From ODSP to Workfare

[Andy Thompson]

The article below first appeared in the Star last fall. 

Read it, again. And take note of those sections highlighted in yellow. For anyone who doubts that the Social Assistance Review recommends putting people with disabilities to work through a workfare-like program, it says so right here in this article. 

By: Martin Regg Cohn Provincial Politics, Published on Wed Oct 24 2012

It’s a bad time to be on welfare in Ontario. And a tough time to be writing a report on it.

The economy is stalling and the deficit is crippling. The legislature is prorogued and the premier is a lame duck.

Quite a time for Frances Lankin to co-author a landmark report on how to save Ontario’s system of social services from itself.

Lankin’s report was postponed after Dalton McGuinty’s dramatic resignation announcement last week. During her belated Wednesday news conference, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan convened reporters one floor above to announce his own retirement.

Now, a high-profile committee of cabinet ministers set up to deal with her report is distracted by its own power play: Five putative rivals — Eric Hoskins, Kathleen Wynne, Deb Matthews, Laurel Broten and Glen Murray — are mulling over individual bids for the Liberal leadership.

Against that backdrop comes the first major welfare review since the late 1980s, undertaken by Lankin and former StatsCan chief Munir Sheikh. Despite the political distractions, they have an ambitious vision to redesign social services — by reuniting the two big welfare programs created by Mike Harris in the late 1990s.

Back then, the Tories were motivated by segregating the “undeserving poor” (who got general welfare, rebranded as Ontario Works) from the “deserving disabled” who qualified for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

All these years later, the report suggests eliminating these contrived distinctions between the “bad poor” and “good poor” by creating a more coherent and seamless system. Yet the authors have implicitly embraced the once-controversial goal of workfare.

The idea is to remove barriers to employment for everyone — not just able-bodied people, but also those with obvious physical or hidden mental challenges. With ODSP caseloads growing by 5 per cent a year, and most of the new and returning recipients coping with mental issues, it is no longer sensible or sustainable to hive them off and write them off.

The over-arching theme is that the system is too complex and opaque for anyone to support — recipients, caseworkers, taxpayers or politicians. For all the focus on fraud, welfare is rife with red tape, intrusiveness, contradictions and other costly inefficiencies.

It makes no sense to penalize the poorest of the poor by depleting their life’s savings, making it harder to bounce back when they finally land a job. Hence the need to allow decent “asset limits.”

It’s pointless to claw back the modest sums people may earn from temporary employment if that only deters them from ever getting off welfare. And it is absurd to maintain a federal tax code that helps the disabled only if they have enough taxable income to benefit from a refund.

Unsurprisingly, anti-poverty groups have embraced the report’s call for an immediate increase in base rates. Understandably, they are nervous about the goal of magically getting the disabled back to work. But keeping the system as it is will only hasten its decline.

Some in the corporate sector are stepping up, a credit to Lankin’s persuasive powers honed at the United Way of Toronto. Building a broader base of support may be the best way to rally politicians when they finally get back to work, post-prorogation and post-election.

Business backing might also coax the Progressive Conservatives to keep an open mind (and heart and wallet) should they win power, not least because the report argues that investing in smart reforms now will save money in future. The Tories’ deputy leader, Christine Elliott, is a passionate advocate for the disabled and has a powerful network of her own — not least her husband, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

While I usually resist the temptation to invoke her private hotline to Ottawa, she seems especially well placed to lobby Flaherty to look at the report’s call to redesign federal tax credits to help all disabled people, not merely those with the income to qualify.

Welfare is easily forgotten because there’s not much payoff for politicians to show leadership. The very poor don’t vote in large numbers and don’t donate big money.

Only if Ontarians at large open their eyes to the problem will politicians ever turn their minds to it.

[ROBERT ALDRED]

This is so interesting.  The propaganda system is working very well. The responsibility for the claimed decline is on the amount of people needing assistance.   That is not true.  These characters in and out of government are hired to manage our demands of our governments.   Not call us names and change everything.   The report is the decline of the support system.   The implementation of the report will devolve the system.  These characters and the people they work for are the authors and promoters of decline.    Like our economy the attendant programs have to be in conformitiy to our planned decline.  The only solution is to keep the distinctions, eliminate the dumb rules and increase the incomes at least 50 percent.    Anything else is as clearly as inaccurate as assuming Francis Lankin is a Socialist. 

The reports authors should be made to give all the money back they took while planning this mess.  

Robert



On Sat 06/04/13 1:32 AM , Andy Thompson andy_th...@outlook.com sent:

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[Andy Thompson]

Robert,

This statement highlighted from the article is disingenuous. It implies ODSP does not provide employment supports currently. This is not true. We have access to such services now.  

Sustainable? This means the coming reform is all about saving money, to hell with what's in the best interest of real people.... 

With ODSP caseloads growing by 5 per cent a year, and most of the new and returning recipients coping with mental issues, it is no longer sensible or sustainable to hive them off and write them off.

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To: odspfi...@googlegroups.com; andy_th...@outlook.com
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:42:39 -0400
Subject: Re: [odspfireside: 49777 ] From ODSP to Workfare
From: chrys...@primus.ca

[ROBERT ALDRED]

In a climate of no new jobs.   In a climate of economic decline.   In a jurisdiction that continues to give welfare tax cuts and subsidies to business that in some cases leave the country with the money how can anyone write that drivel.   "It is not longer sensible or sustainable to hive them off and write them off.    I agree with the statement but only if it is applied to the tax cuts and Welfare payments to the rich and powerful..   It is not longer acceptable to give welfare to these characters as though it ever was.   



On Sat 06/04/13 12:17 PM , Andy Thompson andy_th...@outlook.com sent:

[Bill Higgs]

Beacuse the two of them was bought and paid by the Liberals to write exactly what they were told,  the recommendations of the review were decided before the review ever happened,, and lets not forget in many ways although it was not written by Don Drummond , it certainly parots exactly what he sauid it should say!!!!

 

talk about being fixed from the get go!!!

 

Bill

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: SW

To: odspfi...@googlegroups.com

Cc: Andy Thompson ; chrys...@primus.ca

Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:44 PM

Subject: Re: RE: [odspfireside: 49823 ] From ODSP to Workfare

What part of 'disabled' did they miss??? Some people CAN NOT WORK to support themselves!! Why do they suddenly think that Disabled people are like those on Welfare? Because Larkin thinks she knows psychology? *bangs head against wall*

[ROBERT ALDRED]

They have an proposal that gives money for work to the government.   That money will go to their owners, the rich..    This is a slavery budget for disabled people.    Disabled slave workers wages while giving half the wages to the government to transfer to the rich.    Welcome to second century A.D Rome. 

Robert



On Wed 10/04/13 10:53 PM , "Bill Higgs" bill...@xplornet.com sent:

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