable under the Family Benefits Act at risk of being disqualified. If they are grandfathered by the new system, they may be subject to review and retesting, determined again by regulations not yet developed. The determination of a recipient's disability status by a person who is appointed by the director undermines assessment by professionals directly involved and reflects a conflict of interest.
The concept of workfare is a demeaning and punitive one that assigns responsibility of a jobless recovery to victims of an economically unstable environment. Although individuals who suffer from disabilities are exempt from workfare, the restrictive definition of "disability," combined with the more flexible eligibility criteria for employment supports, puts many people in a double-bind position of being too disabled to work but not disabled enough for income support. Furthermore, recipients who are assigned to workfare have no employee status or rights. This creates an opportunity for potential employers to exploit social assistance recipients through the provision of free labour.
Assigning the administration of OWA and ODSPA to municipally based local service coordinators, who will be hired competitively for their ability to secure employment, fosters an environment conducive to privatization of rehabilitation services. Accordingly, only those who can afford it will have access to needed services.
Enforcement and fraud prevention measures -- such as finger scanning; information-sharing among municipal, provincial, federal and international governments; fraud control units; and eligibility review officers, who may be granted search warrants -- criminalize the recipient and create a police state in which one's legitimacy is challenged and one's privacy is violated. Compared to corporate and white-collar crime, welfare fraud is low, yet the benefits provided by general welfare and family benefits set the recipient's income below the poverty level, making it virtually impossible to survive.
Benefits remain at a fixed level while the costs of living such as rent, food and transportation rise every year. For those who need assistive devices for themselves or their children, financial survival is further curtailed, because although the 75% copayment for ADP will be removed, restrictions in the forms of caps and block payments often reduce the allowance to far less than 25% of the item's cost. Handicapped children's benefits program allowances are restricted to extraordinary costs for children with severe disabilities.
Ostensibly, the increased flexibility towards financial support of the recipient from family and significant others can be interpreted as a progressive move. However, I am concerned that it may indicate instead a shift from societal to familial responsibility for the poor and disabled people in Ontario.
In effect, while some aspects of the Social Assistance Reform Act may be improved if regulations permit, the exclusionary selection process, the survival-of-the-fittest approach and the 18th-century attitude of the "deserving poor" would create an environment of social chaos manifested by violence and despair.
Applause.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, when you do that, you cut into their time. They still have six minutes. I'd like to start the questioning with the government caucus.
Mrs Pupatello: Chair, they may have other comments.
The Chair: My apologies.
Mr Scott Seiler: Actually, I would like to briefly talk a little bit about the definition of "disability." In all the so-called consultations we've had with this government -- they weren't really consultations, but were more briefing sessions than consultations -- we've been advocating the use of a statement of principles that we put out on the types of things that we would like to see a definition cover.
We have to take a good hard look at the current definition being used in this new piece of legislation. I call it the ODSPA, for the disability program. The definition basically looks at people with very significant disabilities in areas of activities of daily living, activities for work and activities in the community. Each of these particular parts of the definition is joined with an "and." The minister has alluded to the fact today that they will get rid of the "and" and replace it with an "or," but I still have tremendous problems with the severe nature of this definition of disability and the likelihood that it will be used to severely curtail who is allowed to be on social assistance as a disabled person.
I suspect that we're going to see very large numbers of people with disabilities disallowed under the new system and possibly even from the current system. We are also seeing many people being given notices that they are not even going to be allowed to go on the new system because they're not going to be retained on FBA until the new system is created. That is another huge problem we're seeing, and that's reflected by the legal clinics and other groups that are beginning to see large numbers of disabled people kicked off the FBA system now, before the new legislation has gone through.
We also have some issues around things like the grandfathering. In most legislation, when grandfathering is put in legislation, it's put in the body of the legislation. Grandfathering is not an appropriate thing to be putting in regulation, because regulation can be too easily changed. It's very important that if people are grandfathered, those grandfathering stipulations are put right in the body of the legislation so no one can go back and tamper with them later on or in any way change them.
We also have some very strong problems around the entire area of the employment supports. It looks to us like the definition of disability in the employment supports will only include those with very significant disabilities who can work competitively. That's a very tiny group of people. We're very afraid that people with mild and moderate disabilities will not get properly served by the employment programs. We're also very concerned that people who need income supports and are not on the ODSPA will not get access to income support because they will no longer have training allowances available to them, like they do now on the current VRS program.
VRS is not a perfect program. In fact, I've been fighting for changes for VRS for many years. At the same time, there are some things that are valuable with VRS that must be retained.
I'd like to turn some of the more legal issues over to Harry.
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Mr Harry Beatty: Very briefly, while we're primarily concerned with the ODSPA in one sense, we're also very concerned with Ontario Works issues, because it appears to us that there is certainly the possibility, under this legislation, to have people with significant disabilities nevertheless found ineligible. Besides the points already made, there's also the fact that the government guidelines, as has been mentioned by earlier presenters, will have effectively the force of law; and whatever guidelines for disability assessment are developed by the ministry and its advisers will not be appealable in the light of individual circumstances if the guidelines are drafted in a certain way.
We are concerned as well, in particular from a disability perspective, about the parents in both one- and two-parent families who will be on Ontario Works and who have already received the 21% rate cut. It's difficult to be a single parent or a parent in a two-parent family, and it's even harder where there is a very significant disability of one or more of the youngsters. We've seen some very difficult cases involving especially sole-support moms who are looking after kids by themselves.
From a legal point of view, one of the major concerns in the new legislation is the restriction on appeal rights. The more flexible approach to employment supports may make some sense, but we're very concerned that the appeal is taken away. Right now, there is an appeal under VRS. If there's a privatization to smaller providers, non-profit as well as for-profit, and the appeal and scrutiny by the tribunal is taken away as well, that seems to be a weakness.
We also share the concerns of others about the lack of appeal in the informal trusteeship cases and in the direct payment to service providers, particularly if it's a service provider who is also a debtor, like the landlord. It's one thing to say in some cases that perhaps that makes sense, but to effectively put in place that there is no recourse, to not allow a person who may have good reason to ask for control of their own finances back to even make their case and go to a tribunal and argue it, seems to us to be draconian. Those are some of our main concerns.
The Chair: Thank you very much. You've used up all your time. On behalf of the committee I want to thank you for being here.
ETHNO RACIAL PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES COALITION OF ONTARIO
The Chair: I call Ethno Racial People with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario, J.S. David. Welcome to the committee, Mr David. We're happy to have you here.
Mr Jason David: Thank you. First, to introduce myself, I'm Jason David, the project coordinator of ERDCO. Mr Paul Scotland is the chair of ERDCO. We have also a few members who have come to share this moment.
Honourable Chair and members, about ERDCO: Ethno Racial People with Disabilities Coalition of Ontario, known and referred to as ERDCO, is a cross-disability provincial organization promoting awareness of culture and disability. ERDCO is committed to promoting respect for ethno racial people with disabilities of all ages, culture, sex, language and religion. We are guided by the principles of anti-racism and accessibility.
ERDCO has a membership of over 250 in Metro Toronto and is reaching out to ethno racial people with disabilities throughout Ontario. Our membership reflects the multicultural makeup of Canadian society in every way. Our members come from all walks of life, with various and different degrees of disabilities, with various abilities and educational attainments, having different religious beliefs and cultures, speaking different languages, and having different shades of skin colour. Among them are Canadians, landed immigrants, persons on minister's permit and refugee claimants. We have members who are employed, unemployed and students.
We are all members of this society, living in this society. Though different labels may be pasted on us, we do expect this society to treat us with dignity and respect and provide us with the basic freedom and opportunity for the pursuit of happiness which we claim as our basic human right and the collective responsibility of the society.
ERDCO is also an active member of the Ontario Cross-Disability Organization Steering Committee. We are deeply concerned about how the Bill 142 would impact upon the whole disability community of Ontario.
Our concerns: Recent research findings indicate that our members feel excluded and discriminated against in many different ways. In this context, it is no surprise that we are perturbed about many provisions of Bill 142 that lack clarification, detail and definitiveness. We sincerely thank this committee for this opportunity to voice our concerns today.
Among many concerns, we presently wish to talk about the following: (1) purpose of the act as stated in schedule A; (2) definition of "disability," as stated in schedule B; (3) individual right of choice of employment or activity; (4) the decision-making powers of the delivery agents and the right of appeal; (5) continued eligibility of "prescribed class of persons" as provided for in schedule D, transitional provisions.
Schedule A, the purpose of the act: "recognizes individual responsibility and promotes self-reliance." This statement fails to recognize the collective responsibility of the society, represented by the government, to create the environment necessary to promote self-reliance. The purpose, as declared, seems to place all the blame on the person for his or her condition and assumes that such environment is already in place. This negatively reflects the social status of any individual having to receive assistance to that of a misfit in society.
"Self-reliance through employment." The employment aspect, further reiterated in 1(b), views an individual in the narrow parameters of dollars and cents and does not recognize the individual's contribution to the total wellbeing of the society that is not measured in dollars and cents. For instance, a person with a disability who maintains a home for other members of the family unit not only needs income support, but also some other supports that would enable that person to carry out the necessary activities in the home. Would that person be denied such support just because that activity does not lead to direct employment with a taxable income?
1(b) states "provides temporary financial assistance." Self-reliance cannot be promoted only through financial assistance. A person may need other supports and guidance in achieving self-reliance.
We would like to see a broader purpose in a program that (a) recognizes the collective responsibility of the society to create such environments to promote the achievement of the maximum potential of an individual as a contributing member of the society, and (b) provides such a support system to those in need to enable them to become and stay a contributing member of the society.
Schedule B, Ontario Disability Support Program Act, 1997. Definition of disability: I take two words there, "substantial" and "impairment." The impact of any impairment is complex. Impairment cannot always be measured with known scientific parameters to determine the levels of functioning of a person with a disability. The same measurement of an impairment may impact differently on different persons. This brings us to the question of who determines that the impairment is "substantial."
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Clause 4(l)(c): "the impairment and its likely duration and the restriction in the person's activities of daily living have been verified by a person with the prescribed qualifications."
Subsection 4(3): "A determination under this section shall be made by a person appointed by the director." The tools of determination as provided in clause 4(1)(c) cannot constitute sufficient and conclusive information for the person appointed by the director to make his or her determination on substantial or otherwise of the impairment. "Person" needs to be replaced with "team of persons."
Further, we wish to submit that the delivery agent may take such restrictive view of impairments and their impact that many who need assistance may be made ineligible. Thus, it becomes necessary to give more weight to the information given by the applicant for eligibility as a person with a disability with regard to determining the level of functioning and the impact of the impairment.
Such a restrictive view of eligibility criteria by the delivery agents was experienced by those requiring Wheel-Trans. We believe such a restrictive view was the result of funding constraints on the Toronto transit system, and thus the needs of the disabled became less of a priority compared to saving dollars and cents.
We now refer back to our comments on the purpose of the Ontario Works Act, 1997, that seems to focus on dollars and cents rather than persons. We have reasonable grounds to believe that the delivery agents would take such a restrictive view, resulting in many persons with disability being adversely affected by the Ontario Works Act, 1997, rather than benefiting under the Ontario Disability Support Program Act, 1997.
Subsection 4(2), exception: This section seems to impose a moralistic view of the cause of impairment. If a person's impairment results from an accident owing to that person's drunk driving, would that person be denied eligibility to the Ontario disability support program? We suggest that it could, and society would in effect be disowning that person and would be seen as imposing lifelong suffering on that person. The provisions should look at the state of being of a person rather than the cause of the impairment. Therefore, we suggest that subsection 4(2) be removed.
Schedule A, part I, subsection 7(4): The implications of the provisions in clauses 9(a) to (d) are not very clear. The words "accept and undertake" in clause (c) and "accept and maintain" in (d) do not seem to provide options and choices of areas of activity or type of employment. Would there be sensitivity to different religious beliefs and different cultural practices? For instance, would a pure vegetarian be asked to work in a meat shop? Would a person whose religious beliefs state that the consumption of alcohol is a sin be asked to work in a liquor shop or brewery? If that person refuses to accept training in such skills or refuse to accept such a job in such a place, would that person be denied an income and/or employment support?
Appeals denied, schedule A, part II: A decision with respect to employment assistance cannot be appealed. "The tribunal shall refuse to hear an appeal if it determines the appeal to be frivolous or vexatious." Section 36 says, "may appeal the tribunal's decision to the Divisional Court on a question of law." This leaves a person with no recourse to appeal on the merits of the decision of the delivery agent on a question of employment assistance, and a decision of the tribunal on the question of his or her right to be heard on the merits.
Schedule D, transitional provisions: If a person who is a is member of a prescribed class earned employment income that is more than his or her budgetary needs for a continuous period of more than 12 months, he or she becomes ineligible to continue as a member of the prescribed class.
Most jobs for people with disabilities are contract jobs. The above provision in subsection 6(3) may be a disincentive for persons with disabilities to accept contracts for more than 12 months, as it would make them ineligible to receive the higher benefits in the Family Benefits Act if that person becomes unemployed.
We believe this is an important piece of legislation that impacts on a significant section of our society. We certainly do not claim to have covered all the grounds that need to be covered with regard to the provisions of Bill 142. Thus, we take this opportunity to appeal to the government that more time be allocated to hear the voices of other interested persons with regard to Bill 142.
We thank you once again for this opportunity and your patient hearing.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr David, to you and your companions for being here this evening. We've just about exhausted your time. Thank you very much.
A-WAY EXPRESS COURIER
The Chair: I call A-WAY Express Courier, Laurie Hall. Ms Hall, welcome to our committee.
Ms Laurie Hall: Thank you very much to the committee today for giving me a chance to speak to this bill.
My name is Laurie Hall and I'm a psychiatric survivor. I'm also the executive director of A-WAY Express. A-WAY's a non-profit courier business funded in part by the Ministry of Health. For 10 years now, we have operated a successful courier business run by and for people who have major barriers to working in traditional employment settings. We provide competitive, efficient courier service to more than 1,000 customers throughout Metro Toronto. This year, we're celebrating 10 years of creating employment for people who've been through the mental health system. A-WAY currently employs 60 people, all of whom have been labelled with a psychiatric diagnosis and most of whom, at one time or another, have been deemed "permanently unemployable," myself included.
I'm here today to talk specifically about schedule B, the Ontario Disability Support Program Act. First of all, I'm very pleased to see that the necessity for a medical doctor to be forced to label someone "permanently unemployable" is gone. This has been a major barrier in the past for us having to be deemed permanently unemployable just to get the income support necessary to survive with a disability. Having a mental health problem should not force anyone to ignore or deny that they have skills and abilities.
I must tell you that currently there's a lot of anxiety in the community about how people will be assessed for this new disability pension. I'm pleased to hear assurances that there will be no new assessments, that people currently on FBA will be transferred over to the new program. This will be a huge relief to our community. However, as there is not a lot of detail about how things will come to be under this new legislation, I'd like to spend my time tonight on telling you what has not worked for us in the past.
As I said before, all of us at A-WAY have been labelled by the mental health system and most of us at one time or another have had to be labelled "permanently unemployable," yet we're working. Why is that? Because working helps us. It builds our self-esteem. It helps us feel better about ourselves. It gives us extra income; for some of us very little extra income, due to the allowable earnings limits. But those of us who have gone off FBA and are earning a living on our own feel we wouldn't have been able to do it without the support of A-WAY or other businesses like A-WAY.
Why does A-WAY work? Because we assume, or we know, that everyone has skills, that everyone can work. We know that when the work is real, that when the pay is real and that when people like ourselves, survivors, are in charge, we're most likely to benefit from it.
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And what is real? How about what's not real? What's not real are sheltered workshops. Stuffing plastic spoons in bags for 10 cents an hour is not real work. That's not real pay either.
Vocational rehabilitation programs that assess you to death, then counsel you, then put you through life skills training and other training programs and shove you out the door after six months, with no real job, are not real. We don't benefit from these programs, we do not get jobs, we can't make a living and it does nothing for our self-esteem. We're tired of the revolving door. What's left is to take your meds -- sometimes more helps you forget how hopeless your life seems -- or hang out at the coffee shop, even if you can't afford a coffee.
But enter survivor businesses. People are given the opportunity to work. They're trained on the job by their peers, not by a professional making 50 grand a year to "manage your case." Survivors are paid market value for their work. Employees have a say in how the business is run. The couriers learn how to market the business. People learn how to read budgets, how to increase sales and keep the company competitive. They learn accounting skills, how to use computers and how to train others to do the same. People have a chance to move up in the business by learning on the job, and they take a paycheque to the bank every two weeks, a real paycheque.
I began at A-WAY five years ago as a courier part-time on FBA. My doctor told me to quit my job previous to that and stay home because I was incapable of working. After two years at home, when I thought I'd die of boredom, I started at A-WAY on two afternoons. That was five years ago, and I'm making a full-time salary off FBA and helping others to do the same.
Yes, many of our people still are on FBA. The cost of their medications, the cyclical nature of people's health problems, the cost of living with a disability, makes this a necessity. But what that does not mean is that they will not, or should not, be able to benefit from the positive benefits of being employed.
Survivor businesses work. Ask the 400-plus survivors currently employed throughout the province. Diana said 500; I guess she employed another 100 at work. These are the survivors working. Ask their doctors or their "case managers" how their patients have benefited. Ask the businesses, organizations and individuals who use our courier service or any of the services or products from any of the businesses; they'll tell you.
The businesses cost less for the Ministry of Health to support than other community or certainly institutional programs, and they're proven to work. It's what survivors want. A recent survey of survivors in the province asked them what they considered to be their basic needs. They told us the answer was a home, a job and a friend, and all the rest takes care of itself. We want to provide jobs that will help them succeed.
Sometimes people ask us, "But if you're real businesses, why aren't you self-sufficient?" Well, guess what? Supports cost money. It costs money to support people in employment. It costs money to ensure that the jobs are flexible and support people in doing the best they can do. However, it costs a lot less money for us to provide real jobs with real pay to psych survivors than it does to pay for voc rehab to provide real jobs with very real pay to professionals and no jobs for us.
What are the current barriers under the current system? The current level of FBA is barely enough to live on. It's much better than welfare. Housing is getting harder to find, and with no new non-profit housing being built, waiting lists in general are an average of three years long. In Toronto, private sector housing starts at about $500 for a room, and that's if you're lucky. People with disabilities often have special needs. No extra expenses are covered currently under FBA.
Several years ago, after major surgery resulting from a failed suicide attempt, I was put on a very restricted diet. I couldn't afford it. FBA says it provides money for special diets, but my worker said: "Oh, it's included. You don't get any extra money." Why would they include the cost of a special diet for everyone?
Many drugs aren't covered by the drug card. If you're sensitive to certain antibiotics or certain drugs, your drug card only covers the basic, generic drug. If there's another brand that's coated so that you don't throw up, too bad. You have to throw up, I guess, if you're on FBA. Many drugs are not covered, and it changes all the time. Usually it's the more expensive drugs, say with less side-effects. So too bad; I guess you have to get used to the side-effects if you're on FBA.
Another barrier: You can't afford the necessities for working. It was only after four years of negotiation with the Ministry of Health that we can now provide bus passes to our couriers. They need them to do their job, and they cost $83 a month. They can only make $160 a month before losing any benefit from their FBA cheques. You can get a bus token to go to the doctor, but you can't get a bus token to go to work. Our couriers work outside, winter and summer. They need warm winter coats, warm boots, hats in the summer to protect from sunburn, raincoats in the spring and fall to keep dry. They can't afford these things. Where are the supports to help them buy the basics they need to remain employed?
The biggest barrier that our people find to working is the allowable earnings limit. On FBA, you may only earn $160 a month before 75% of every dollar you make comes off your cheque at the end of the month. If you're making $10 an hour, you've reached your limit after only 16 hours. After that, your net gain is $2.50 per hour. There's no incentive to work past $160. In fact, it's a disincentive. People are afraid to jeopardize their benefits. They would lose their drug card, and the cost of medications is very high. If they lose their benefits and then get ill, it could take up to a year to get back on FBA under the current system. What do people do in the meantime?
If people could earn, say, $400 before they had deductions at the end of the month, they could work 40 hours in a month. This is an incentive to work. This allows people to get ahead by working more hours. Would you work extra hours for a quarter of the pay? If people are going to be able to make the leap to gainful employment, they need to have the opportunity to try, to work more hours without being penalized. The closer people can get to full-time with the supports in place, the more likely they will be to take the chance. Please consider raising the allowable earnings limit to a much more reasonable, fair amount.
The current Minister of Community and Social Services said: "The proposed program already assumes that people with disabilities can compete on the basis of skills. Our intent is to make sure they get a chance to use their skills."
Survivors want to work. Our businesses provide these opportunities. Nothing else yet has worked. Let us provide more of these jobs and supports. We would like to work closely with this government to help set up more businesses, to work towards our goal of cross-disability businesses, like the one we're working on in Sudbury. We are disabled, in some people's eyes, but we're still people. We need to work; we have a right to work. We know what supports work for us and we're willing to help create more of them. We need the support of this government to help us do that.
Thank you very much for your time.
The Acting Chair (Mr Alex Cullen): Thank you very much. We have barely enough time for 30-second questions and 30-second answers, starting with the government side.
Mr Carroll: Thank you very much. We do appreciate your coming forward today. I'm not going to ask you a question, because there isn't meaningful time to do that, but I am going to congratulate you and your company for all the great things you've done. We too would like to work with you and your folks to make sure we get this whole program right. Thanks for coming forward, and congratulations on the good work you do.
Ms Hall: Thank you.
Mrs Pupatello: Thanks for your comments today. I'm assuming that as long as you qualify under the new definition of disabled, you can see that some of the changes are appropriate if you get over the bar and are classified, if you will, as disabled enough. Have you noted any concerns about that definition for those who are simply not going to qualify? Therefore, behind door number 1 there's nothing, but if you pick door number 2 it's manna from heaven.
Ms Hall: There's a lot of confusion and certainly a lot of concern in the community. I think in general the rumour that's been going around is that people assume if they're currently on FBA, they will be transferred to the new program, no reassessments, no other questions.
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We have many people working for us who are on welfare and are certainly disabled. The problem in the past has been the "permanently unemployable" label. Like the position that the doctor who was killed last week found himself in, it's very difficult for people to make that decision. If you call someone "permanently unemployable," that will allow them to go on FBA. If you're not prepared to make that judgement, they have to stay on welfare, and that's a big bind for many people. We have many people whose workers or doctors have decided they cannot call them "permanently unemployable" but they are certainly disabled. Those are the people I'm concerned about. I want to make sure we don't repeat that mistake and make the definition of disability so narrow that people who desperately need it can't get on.
Ms Lankin: Thank you very much. Before I ask you a question, I just want to make a comment. For any of the MPPs who have constituency offices in the Metro area, one of the new businesses that has been established is a cleaning business. We use it in my constituency office. It's a great business. You should do it too.
Ms Hall: New Look Cleaning. We also provide courier services to many of the offices in town.
Ms Lankin: I wanted to ask you about the definition and the barriers, some of the things you were just talking about. It seems to me that if the definition is too restrictive, many people who could actually benefit from employment supports to get into competitive employment situations will be cut out. On the other hand, some of the vocational rehab services -- and I recognize the problems your community has had with them. Some people who require those additional services won't actually have access to them any more because they'll be out in this decentralized system. I wonder if you have any comments on that and what it will mean in terms of coordination of delivery of employment support services.
The Acting Chair: You have 30 seconds.
Ms Hall: Okay, 30 seconds. My direct experience is how voc rehab has or hasn't worked with the survivor community, because that's my own personal experience and the experience of people I speak with on a regular basis. I would assume there needs to be a full range of employment supports, and what may work for one group of disabled people may not work for another group. I would hope this government will work very closely with the disabled groups in tailoring services and supports that fit with the groups of people they're there to support. It hasn't worked for us; certain types may have worked very well for other disabled groups. We really need to start tailoring the services that are provided.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
OPSEU VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION SERVICES DIVISION
The Acting Chair: I'd now like to call upon the vocational rehabilitation division committee of OPSEU, Peter Dirks, co-chair, accompanied by Paul Agueci and Judy Besse.
Mr Kormos: On a point of order, Mr Chair: If I were to call for a quorum right now, there wouldn't be one. I think it's imperative that the Conservative members be here to listen to the submissions being made to them. I'm not calling for a quorum, because a whole lot of people have waited a long time to make their submissions. But damn it, surely with their numbers at Queen's Park the Tories can maintain a quorum here and hear the submissions being made to them. Now, once already I've sent a message up to the Tory whip's office to tell them to get people down here. It's not really my job, as you can well imagine.
The Acting Chair: Thank you for that non-point of order. I think you've made your point. Perhaps we can hear from the delegation.
Ms Judy Besse: Peter Dirks, the co-chair of the VRS division, isn't here today. My name is Judy Besse.
Mr Paul Agueci: My name is Paul Agueci. I'm a vice-chair of the VRS division.
Ms Besse: Thank you for giving the vocational rehabilitation services division of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union the opportunity to speak before this committee. We're the people who have been coordinating the delivery of vocational services to people with disabilities under the VRS Act, one of the acts being repealed by Bill 142.
I will be highlighting some of the main problems we see only in the employment supports section, that's part III of the ODSP Act, and listing some recommendations. It is very frustrating that, as broadly acknowledged experts in the field of providing vocational services for people with disabilities, we have not been allowed to participate in consultation with the Ministry of Community and Social Services around part III of the ODSP Act before now and that we do not have the time in this presentation to explain the many other serious difficulties we have with the act beyond the short list we have for you tonight.
Issue 1: There is no clear statement of mandate or commitment to govern the provision of employment supports in the ODSP Act. The first clause, section 32.1 of the employment supports section, states that "The prescribed employment supports may be provided." Absolutely unknown supports may or may not be provided. Is the government committed to providing employment supports to people with disabilities or not?
Issue 2: We fear that the government intends to prescribe in the regulations a limited menu of services rather than mandating whatever services are necessary to help people with disabilities reach their employment goals. As vocational rehabilitation professionals, we know that flexibility and creativity in plugging in a variety of services based on any one individual's very special and often unique needs is absolutely key in facilitating success. If the government prescribes, for example, a list of six service types that can be provided and no others, this guarantees failure for a substantial proportion of people with disabilities who are working towards employment.
Issue 3: There is absolutely no appeal available with regard to any decision taken under the employment supports section of the ODSP Act including, for example, decisions around eligibility or the denial of service.
Issue 4: There is no language that ensures that service provision and the determination of eligibility will be consistent across Ontario. The government plans to tender the delivery of employment services for people with disabilities to service coordinators in the private sector in the different geographic areas of the province. There is no provision in this legislation that the same services or levels of service will be provided in different areas of the province.
Issue 5: There is no system of accountability built into this legislation. There are no provisions whatsoever for program evaluation or results assessment in this legislation. On the face of it, the fact that the government is handing over delivery of employment supports for people with disabilities to local organizations in the private sector indicates it will be very difficult to hold the government accountable for the provision of effective service.
Issue 6: The legislation mandates that employment supports are only to be provided to people with disabilities who are interested in and capable of competitive employment. Not only this, but employment services will not be provided to people until they present the local service coordinators with a competitive employment plan. What happens to the vast majority of at least the type of people with disabilities we have seen through vocational rehabilitation services -- about 1,000 people at any one time in Toronto, for example -- who come for help not knowing if they will be able to enter or re-enter the labour market and certainly not knowing what their aptitudes, skills, career goals and training needs are?
The way the legislation is written, these people will not be eligible for service. Will people be cut off or deemed ineligible if they are only capable of or interested in volunteer, perhaps sheltered or supportive employment or in working as a homemaker? The incentive for the local service providers to provide service to the most able and self-directed of people with disabilities is written right into this legislation. "Cream the best and forget the rest."
Issue 7: There is no case management service mandated by this legislation. Currently one counsellor or facilitator follows the individual with a disability through the whole process of determining a job goal, getting training and finding employment, that is, under the VRS Act. We do not know yet what services or service delivery model the government will prescribe in the regulations, but we fear that individuals will be left to pick and choose from a menu of services and a variety of employment programs without the benefit of guidance and support. Some people with disabilities are quite self-directed, excellent advocates for themselves and good problem-solvers, but many people with disabilities who might otherwise achieve employment will fall through the cracks unless a holistic case management system is at least available.
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Issue 8: The process leading up to writing the employment supports section of the ODSP Act and the selling of this section since the legislation was tabled have been manipulative and dishonest. Consumers have not been widely consulted, despite what the ministry claims. Second, the people who currently deliver employment services for people with disabilities under the VRS Act were determinedly excluded from consultation. The thousands of people with disabilities who currently receive service under the VRS Act were not consulted.
The government has used statistics and information in very misleading ways to try and sell this new proposal for an employment support program. The Minister of Community and Social Services should be wary of the bill of goods her advisers have sold her if she values providing a good employment supports program for people with disabilities.
Finally, contrary to what the ministry has been saying recently about the current system, vocational rehabilitation staff are not providing an ineffective, patronizing, outdated service. We ourselves have been trying to advocate for progressive reform of the VRS act for years. We are dedicated, caring, professional service providers who are very proud of the program we offer and enormously frustrated and sickened to see the government dismantling and weakening programs in this complex and demanding field without the benefit of wide-ranging advice.
Recommendations:
(1) Change the first clause of part III, ODSP act to read:
"Employment supports" -- not "the prescribed employment supports" -- "shall be provided," -- not 'may" be provided -- "to a person described in subsection (2) to remove barriers to the person's employment" -- not "to the person's competitive employment" -- "and to assist the person in attaining his or her employment goal" -- not "competitive employment goal."
(2) Do not privatize employment supports for people with disabilities. This should be a government service that ensures consistency, effectiveness and crystal-clear accountability.
(3) Allow decisions made under the employment supports section to be appealed to the Social Benefits Tribunal.
(4) Delay passing the employment supports section until the substance of what this program will look like and what actual employment services are to be offered is written into the act, or alternatively, at least written in the regulations, so that meaningful consultation and debate can take place to compare the services currently offered under the Vocational Rehabilitation Services Act with what will be offered in the new act so the best possible legislation governing this important public service will result.
(5) Build a strong evaluation component into this act, report publicly on the regular evaluations which will result, and have these results periodically reviewed by an objective third party such as the Provincial Auditor to ensure the provision of effective employment services to people with disabilities.
The Chair: We have about a minute per caucus. We begin with the official opposition.
Ms Besse: We're not finished.
The Chair: Oh, my apologies.
Mr Agueci: I'd like to give two examples, if I could, of people I know in the system who have really valued our services. One person came to me when he was 27 years of age, after spending five years on the GWA system at the municipal level. This person was involved in a car accident by riding a motorcycle through a red light after finding out his father had been killed in a shooting, and this person subsequently drank himself to the point that he drove himself home and crashed his vehicle. As a result, he lost his driver's licence. He spent the day of his father's funeral in the hospital. He came to VRS some seven years later, when he was on social assistance and really feeling depressed and upset about his situation.
He didn't know what he wanted to do. He didn't know what he could do. He was so vocationally confused. He really used the assessment component very well. I didn't know what his physical limitations were. We had him tested at the Toronto Rehabilitation Centre for a six-week pre-vocational assessment. He did very well there. He showed he could competently work. As a result, he went into training at the alternative computer training program, which no longer exists, and is now working for a major retail company earning $40,000 a year as a LAN, local area network, administrator. He's doing very well. So there is a success.
The other success story I'm going to give you is a person by the name of Paul Agueci, myself. I am a person with a disability. I was a person who used the service after a head injury that occurred when I was involved in a physical fight at the age of 10. I was struck with a fist in the head and spent three months in a coma. I had always wanted to be an athlete. I was running track and field, I was playing ice hockey, and I was very good at what I was doing at the time. I couldn't do those things after my accident. I suffered a left-sided hemiparesis.
What can I tell you about myself? I spent seven years rehabilitating, on and off for that period. I came to vocational rehabilitation a very confused individual, not knowing what I could do. I was offered assessment services. I took them gladly. I gladly took training services at the post-secondary level. I was granted a VRS maintenance allowance, which sustained my rental costs and my food costs for the time I was in school. As a result, you see before you a person who has a fairly good education and a good job. I would like to maintain my job for as long as I possibly can, because I really love the work I do. I think I do it with passion. I think all the counsellors at the office do it with passion. I think Judy has told it very well that we're very passionate as well. If you have questions, we invite them.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Agueci. You have used up all your time, but let me tell you, your passion does show through. Thank you and Ms Besse for being here.
Mr Kormos: Chair, I believe we've just heard the 13th submission. Of those 13 submissions, 12 were very critical of the bill and requested significant amendments or defeat. I feel compelled, in view of the fact that there are three voting opposition members here and only three voting government members, to move the repeal of Bill 142. I suspect that would be out of order.
Mrs Pupatello: I second that motion.
Mr Kormos: I say to you, Chair, the opposition members -- and Ms Lankin is not a voting member of this committee; she is here sharing the committee out of her interest in the consequences of this bill -- don't have to be persuaded about the serious errors, pitfalls and dangers inherent in this bill. Will the government members please ensure that they are here to listen to the submissions being made to them? Damn it, they are being paid to do it, and these people went to a whole lot of trouble, effort and expense to appeal to government members. I appeal to you to please give some direction to the government whip to have their members in this committee. We don't have to be persuaded; they do.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, that's not a point of order, as you know, but I will note for the record that we are perilously close to losing quorum. I would ask the parliamentary assistant to perhaps take back to his government's whip that presence at these committee hearings is extremely important.
ASSOCIATION FOR THE NEUROLOGICALLY DISABLED OF CANADA
The Chair: I call upon the Association for the Neurologically Disabled of Canada, Ms Kathleen Haswell. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming.
Ms Kathleen Haswell: Thank you, Madam Chairperson and members of the social development committee.
If I may, I would like to bring a human touch to these proceedings by reminding our legislative representatives that disabled Ontarians are citizens of this great province who wish to participate in all aspects of the community in which they live. Being able to participate means that disabled citizens, your constituents, need assistance with removing barriers to many areas of daily life and they need your support and help in achieving this goal.
The existing Vocational Rehabilitation Services Act mandates a one-stop approach to a wide range of services and programs that assist individuals with disabilities to overcome some of the barriers to education and employment they face because of their disabilities. These services and programs are delivered through the ministry's 12 area offices, and in 1992-93 there were 51 locations in Ontario. The locations represent an accessible venue for disabled citizens to get the help they need.
If you look at exhibit 1, I have tried to give you an overview of the services currently available to your disabled Ontarians. The historic costs are outlined in graph 1. Please remember that 50% of those costs are shared between the provincial and federal governments. You will notice that funding has decreased at an alarming rate, a 46% decrease since 1991-92. On graph 2, you will observe that clients served have decreased only 13% since 1992-93. 1 would like you to observe that VRS counsellor training is very extensive and appropriate to meet the diverse needs of persons with disabilities.
On exhibit 2, the second graph, in 1992-93, 56.6% of clients' files, after training, were closed because they became competitively employed. In the second column on this page you can see the cost benefit of helping your disabled citizens acquire or maintain competitive, part-time or sheltered employment and the average expenditure to realize that goal.
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In exhibit 4, I would like to address the issue of VRS cutbacks and the detrimental effect this has on government revenues. The estimate for 1996-97 is that 10,800 disabled citizens will be served through VRS. On exhibit 4, we look at five single clients who range from no income to full-time employment income and the expenses incurred for rehabilitation.
Under Bill 142, when you transfer, as you will, many disabled Ontarians on to the welfare rolls, the costs to the municipalities and their local taxpayers will be $1,272,000 for these five clients. However, when you invest in programs and services to help disabled Ontarians overcome barriers to education and employment and they do become employed and are allowed to participate fully in community life, the savings to the taxpayers of the province is $1,862,000, and the savings to the municipal taxpayers would be $902,000 for five individuals with disabilities.
When a person with a disability cannot receive the appropriate rehabilitation services to secure employment, the cost to society is enormous. Your disabled Ontarians want to become a part of the mainstream of life and want to contribute as best they can by becoming employed, but they need your help.
I do not believe that able-bodied citizens of Ontario wish you to withdraw the supports and services you have been providing to their disabled citizens as mandated by the Vocational Rehabilitation Services Act. Bill 142 will do just that. It is a mean-spirited piece of legislation that will have a significantly harmful effect on your citizens who are disabled. It proposes to divide individuals with disabilities into the haves and have-nots by creating restrictive criteria for income support. It also thrusts many disabled Ontarians on to the municipal welfare rolls, a place they do not want to be. Bill 142 will require disabled citizens to compete for competitive employment without the guarantee of help and assistance they need to fully participate in such employment.
Furthermore, it creates a statute that disallows your disabled citizens any rights of an impartial appeal process. It creates opportunities for wide abuse of disabled Ontarians. It stigmatizes them by making them submit to finger scanning in order to obtain benefits. It does not protect their personal information. This legislation will leave them with no guarantee that they will receive the type of employment support that truly meets their individual needs.
I would like to give you some examples of what I mean.
"I am 33 years old. I sustained a head injury while playing recreational hockey. Prior to my injury I worked as an accountant in a large accounting firm. I can attend to my personal care. I do not really have substantial restrictions in my daily living, but I am having trouble holding down a job because my head injury has affected my short-term memory and I am forgetful of minor details. I also tire very easily and cannot concentrate on details.
"Under Bill 142 it has been decided that I do not meet the criteria of ODSP, 4(1). I was notified that I could appeal and a time was given, but I missed the date. Now I have been told I cannot appeal at all, ever. I am receiving GWA, $530 a month. For the past year I have been involved with pre-vocational training, but this training is more suited to able-bodied persons and it does not address my individual needs. My worker feels that I am not benefiting from this program and has suggested I look for something else. I do not know where to go. My worker has recommended a vocational assessment that will outline my strengths and weaknesses and a psychological assessment. I went to my doctor and he does not know where I can get these assessments under OHIP. I do not have the money for assessments. There is no money for assessments under Bill 142. She has told me I cannot appeal employment supports under Bill 142. She said it was part II, 21(3). What can I do? I want to work. I know with help I could get a job, but no one will help me."
The second example:
"I am a 32-year-old woman with three children. I am a homemaker. My husband works full-time as a bus driver and earns $55,000 a year with overtime. In 1997 I had a stroke that has left me in a wheelchair. I am just coming out of hospital and I have been told that if I apply to VRS, a homemaker is viewed as a substantial occupation and they could help me. I need modifications to my house such as a ramp, exit doors, halls widened, kitchen modifications so that I can continue to cook for and look after my three children. Even though I am disabled, I want to do as much as I can for my children, and I need help.
"There used to be a provincial program called Ontario home and renewal program for disabled persons and also a federal program, residential rehabilitation assistance program, but in the cuts both of these programs are no longer available to me. VRS is my last resort."
In Bill 142 there are no provisions for disabled homemakers and this woman would not be able to get the help she needs for her disability, to help her look after her children.
Example 3:
"I'm a learning-disabled young woman, aged 19, who was identified in school at age 12 as an exceptional student. My marks in grade 13, with all the special education help I have received, will allow me to study criminology. I want to become a correctional officer and I need a BA to enter this occupation. I live in Pembroke, Ontario. I do not have a university within commuting distance and therefore I will have to live away from home until I am trained in this profession. I have applied for OSAP and they have approved a $5,000 OSAP loan. Because of my learning disability I will need individualized tutoring in the core subjects, help with organizational skills and time management and a computer to help me with my written assignments. I cannot afford to pay for this myself. I cannot go to university and train for competitive employment because I am disabled.
"I do not meet the criteria of Bill 142, 4(1). Under this bill there are no provisions for living expenses and food, as there is with VRS. I would have received a maintenance allowance under FBA while participating in a VRS training program. I am already expected to pay back the OSAP loan, which could reach $25,000 over a five-year period, assuming fees do not increase any more. My learning disability will restrict the number of courses I will be able to handle, so I will have to take five years to complete a three-year program."
Of course, if this student above was a little older and on GWA, her benefits for welfare would be discontinued when she started a training program.
Under VRS, these clients would receive assessments, counselling, training and a program that would meet their individual needs. They could appeal the level of supports to an impartial arm's-length tribunal that has the power to rule on the interpretation of the VRS act. Yet you say in your Common Sense Revolution, "Aid for seniors and the disabled will not be cut."
In the ministry's compendium, on page 35 under services available, it states, "employment planning assistance, individualized supports to job seekers with disabilities" -- we need more information -- "technological aids and devices and human supports" -- specifically, what is provided? -- "pre-employment services, ongoing job supports, and employment developmental strategies."
Not mentioned in Bill 142 for the disabled to even comment on is the level of financial support that will be provided with assistance for home and vehicle modifications and attendant care services.
On page 28, the compendium states: "to provide for the transfer of persons eligible for an allowance or benefit under FBA." This is what Bill 142 replicates in schedule D, paragraph 2. Yet on page 24, it states: "All recipients who qualify for family benefits as 'disabled,' 'permanently unemployable' or 'aged' at the time the new legislation would come into force would be grandparented into the ODSP." There is confusion. "Transfer" offers no guarantees; "grandparented" offers more protection.
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Under the Ontario Works Act, part V, General, 74(3)(a), the second paragraph, all of the above disabled citizens must submit to a regulation that requires "identification of the person by means of photographic images or encrypted biometric information." This is very demeaning for individuals with disabilities who need help.
In the Council for Exceptional Children's September-October 1997 magazine, there are startling statistics regarding unemployment and level of poverty for the disabled in the United States. It's exhibit 5. I would share with you Canadian statistics, but they are not available.
In this article it states:
"Forty-seven per cent of adolescents with learning disabilities drop out of school by the age of 16.
"People with disabilities have an employment rate that is among the lowest of any group of Americans under 65 years old.
"Dropout rate: Research shows that the dropout rate among students with mild disabilities is a major national problem.
"Unemployment and poverty: People with disabilities are twice as likely to be poor, as compared to people without disabilities."
Should we not be concerned in Canada that Ontario's disabled may mirror these shocking facts?
To support my contention that in some parts of Ontario, namely the greater Toronto area, these facts are indeed reflected in Ontario's communities, I have enclosed Outstanding Needs of Communities at Risk, September 1997. This was published by the city of Toronto urban development services and the Metropolitan Toronto community services. It's exhibit 6.
Where are the biggest gaps? Page 1: Child care, health and rehabilitation programs, skills training and supported housing. Who needs these services? The client group most frequently found to be in need of services includes people with disabilities, youth, seniors etc.
Needs for specific program areas: People with disabilities are recorded as the highest group.
I could go on, but if you look at this report, it is the disabled, youth and the poor who are suffering in this climate of cutbacks. Yet in Bill 142, you propose to offer services only to individuals with disabilities who are 18 years of age and older. VRS covers them at 16 and over and provides wide-ranging services to help them become employable. You propose to strip the disabled of any guarantees for assessments, assistive devices, counselling and the help of qualified professionals. You wish to make disabled Ontarians -- your constituents -- second-class citizens.
In closing, because of time constraints, I am enclosing exhibits 7 to 13 that reflect AND's concerns about Bill 142.
Your disabled constituents do not have large unions to plead their case at the government level. Their disabilities make it difficult for them to march in rallies and come to Queen's Park or North Bay, since they are scattered throughout the province of Ontario. Are the disabled in Ontario too insignificant to be consulted? I do not mean consulting with agencies who serve the disabled; I mean opening up public meetings throughout Ontario, where you invite the disabled to come before you and bring their concerns.
We do not see this as an enabling piece of legislation but a draconian cutback in services to your most vulnerable constituents.
Thank you for allowing us to share our concerns.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, thank you very much for making your presentation this evening.
Ms Lankin: Madam Chair, I would like to place some questions on the record to the ministry. Specifically, I'm wondering if you could provide the committee with a copy of a review of VRS that was conducted by Frank Reilly during the years 1987 to 1988 which did a cost-effective assessment.
I'm also wondering if the ministry could provide an answer with respect to the reasons for downgrading the role of assessment to counselling in mandatory assistive devices. That's not an area of employment support that you seem to be emphasizing within the new bill.
I was also curious to see, in the presentation that was just made, in the accompanying material, a chart that showed the status at closure by disability. This is from the years 1992-93. It showed that 29% were people suffering from psychiatric disabilities -- we've heard directly from those representatives of that community that VRS had not worked well for them -- but 56% were people with developmental disabilities and 41% learning disabilities.
I was wondering if the ministry could provide, or perhaps the VRS department itself could provide, some sense of what types of supports those two categories most rely on in terms of support from VRS and what percentage of those people are able to actually enter into competitive employment, which seems to be stressed in the new legislation.
The last question I have is, it also appears that the chart indicating status of closure by disability shows that 31% had addiction as the reason for their disability. I wonder whether the exception to the eligibility criteria in 4(2) would disqualify many of those individuals who have been determined to have been disabled by addictions.
The Chair: Mr Carroll, can we have that information?
Mr Carroll: With all due respect, Madam Chair, I would appreciate if those questions -- I didn't get the questions. If we're going to get into a bunch of questions at the end of a presentation, when there's no time left, we should all get an opportunity to comment.
The Chair: The procedure is that anyone can put a question during the proceedings of the committee and the ministry can either accept and bring an answer or refuse to bring an answer, or not bring an answer without giving a refusal. But it's unprecedented that we would wait until the end of the proceedings and have everyone discuss, if I understood your point correctly, whether the questions are suitable or not. A request has been made by Ms Lankin. Your responsibility is to take that back to the ministry and bring back some kind of an answer.
ONTARIO MARCH OF DIMES
The Chair: Our next presenter is the Ontario March of Dimes. Mr Raina, welcome. I note that you have some copresenters with you. Would you mind introducing them for the record. You then have 15 minutes.
Mr Duncan Read: My name is Duncan Read. I am the president of the Ontario March of Dimes, an organization I'm sure is known to many of you for its work with the disabled community across the province for these past 46 years. For the record, I note I am also a consumer. On my left is Mr Jim Grant, the chair of our government relations committee, who will make our presentation. On my right is Mr Paul Raina, our government relations coordinator. Our attempt will be to be concise and to leave an opportunity for questions.
Mr Jim Grant: On behalf of the Ontario March of Dimes, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak to Bill 142. We will only be addressing issues pertaining to the Ontario Disability Support Program Act and not the Ontario Works portion of the legislation.
As a province-wide organization that serves the needs of adults with physical disabilities, Ontario March of Dimes supports the ODSPA as a progressive step towards enhancing the independence and economic participation of persons with disabilities. This new separate support program proposes to replace an outdated welfare approach to persons with disabilities with a system that provides secure income and employment supports.
The program recognizes that persons with disabilities can and do want to work, and will provide the supports and incentives needed to achieve that goal. The immediate reinstatement of income support if an attempt at employment fails will definitely motivate persons with disabilities to realize their employment potential. I should note that "motivate persons with disabilities" should say "further motivate." We do not mean to give any impression that they are not already motivated and have a desire for full employment potential.
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Moreover, persons with disabilities will have the opportunity to attain greater financial security as they will be able to retain higher amounts of allowable personal assets and compensation awards, and benefit from trusts, gifts and inheritances provided by their families.
Although not specifically part of the ODSPA, the government's plan to eliminate the 25% copayment towards the cost of assistive devices will significantly help individuals who often require costly assistive devices to achieve or enhance their independence.
While the ODSPA has many positive aspects, there are certain areas that have the potential to nullify the spirit of the act. The definition of "disability" and the provisions for eligibility for income support, income recovery and the appointment of a third party are restrictive and/or may hinder persons with disabilities from achieving independence and becoming contributing members of society.
We are uneasy about the fact that so much of the real substance around issues such as eligibility and recovery of assistance are left to the as yet unknown regulations. The regulations have the potential to either move the legislation in the direction that the government has repeatedly said it wants to move or they could act as a tool to greatly restrict access to income support and other assistance.
On the point of eligibility, our main area of concern is eligibility for income support. The legislation states that income support shall be provided to a person with a disability. Under the proposed definition of "disability," section 4(l)(a) states: "The person has a substantial physical or mental impairment that is continuous or recurrent and expected to last one year or more."
Section 4(l)(b) states: "The direct and cumulative effect of the impairment on the person's ability to attend to his or her personal care, function in the community and function in the workplace, results in a substantial restriction in activities of daily living."
In both subsections, the word "substantial" is used. As the word "substantial" is arbitrary, we fear that its application will constantly create heated disputes over an individual's eligibility.
We recommend that in section 4(l)(a) the word "substantial" should be removed and that in section 4(l)(b) it should be replaced by an objective term, such as "any degree of restriction." The removal of the word "substantial" in both instances would ensure that persons with varying degrees of disability would be justly treated, guaranteeing inclusiveness.
It is our understanding from conversations with members of the government and ministry staff that under the proposed definition an individual must qualify under one of the categories rather than all three, as feared. This clause should therefore be amended to read "or" instead of "and."
A further element of insecurity concerning eligibility for income support is created in section 54, "regulations," subsection 9, where it states that through the Lieutenant Governor in Council -- the cabinet -- "additional conditions relating to eligibility for income support" can be created.
The spirit of the legislation is to provide persons with disabilities with income security and employment supports to increase their independence. Regulations that allow additional conditions for eligibility to be created are at risk of being restrictive or exclusionary, which would regrettably nullify the spirit of the act. We recommend that such regulations be removed.
Under income recovery, this is another area where the regulations could reverse the intent of the program and turn all forms of assistance into nothing more than a loan.
With respect to liens, section 7 states: "The director shall in prescribed circumstances, as a condition of eligibility, require a recipient or dependent who owns or has an interest in property to consent to the ministry having a lien against the property, in accordance with the regulations." Further, in subsection 54(1)(12) regarding regulations, it is stated that the Lieutenant Governor in Council has the power to set regulations, "respecting the powers of the director with respect to a lien and the process for securing and discharging a lien."
Yet in remarks to the Legislature on August 28, 1997, Mr Jack Carroll, MPP for Chatham-Kent and parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Community and Social Services, stated, "The primary residence of anybody who is on the Ontario disability support program will not be subject to any liens."
Ontario March of Dimes has been repeatedly told by members of the government and ministry staff that the intention is to not place liens on primary residences of individuals on the ODSPA and that the regulations will include this. Ontario March of Dimes would like to see this stated clearly in the legislation and not left to the regulations, which can be changed at any time without public debate or input.
Appointment of a third party: Another area we have a great deal of trouble with is section 12, "appointment of person to act for recipient." This section states:
"The director may appoint a person to act for a recipient if...the director is satisfied that,
"(a) the recipient is using...his or her income...in a way that is not" beneficial to him or her, or
"(b) the recipient is incapacitated or incapable of handling his or her affairs."
There is nothing in the act which specifies how the director will arrive at this determination. Persons with disabilities are vulnerable and are constantly having to protect their rights from individuals and institutions who insist on making decisions for them. The minister has spoken many times of the government's wish to move away from being patronizing towards the disabled community. How, then, can you empower someone if you give their benefits to a third party? There is also no appeal process for the individuals affected.
We recognize the need for third-party recipients in certain circumstances, but we must insist that either there be an appeal process or that the decision be based upon the Substitute Decisions Act, which involves a process by which individuals are determined to be incapable of self-directed care.
The appeal process for this and other aspects of the act must involve a panel which includes representatives from the disabled community to ensure fair consideration.
The last element is employment supports. While we applaud the government's approach to employment supports, concern arises that an individual's earning potential may not be sufficient to cover additional costs associated with his of her disability. Persons with disabilities can and do want to work. They are willing to work to their fullest extent possible, which maybe full-time, part-time or occasional. Programs to top up income and the guarantee of continued benefits will be essential to participation or else people will not be able to afford to work.
These are some of our specific areas of concern. However, overall we commend the government for introducing this legislation. The spirit of this program truly recognizes that persons with disabilities want to be full participants in society and to this end deserve legislation that specifically addresses this.
Ontario March of Dimes appreciates the opportunity to present our concerns to the standing committee and looks forward to future and further dialogue on the enhancement of independence for persons with disabilities.
The Chair: We have about five minutes for questions, just over a minute per caucus. Mr Cullen for the Liberals.
Mr Alex Cullen (Ottawa West): Thank you for your submission. I am hopeful that your excellent suggestions will be picked up by the government.
I have a question about the section in the legislation that essentially creates two classes of recipients when it comes to disabilities. We have the minister's comments that, "The Ontario Disability Support Program Act creates a new program to significantly improve income and employment supports for people with disabilities." Further on, and this was stated today, she said, "The purpose" -- of the Ontario disability support plan -- "is to create a more inclusive and sensitive recognition of the different dimensions of disability." Yet we have within the legislation the grandfathering of those who are already on FBA. Does this concern your membership, that we're creating two classes of recipients under this legislation?
Mr Paul Raina: I guess to put it bluntly, we appreciate the fact that people who are currently on the system will be grandparented, and we hope and assume -- and will fight for -- that people who have the same qualifications as current benefits will continue to be put on the new system.
In other words, certainly if we thought that people who are currently on will be grandparented and people who have the same qualifications will not be allowed to come on in the future, then of course that's an inequitable system. Our assumption by that statement is that you will apply the same standards to all future applicants.
Mr Cullen: One hopes.
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Ms Lankin: I agree with the recommendations you have made and I have spoken to those during second reading, that we can't leave eligibility criteria to regulation. It must be clear in the legislation that there can't be liens on primary residences, and the assessment of capacity or incapacity has to be done under laws that have been provided to give rights of appeal to individuals.
I wanted to place my question to you about employment supports. In general, I think most of us who have seen this bill as having the potential of being a positive step for persons with disabilities think that an employment supports program could be very positive. I guess there are a couple of concerns I have, and I would ask you to comment on that.
First of all, the legislation sets out that prescribed employment supports may be provided. That leaves it to regulation and it leaves it to a big "may be." I'm wondering if you would like to see something a little bit more definite in the legislation.
Second, it talks about those supports being provided to people with disabilities who are interested in or capable of competitive employment situations. There would be many people who would be left out in that definition and who might require some of the current services that are in vocational rehab which don't appear to be continued in what the government is proposing for employment supports.
Mr Raina: I guess there are a couple of answers to that. First of all, we're trying very hard to look at the legislation and not get confused with regulations and programs. Certainly we are hopeful that a number of current programs that are in place under VRS and other pieces of legislation will be transferred over and continued under the ODSPA. We recognize that this is a shell piece of legislation and not much more.
The word "competitive" has come up several times and we've had lots of discussions. It's like all semantics: You can find arguments on both sides. We've met with some government members and their interpretation of "competitive" is to mean that you can have a job like anyone else. I suppose for the sake of brevity we decided to take that little section out and not comment on "competitive."
Certainly it concerns us as to how you would define the word "competitive." Does it mean simply that you should be able to go and have a job like anyone else, as if in some way you're different, or is it designed to say that if you can't compete the same as an able-bodied person then you don't get the job? I suppose that debate may have to hold off, in this case, until we see a bit more of the regulations, which you can rest assured we will be monitoring very closely.
The Chair: Mr Carroll for the Conservatives.
Mr Carroll: Thank you for your presentation. Your concern with the definition and also some concern with regulation -- I presume you've seen the current Family Benefits Act. It's 11 pages, and the General Welfare Assistance Act is only nine pages. Some of the regulation-making authority that exists now says, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations defining 'person in need,' 'blind person,' 'disabled person' and 'permanently unemployable person.'" At least we have now put into the legislation much more in legislation than was ever in the previous act and we have put a definition in there that under the old system was defined in regulation. Do you feel more comfortable about the fact that we've at least been up front in declaring much more in the act than the current act?
Ms Lankin: Madam Chair, he's leading the witness.
The Chair: This is not a court of law, Ms Lankin. He can do what he wishes. Mr Raina can't be led in any event. I know him well.
Mr Raina: The short answer to that is, obviously, as we've stated in our presentation, we do like the spirit of this act and we do think it's going in a progressive step. We aren't particularly happy with the present legislation either. If we had the chance to speak to that, we probably would, and would like to see it taken out of the regulations there. Anything that will enhance and guarantee independence for people with disabilities is what we are here to promote. The current legislation is far from perfect and the proposed legislation is far from perfect. It may in some aspects be getting closer, and we're here to nudge you along in that direction.
Mr Carroll: We appreciate your help. Thank you.
The Chair: Mr Grant, Mr Read and Mr Raina, thank you very much for being with us this evening.
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF INTERVAL AND TRANSITION HOUSES
The Chair: The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, Eileen Morrow.
Mrs Pupatello: A question for the parliamentary assistant, while that group is coming. Mr Carroll, is it your intention to bring forward amendments on the points that were made, that three groups tonight have indicated in discussions with you or Conservative MPPs, that you've agreed to, items specifically regarding the lien, for starters, and the "and/or" clause? Are those amendments coming, Jack?
Mr Carroll: The question about amendments was asked earlier and I was asked to have an answer for tomorrow. So I believe the question has already been answered and I shall have the answer tomorrow.
The Chair: We'll await the answer tomorrow, then.
Ms Morrow, I note that you have a copresenter. May I ask you to introduce her for the record? You have 15 minutes.
Ms Eileen Morrow: I'll let her begin, actually.
Ms Liz Westcott: Good evening. My name is Liz Westcott. I am here representing the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses. This evening I am joining my colleague Eileen Morrow, who is the lobby coordinator for the association. I would like to start by thanking everyone here this evening for the opportunity to bring our issues to the table.
The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, known as (OAITH), is a 60-member coalition primarily of emergency shelters for abused women and their children across Ontario. Since its inception approximately 20 years ago, the association has worked to improve public policy and systemic response to the concerns of women who experience violence from their partners, as well as the needs of their children who are forced to witness violence against their mothers.
OAITH is the largest association for abused women and shelters in Canada.
OAITH is well qualified to contribute to the consideration of any changes to legislation or regulations regarding social assistance issues. Shelters in the network work on the front lines with thousands of abused women every year who are forced by violence to leave their homes and apply for social assistance in order to survive financially. Seeking the expertise of both survivors of male violence and their advocates therefore should be a priority for those who would implement those changes.
One of the primary tactics of power and control for abusers in relationships is to isolate victims from support and means of escape. Among the array of isolation tactics abusers favour, economic control and isolation is one of the most frequently employed. Abusers prevent women from working, from working full-time and from attending training and education that would afford them any avenue of economic independence from control.
When women are able to work, the violence affects their ability to perform at their highest potential because it often results in absenteeism, poor concentration and difficulty in pursuing opportunity for advancement and promotion. Even abused women who work full-time may have no control over their finances and are often forced to surrender their assets to an abuser's control. Leaving the abuser doesn't guarantee financial independence and may in fact leave women with no choice but to also leave their employment to escape harassment and stalking at their workplace. Women are frequently forced to move from their neighbourhoods or communities, disrupting any work and education opportunities they may have had access to in the past.
The majority of women living in emergency shelters have been dependent on their abuser for financial support, either fully or partially. It is commonly known therefore that when they attempt to escape violence, abused women are frequently forced to apply for social assistance, often for the first time in their lives.
I will now turn it over to Eileen Morrow to complete our presentation.
Ms Morrow: I'm just going to hit the highlights. We've written a brief, which you have in your hands. Obviously it isn't something we could read to you in the short amount of time we have, so I'd just like to highlight some of it and I guess beg you to read it and to consider the points we've made. Of course, we also didn't touch on every single concern that we had with regard to the Social Assistance Reform Act. Specifically, we're going to point out some major concerns we have for abused women and their children with the Ontario Works Act.
Primarily, I'd like to just talk a little bit about why we are so concerned about this act. There is not very much research done in Canada on the number of women on social assistance who have experienced violence, but there is beginning to be some information and research done in the United States. There are a number of studies currently in our hands at this point, and I just want to talk about one that I think is illustrative of the concern that we have.
The governor's commission on domestic violence in Massachusetts did a survey of women on social assistance there with regard to welfare reform and discovered that 65% of the women on social assistance have in fact experienced criminal violence and threats against them, either currently or in the past, and that one fifth of them, 20% of them, had experienced those acts in the past year. So that is the very current experience of violence. When they added emotional abuse, the number rose to 70%, and over half of the women, 55%, had actually taken out restraining orders on their abusive partners.
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Our point is that the number of women on social assistance who are experiencing, and have experienced, violence against women is very high. It really calls for policy that is geared to a comprehensive analysis and understanding of violence against women and its impacts on women in terms of making a shift from welfare to financial independence.
I say that because those studies also show that 90% of abused women on social assistance have worked full-time or part-time at some point in their lives, and that 90% of them, almost all of them, express the wish to be employed and not to be at home full-time on social assistance. We have concerns about the fact that there are so many women who have to escape violence and live on social assistance, who want to leave social assistance and who are not able to do that because of the barriers either presented by poverty or presented by the impacts of violence against them.
With regard to the Ontario Works Act, we're particularly concerned about mandatory requirements for participation in employment assistance programs and the kind of impacts that violence may have on a woman's ability to participate fully and successfully in those programs. We would like some consideration of issues such as continuing harassment and stalking of women, physical injuries, emotional distress and sometimes severe trauma of women that may impact on their ability to fulfil requirements within those programs.
We're also concerned that there is no assurance that there will be regulated quality child care provided for women who are required to be part of these programs. We'd also like to point out that the impact of witnessing violence on children may in fact impact on women's ability to participate in these programs, because there will be some women and some children who are fearful of separation, and particularly separation into informal child care arrangements where there is no safety planning and no assurances of security and safety for the children or for the woman.
We know, for instance, that abusers, as Liz said, isolate their victims and that means that the current government's suggestions of getting child care from neighbours, families, friends and so on is absolutely not acceptable. Many women are moved many miles away from family and friends and have no personal contact with their neighbours. Even informal arrangements of that kind for child care are not acceptable for an abused woman on social assistance.
We would also like to express our concerns tonight about the aggressive child support enforcement that is suggested in the Ontario Works Act. This is a continuing problem with social assistance receipt by abused women and their children in Ontario. It's not new within this act. It occurs now within the current legislation. Because abused women are in situations where ongoing contact with their ex-partner may very well result in increased violence and injury, it's not appropriate to expect abused women to aggressively pursue child support enforcement.
I just got a letter last week from a shelter director that had been sent to an abused woman within that shelter demanding that she appear at a meeting with regard to child support enforcement with her partner; that she was responsible for making sure he attended the meeting and that she was also responsible for making sure he brought appropriate financial documentation with him. She was warned that if she didn't comply with this requirement she would face legal action and have to hire a lawyer to defend herself.
This is an ongoing problem in Ontario right now. We would really stress our fears that aggressive child enforcement for abused women on social assistance could lead to them removing themselves from social assistance and ending up homeless, returning to abusers or in fact suffering increased violence.
We're also concerned about a number of other elements within this act, for example, the liability of spouses for the debt of their partners and ex-partners. As you can imagine, this provision for abused women would be severe. Many abused women have absolutely no control over the finances, have no knowledge that any debts have been incurred and have no control over whether or not they are paid. The fact that there are appeals limitations on these aspects of the act is also a problem.
We are of course very concerned, as the last group was, with third-party control of social assistance cheques. We know that abusers, for instance, often allege that abused women are incapable of managing their financial affairs, and they often get abused women in certain situations to believe that themselves. We are very concerned that there will be offers from ex-spouses and members of the circle of influence of abusers to take control of those funds when there are some concerns. We have fears of what will happen to abused women if that kind of control and that kind of lack of autonomy is forthcoming.
We're concerned about the maintenance of assets for women who are shifting from family benefits assistance. It's very important for abused women to maintain some cushion of security that they can use when they have to react to what are often unpredictable, random violent acts from their ex-partners and partners. It would be very important for women to be able to maintain sufficient assets that they could take action, if necessary, to make themselves and their children safe.
We're concerned about confidentiality and personal information elements of this act. The confidentiality of personal information of abused women is very important. Women are often put at risk by government systems that pass information from one to the other. Abusive spouses within those systems can easily track women, and have tracked women, across this country using those systems. Abusers have also used private detectives to crack into those systems and, by whatever ways and means, to use that information to track down abused women, and women have been killed as a result.
We're running out of time, so I would just like to ask you to look at our recommendations. We believe there are a number of policy implications for the impact of violence against abused women on social assistance, including identification of abuse, training, confidentiality, safety, planning within the programs, referral to counselling for women who are abused within the social service system and so on. We've made a number of those recommendations.
There have been amendments, for example, in the United States, and I know that you've looked at programs in the United States to model welfare reform. I think I would also point out that there is a family violence amendment to the new welfare reform in the United States and, although I am not happy with the amendment as it stands, that is one idea I would ask this committee to look at: to look at consulting with front-line advocates, consulting with survivors of violence against women on social assistance; to make amendments to these acts and to the regulations, which are endless apparently within the Ontario Works Act; and to make sure that there is a comprehensive recognition of the impact of violence against women on social assistance policy.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Morrow and Ms Westcott, for your presentation. Unfortunately, we've run out of time, but we do thank you for coming this evening.
Ms Lankin: Madam Chair, I would like to place a number of questions to the ministry. First of all, I would like to receive whatever analysis the ministry has available of the percentage of women --
The Chair: Just a minute, Ms Lankin, if you don't mind. Mr Carroll, Ms Lankin has a number of questions. I thought perhaps you might like to hear what they are.
Ms Lankin: The first question was for statistics from the ministry of the percentage of women in receipt of social assistance, family benefits, who are victims of violence from their partners.
Second, what analysis was done of the provisions of this bill that have been brought forward in terms of its impact on abused women? What consultation was done with the community of abused women? What safety mechanisms are being built into the programs?
Two areas in particular concern me. One is with respect to workfare and the confidentiality aspects of participation. For example, we've seen all sorts of articles in newspapers about what workfare projects are going on in communities. I wonder what impact that might have on an abused woman who is trying to remain confidential and away from an abusive spouse.
Similarly, with respect to the accompanying child care provisions, there is some rumour that municipalities are going to be able to use subsidies in unregulated child care spaces for workfare participants. I'm wondering, for abused women and children where safety is a concern, what guarantees or safety provisions or assurances are going to be built in to ensure that we're dealing with regulated and secure care of children?
The Chair: Mr Carroll, we can expect those answers?
Mr Carroll: Yes.
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ONTARIO SOCIAL SAFETY NETWORK
The Chair: Could I ask the Ontario Social Safety Network to come forward, Reverend Susan Eagle, Jo-Anne Boulding and Malcolm Shookner. Rev Eagle, thank you very much for coming. You have 15 minutes to make your presentation.
Rev Susan Eagle: Thank you very much. I work for the United Church as a minister and a community worker. With me is Malcolm Shookner, who is the executive director of the Ontario Social Development Council, and also Jo-Anne Boulding, who is a lawyer in Muskoka. We are here tonight to represent the Ontario Social Safety Network and, on behalf of the network, to express some grave concerns about Bill 142.
Our network is a provincial coalition which was formed to inform communities across the province about changes in social programs. Our membership includes low-income individuals, anti-poverty groups, faith communities, people with disabilities, labour, legal clinics and social service providers. In fact, when we sent out the backgrounders which we have just provided to you in the binders today, we sent out to 700 to 800 organizations across the province. Our membership has grown greatly in the last couple of years.
Two years ago this government reduced social assistance payments by 21.6%. It was a reduction in income that caused great hardship for many and pushed others off the system entirely. A year ago our safety network released the Anniversary of the Cuts report which was mailed out to all members of the Legislature -- some of you may remember receiving it -- in which we tried to document what was happening already with cutbacks. Also during the last couple of years we have seen the impact of the loss of the Canada assistance plan which made it possible that a piece of legislation like Bill 142 could happen.
There is no way for us to predict the extent of suffering that will occur when and if Bill 142 is implemented in its present state. However, we are clear that it will further erode welfare rolls, not through acquisition of jobs by clients, as the minister has occasionally stated, but through denial of access by legitimate claimants who will have nowhere else to turn. We are also clear that those who do remain on the system will have their rights and dignity severely curtailed.
We remind this committee of the extensive work that's been done by previous administrations, including the Transitions, Back on Track and Time for Action documents which all concluded that reform of social assistance was necessary, timely and achievable, but in a fashion that could enhance clients' rights, encourage their responsibility and, through proper supports and employment strategies, move people off the welfare system and into the mainstream of the economy.
Not only does Bill 142 move in the opposite direction of the suggested reforms, we believe it will create more poverty and further the gap between the affluent and the needy in our communities. In fact, we believe Bill 142, through its shift towards making welfare a loan program, will place so great a burden on those already impoverished that they will be forced into a permanent economic underclass of our society.
We have very little time to present to you tonight so we want simply to identify some areas of concern that we have in the bill: conditionality, which will exclude those in need; unpaid labour exempt from labour legislation; unspecified police powers for fraud investigators; exclusion of classes of people; extensive decision-making through regulation; welfare as a loan; limited areas of appeal; restrictive definition of "disability" that will exclude disabled people; absence of any government commitment to mutual responsibility, such as employment supports.
As well, we are concerned that the process of community consultation has been virtually non-existent as the government has moved ahead with the new legislation. Even now we are being asked to comment on Bill 142 without any opportunity to review the regulations which will govern so much of the content of the program itself.
As a social safety network, we are committed to fundamental principles of human dignity, mutual respect, economic equity, social justice, compassion and self-determination. We believe that a healthy and just society requires the full and meaningful participation of all its members and that all members of society require, and have a right to, the basic necessities of life, including adequate food, shelter, health, dental care, education and child care.
We don't need to remind you -- we have listed them in our brief -- of the number of international covenants that we are participants in as a country, and we believe we are also accountable as a province for our participation in those.
Bill 142 undermines our obligations, targets and harms the vulnerable, and destroys the dignity of thousands of Ontario children, women and men.
Included with our statement tonight we have brought you a list of recommendations; an extensive analysis of Bill 142; and a copy of our most recent publication, Reality Cheque: Telling Our Stories of Life on Welfare in Ontario, which is the stories of people on assistance who have provided that through the vehicle of the Social Safety Network so that their stories could be told.
As well, in our brief tonight we have brought you a copy of an article from the Simcoe Reformer in which someone in charge of workfare was suggesting that people could dress up in Dickensian costumes and go out and bring Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol to the streets of Simcoe.
We urge you to completely rework Bill 142, gut the most odious and offensive sections that will deny basic rights and reconsider the purpose of social assistance offered by the Transitions report:
"All people in Ontario are entitled to an equal assurance of life's 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 of society to integration within the mainstream of community life." Our first recommendation this evening is that that definition replace your current purpose clause in Bill 142.
Ms Jo-Anne Boulding: I'm just going to highlight some of recommendations which are stapled together right behind the brief that Susan just read. We're not going to go through every single one, but our position is that workfare is morally wrong, that mandatory workfare requirements should be deleted from the social assistance act. We oppose mandatory unpaid labour as a condition of eligibility.
We value parenting in our society. Single parents should engage in employment activities when they choose to. Those who choose to work should have access to safe and affordable child care, transportation and employment supports. Women and children escaping family violence should not be forced to work. Currently I'm the chair of the board of the women's shelter in Muskoka. We have received numerous calls over the past year from women telling us they are remaining in a violent home as they cannot afford financially to leave it and raise their children on welfare. Often the family is already in a financial crisis and there is no possibility that two households will be supported.
The cuts have already closed doors for women. This new bill will make life even worse for women as mandatory workfare can be imposed upon women escaping violence. Further, if women are fortunate enough after the breakdown in the family to have a matrimonial home, this act now holds out the possibility of a lien being put against that home. Someone who has fought so hard to get out of a violent home now will never be able to get off social assistance because the debt will be an end for them.
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Mr Malcolm Shookner: In the time remaining, we'd just like to highlight a few more of the 24 recommendations we included in the brief. You are finished, aren't you?
Ms Boulding: Go ahead.
Mr Shookner: Focusing first on the definition of "disability," number 6, the new definition of "disability" should mirror the language in the Ontario Human Rights Code to ensure that the ODSPA is not underinclusive. The new definition concentrates on the direct and cumulative effect of an impairment. This ignores side effects of treatments. Therefore the new definition should refer to the direct or causally connected or cumulative effect of an impairment.
The new definition of "disabled person" is far more restrictive than is necessary, as you've already heard this evening. A substantial restriction in one area of activity should be sufficient. We recommend that "and" be replaced by "or" in this part of the definition. The phrase "activities of daily living" should be deleted. It is sufficient that an individual be required to show substantial restriction in one ability to function: in the workplace or at home or in the community.
It is contrary to the Ontario Human Rights Code to disallow disability benefits to groups of people based on the nature of their disability. Alcohol and drug addictions are disabilities recognized by the code. The clause refusing to recognize the disabilities of people with alcohol or drug dependencies should be deleted.
Finger scanning or other forms of biometric identification should not be used on welfare recipients.
The sections of the act which deal with the powers of cabinet to define classes of people who are not eligible for assistance should be deleted, and we refer to them in recommendation 11. This would mean that without any public discussion or scrutiny, the government can choose to deny assistance to entire groups of people they have decided are undeserving. Under the ODSPA as well, the cabinet may designate classes who are ineligible to receive assistance in order to remove barriers to employment. Both of these clauses are inappropriate for a social assistance statute and should be removed.
The rule which deems loans to be income should be repealed.
Assistance should be paid directly to third parties only with the consent of the recipient.
I'll highlight the last one, number 19, that eligibility review officers should not be given police powers.
We encourage you to read the rest of the recommendations. We also urge you to take advantage of the work that has been done by our people to do extensive background work on the issues we've raised briefly in this presentation. Thank you for your attention.
Ms Eagle: I'd like to mention that the Toronto Conference of the United Church asked me if I would also bring their brief. It was circulated to you this evening. They did not get on the hearing list tonight so they asked me as a fellow United Church person to please bring their brief as well.
The Chair: Thank you, Rev Eagle. You can certainly relay back to the other group that their presentation will form part of the formal proceedings. We thank all of you for being here this evening and making a presentation.
HEMOPHILIA ONTARIO
TERESA GROUP
The Chair: Hemophilia Ontario, James Kreppner. Welcome, Mr Kreppner. Would you be so kind as to state for the record the name of your copresenter. You have 15 minutes.
Mr James Kreppner: I'm James Kreppner. I'm vice-president of Hemophilia Ontario. To my right sits --
Mr Bob Watkin: Bob Watkin, president of the Teresa Group.
Mr Kreppner: I would just like to start off by saying that we will be addressing ODSPA for the most part. We endorse the document prepared by the HIV-AIDS community ad hoc committee on the definition of "disability." Both organizations endorse that document.
Haemophiliacs often suffer crippling joint bleeds and, as a result of that, do have situations where they become disabled. As well, through the blood supply, many of our members were infected with hepatitis and HIV during the 1980s, as has come out recently in the Krever inquiry. Any one or a combination of these factors may lead to disability on the part of our members.
I would at this point like to turn to Mark Freamo's earlier analogy. Mark Freamo was the representative of the People with AIDS Foundation who talked about the risk you're basically setting up by not including injection drug users in this legislation. I think increasing their desperation is not likely to help stop the spread of HIV. We may be setting the background for another public health disaster in excess of the scale of the tragedy that affected blood users in the mid-1980s. I would just warn the government of that fact. I think it's not wise to be penny wise and dollar foolish in this situation. I think you're better off caring for those people than not caring for those people.
This will lead to a parochial concern, which I'll raise and get over with first, and that is that when the HIV compensation package was granted by the provincial government, part of the process of the negotiation was that HIV compensation would be exempted from any consideration or eligibility for social assistance. The settlement deal was that individuals could avail themselves of both social assistance and the compensation payments.
What happened was that the provincial government signed agreements with all the affected individuals. Section 6 of that agreement is called "Tax and Social Assistance Exemption." More particularly, section 6.3 of that agreement says: "The province agrees it will take reasonable steps so that the payments made under this agreement will not be considered as income for purposes of qualification or calculation of benefits pursuant to the Family Benefits Act, RSO 1990, or the General Welfare Assistance Act, RSO 1990, as the case may be."
Those acts, of course, are now being done away with by this legislation. What we want to ensure is that the intention of this agreement be honoured in this new legislation. This could be accomplished through a number of mechanisms. We think the best mechanism would be for it simply to be enshrined in the act, since it is not too late to make an amendment to the act to acknowledge this. It could also be accomplished by basically having separate agreements with all the individuals, but I think that's probably the more difficult process. So I would ask that this committee recommend a change to the act to take into account this change.
Obviously, if that is not accommodated, there could be court action launched to give attention to the agreement, but that would be a very poor third choice. We expect the province to live up to its commitments.
With that parochial issue aside, we share the general concerns that have been articulated here tonight by many of the deputants. There have to be substantive appeal rights. In my previous life, I did a little bit of tax law. There is a legal principle that there is no equity, there is no fairness in tax law. But even under tax law, Revenue Canada interpretation bulletins did not have the force of law, unlike the minister's power under this legislation to dictate interpretation of the legislation. This power makes any appeal -- and there are few opportunities as it is -- somewhat illusory if the ministry can direct the tribunal in terms of what the outcome will be. So we would strongly advocate against that.
I would also like to articulate and reinforce the principle that social assistance should not be a loan. People in desperate need should not be further penalized with these lien provisions and loan provisions.
A number of times during this process we've been told that what the legislation states is not the intention of the government. I ask you to amend the legislation to reflect the true intentions of the government.
Mrs Pupatello: Hear, hear.
Mr Kreppner: We require that the necessary procedural and substantive protections that have been outlined by previous deputants be in the legislation and not subject to the whim of policy and regulations. I would add that this includes extended health benefits. We've been told that there is an intention to have extended health benefits under the new legislation but we can find no reference to that in the legislation. So we would ask that that would be one of the amendments to be put into the legislation. Those are my submissions.
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Mr Watkin: We thank Hemophilia Ontario for ceding part of its precious time to permit us to make this presentation to you. We thank the members of the committee for listening to us. Our comments will be directed to the Ontario Disability Support Program Act, 1997, which will be referred to in this presentation as the disabilities legislation.
The Teresa Group is a charitable organization which has been in existence since 1990. As an AIDS service organization, our focus is the betterment of the lives of children infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. Currently we serve approximately 119 families in the Metropolitan Toronto area. We have contact with other families throughout Ontario. We work closely with the Hospital for Sick Children.
The Teresa Group wholeheartedly and without reservation endorses, in its entirety, the position statement of the HIV/AIDS community ad hoc committee on the definition of "disability" in relation to the disabilities legislation. We understand that this position statement has been submitted both to the minister and to this committee.
We understand from our meeting with the director and other officials of the opportunities for persons with disabilities branch of the ministry last Friday, and the meeting the minister had with the Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS to the Minister of Health last week, that very necessary and important changes to the definition of "disability" will be tabled on the third reading of this legislation. We are grateful for this development.
In view of the brevity of the time allowed to us, we will limit our specific comments to two aspects of the disabilities legislation as addressed in the position statement of the ad hoc committee. One aspect is in relation to the definition of "disability" and the other is the debt obligation created by the legislation. Before making these comments, however, we feel it is necessary to address two fundamental premises which should not be lost sight of in the course of the review of this legislation.
Our review of the disabilities legislation led us to re-examine our basic values to which we adhere, as a volunteer-based charitable organization and individually as citizens of Ontario and Canada. We hold it to be true that a fundamental value to which we adhere as Canadians is that we are committed to the basic support of those persons among us whose lives have been unalterably compromised by chronic or incurable disease or physical handicap, both institutionally through our governments and individually as citizens. The fulfilment of that value should not come with a price tag for its beneficiaries.
We recognize that there is a great need to reform the welfare system. We ask you, in the first instance, to consider the identity of the persons who are the focus of the disabilities legislation. It cannot be said of the persons who are its focus whether or not it can be justifiably said of anyone receiving social assistance, that conditioning or preference has led them to dependence on welfare. The legislation targets those persons whose lives have been irrevocably impaired by chronic, debilitating and incapacitating illness or physical handicap for which no known cure exists. Some aspects of the proposed legislation could have very grim consequences for these people and their children. The stress of those consequences could not only worsen their condition, it could also very well hasten their deaths.
For public health reasons, we cannot support the absolute exclusion in the definition of "disability" of persons suffering from chemical dependencies. In our work, these people are the most alienated and difficult to reach. This exclusion will only serve to alienate them further. The consequences of that alienation are very real and very dangerous. The rates of infection among those persons have undergone an exponential increase in Vancouver. Those statistics were provided to the minister last week.
In our own experience, our client base has expanded from 70 to 119 families in the past year and a half, due in no small part to intravenous drug use. Let us be clear that infection among these persons has been and will be the greatest potential source for the crossover of HIV infection into the general population. It is already happening. Narrow, moralistic approaches, such as the denial embodied in the definition, have not and will not work. It is time to develop an overall comprehensive and practical approach to the illness of chemical dependency. If we don't, the consequences could be drastic for a great many citizens of this province and this country.
We cannot do anything else but to deplore the creation of a debt concept in relation to received benefits under the disabilities legislation. Consider the consequences of this concept on the lives of a four-member family in which both parents and one child are HIV-positive and one child is HIV-negative. Beyond the disease itself and the consequences of opportunistic infections, each infected member of the family is following separate treatment regimes which impose different eating schedules on them and cause different side effects, including constant nausea, diarrhoea, myopathy and neuropathy for each of them.
The uninfected child is trying to live a regular life in these very difficult circumstances. The parents have tried to maintain some sense of normalcy in their children's lives, but the combined effects of their deteriorating health, the endless round of doctor and hospital visits and the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS have taken their toll on the family's finances, personal strength and their ability to maintain regular employment. The stress on this family is enormous. In addition, under this legislation, the parents must face the fact that by accepting the support they are obliged to take in order to survive, they will be required to assume a burden of debt that will forever entrap them and mortgage the future of their children.
Consider the case of the uninfected child. That child is already struggling with the isolation caused by the stigma surrounding AIDS and very terrifying fear of becoming an orphan. In addition, that child will now face the prospect of entering into an independent life mortgaged to the hilt by a debt incurred by the child's parents to achieve a subsistence-level existence for them and their family. This debt concept is both illogical and draconian in effect.
Our statements concerning the consequences of HIV and AIDS on the social, psychological and economic wellbeing of families are not mere conjecture; they are borne out by our own experience. They are also detailed in the recent study Children Born to Mothers with HIV: Psychosocial Issues for Families in Canada Living with HIV and AIDS, prepared by the Hospital for Sick Children and other respected institutions across Canada. We commend this study to you. In particular, we ask you to consider the recommendations to governments developed and stated in it. We find more glaring disparities than incidences of concordance between those recommendations and the disabilities legislation as it now stands. Again, we thank you for taking the time to listen to us.
The Chair: We have two minutes remaining, so very quick questions.
Mrs Pupatello: I have a question.
The Chair: Well, we start with the NDP. Ms Lankin, do you have a question?
Ms Lankin: Actually, I'll leave it to my partner. I wanted to ask a question of the ministry and research.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, do you have a question, very quickly?
Mr Kormos: No, I don't have any questions, I'm sorry. I'm not apologizing for not having any questions. You've said it. With respect to that very specific issue, I suppose there are many ways to say it, but nothing more in effect to be said. Thank you kindly. I hope others share the response that Ms Lankin and I do too.
The Chair: Mr Carroll for the Conservatives.
Mr Carroll: Just quickly, it is our intention in the regulations to honour the agreement that was worked out that you referred to in your presentation.
The Chair: Ms Pupatello for the Liberals.
Mrs Pupatello: The gentleman on my left, I didn't get your name when you started.
Mr Watkin: Bob Watkin.
Mrs Pupatello: Bob, you mentioned that you had a commitment by the minister that the minister will come forward and expand the definition of "disabled."
Mr Watkin: We understood the minister to have said, at the Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, that the definition will be amended to change "and" to "or."
Mrs Pupatello: That implies to me that an amendment will be forthcoming. I would like to repeat to the parliamentary assistant: To have groups come before us, spinning their wheels, not knowing what is going to be tabled before they're making their presentations is simply unfair and frankly it's cruel, because repeatedly, time after time, all day today and this evening, we have heard this and/or issue being brought up.
If that will be clarified, Jack, it's incumbent on you to come forward with that immediately. I've got to insist that if you, as parliamentary assistant, knew that was the case, you shouldn't have groups coming before us like this, not knowing, when one group has a commitment by the minister for such an amendment; not a regulation change, but an amendment.
Mr Carroll: Can I respond to my scolding?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Carroll: It would probably be presumptuous to do much in the way of amendments until we've heard from the presenters who come before us. We like to hear what people have to say.
Mrs Pupatello: If the guarantee has been made already, why waste our time?
The Chair: Thank you both very much for being here so late.
Ms Lankin: I would like to ask if copies of the report by the Hospital for Sick Children that was referred to, Children Born to Mothers with HIV, could be made available to the committee.
May I just indicate to the parliamentary assistant that it's very impolite of him to call his minister presumptuous, given she's the one who made the commitment that the amendment would be coming forward.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we are scheduled to recess. I would say to all the members of the committee, the room will be locked, so if you wish to leave your things here until tomorrow, you may. We are adjourned until 3:30 tomorrow afternoon.
The committee adjourned at 2140.