A Toronto Star Opinion Piece by Martin Reg Conn desperately tries to justify the Ontario election result in “Get Over It: Doug Ford’s Victory was an example of how democracy is supposed to work.”
But is it really?
The purpose of Democracy is to give people a say in our own governance. In a Direct Democracy that would mean citizens themselves directly make laws and government policies. As in a referendum.
But ours is a Representative Democracy, which means citizens choose representatives to represent us when making laws and policies in Parliament.
Mike Schreiner accurately characterizes the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) as legislated poverty.
ALTALTALT
TORONTO STAR (April 26th, 2013):
It’s time to end the erosion of public assistance in Ontario
Welfare has eroded to the point that it would take a 56-per-cent rate increase to bring the single rate back to where it was in 1993.
By John Stapleton
“The year was 1993… the last time social assistance in Ontario increased in real (inflation-adjusted) terms.
"For the record, the Rae [NDP] government established a single welfare rate of $663 a month in 1993 — the high water mark. He then froze social assistance rates in both 1994 and 1995, the first two-year freeze since 1973. Mike Harris cut rates by 21.6 per cent, establishing a single rate of $520 a month and let it stay there until Dalton McGuinty took over eight years later. That low $520 single rate, if adjusted for inflation, would now be $617 a month but the current rates stands at just $606 a month.”
For the last 20 years, social assistance has eroded to the point that it would take a 56-per-cent rate increase to bring the single rate back to where it was in 1993.
“For a single person with disabilities, a 22.2-per-cent increase would be required to restore purchasing power to levels paid in 1993. Harris and Eves did not cut rates for people with disabilities but they didn’t raise them either.”
The 1993 Ontario NDP set the (inflation adjusted) $1,729 amount paid to people living with disabilities.
Even if you think paying Ontario Works (OW) recipients less than they need to live on (either to punish them because you think they are lazy, or perhaps trying to defraud the system, or because you think it will give them an incentive to get a job), such Dickensian attitudes of blaming or punishing people for their own poverty should not extend to people living with disabilities.
No amount of fortitude, resilience or incentives will lift people out of disability.
Whether genetic or the result of illness or accident, disabilities are not a choice. There is simply no possible rationale or justification for forcing people whose disabilities prevent them from working for a living to live well below the poverty line.
The unequivocal Green commitment to raising ODSP rates pushed the other major parties to raise their own platform commitments, with the NDP agreeing to follow the Green lead by doubling ODSP in the 2nd year. No matter what the composition of the Ontario Legislature looks like after this election, the more Greens we send to Queens Park, the better.
If we are very lucky, Ontario voters will deliver a minority government. If you care about our social safety net, you will agree that our best hope lays with electing more Green and NDP MPPs.
Election Day inOntario is June 2nd, 2022. Please Vote. And encourage non voters to vote, too.
(Almost twice as many eligible voters didn’t vote as voted PC in 2018!)
And please: don’t encourage so-called “strategic voting” which only props up the status quo and helps FPTP suppress the vote.
Don’t waste your vote by voting for what somebody else wants.
The reason we hear politicians promising to plant millions of trees to fight #ClimateChange is living trees store carbon. The bigger the tree, the more carbon.
Every perfectly healthy big tree that is wantonly cut down for landscaping reasons releases the carbon it had sequestered throughout its life.
It is positively crazy to be cuttting the tiny sliver of old growth forrest remaining in Canada.
Last night I had a #COVID19 test, not because I have symptoms, but so I’ll be able to visit my Mom in Long Term Care again. I haven’t seen her in over a month due to the difficulty involved in getting tested in a Province that has failed to prioritize testing.
Today at my pre-work screening I learned that I am no longer allowed to work until the results of my test are in. This is kind of reasonable, but again, it wouldn’t be such a problem if testing was easy and results fast.
Tomorrow — Monday October 26th, 2020 — is #ElectionDay in two Toronto ridings.
Newly elected Green Party of Canada leader Annamie Paul is running to win the Toronto Centre seat vacated by former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau (amidst WE scandal ethics questions) . Annamie is both a brilliant candidate and an excellent choice to represent this, her home riding.
Photographer Sasha Zavarella is running in York Centre, where another Canadian National Party Leader — this time Peoples Party of Canada’s Maxime Bernier.
Neither of these by-Elections will change the balance of power in Ottawa.
That means voters are free to vote for what they want — they don’t have to worry vote splitting will result in the party they fear winning majority power.
Since by-Elections historically have poor attendance at the best of times (and a pandemic is surely not one of those times!) fewer votes cast means these votes will have more weight. This is a brilliant opportunity for voters in these formerly safe seats whose votes never elect anyone to cast a vote that may be heard. Greens across Canada are rooting for Annamie, because the sooner our leader can take her seat in Parliament the better we’ll be able to hold the government to account.
It is important to remember the other big parties “whip” MP votes, which means their MPs represent their party first, because, if they don’t, they can lose party support which invariably means losing their seat. Whipped votes used to be a rarity, but in recent times they have become the default for NDP, Liberal and Conservative MPs.
Green MPs differ from other major party MPs because first and foremost they represent the constituents of their ridings. If there is a conflict between what is best for their riding or what’s best for the party, the best interest of their constiuents come first. Always.
If you live in either of these two ridings, your vote for Annamie or Sasha will mean something. We’ve seen what an impact Mike Schreiner has made as a single Green MPP. Electing another Liberal will just be more of the same old. But Greens will always make a difference.
And we can give our votes more power if we can convince our friends and families to vote too.
Even in our terribly unrepresentative voting system, voting is incredibly important. Even our vote is unlikely to change the outcome, it puts our choice on the record.
If you live in one of these ridings, please vote tomorrow. (And make sure to wear a mask when you do!) It is so important — and perhaps even more important:
VOTE FOR WHAT YOU WANT.
(Even if you don’t want what I want.)
If enough of us vote for what we want, we might just get it. And Annamie has an excellent chance of winning this one.
![Greens will double ODSP. [Green Party of Ontario logo]
A person relying on ODSP receives a monthly income of $1,169
GRAPH showing the increased rate of funding to ODSP recipients offered by the four major Ontario political parties.
Progressive Conservative
$1,227 per month
Liberal
$1,285 per month
NDP
$1,403 per month
Green Party of Ontario
$2,338 per month.
Dotted line bisects the graph above the PC, Liberal and NDP promised rates and through the Greens promised rate.
Text above the line states:
1 Bedroom Apartment Average Rent $1,800 per month](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ef0bf9d8f1e73949ab371f132f459c6b/c24bcc57a59ce55b-c3/s640x960/ac4ccf8111559ac68ab5f97d807b462d91796fed.jpg)
