Current Campaigns and Law Reform

Ontario Needs a Raise

Shortly after they were elected in October 2003, the Liberal Government in Ontario increased the minimum wage by 30 cents and promised to raise it an additional 30 cents every Feb. 1st until it reaches $8 an hour in 2007. As of Feb. 1st, 2006, the minimum wage is $7.75. The increases to the minimum wage are far from adequate. For example, a single person working 35 hours a week is still more than $3000 below the povetry line. Even when the minimum wage increases to $8 an hour, workers will still be impoverished and struggling to make ends meet.

In May 2004, the provincial government announced a 3% increase to social assistance rates, which finally appeared on social assistance cheques in March 2005. With ODSP rates frozen since 1993 and OW rates cut by 21.6% in 1995 then frozen, the 3% can only be described as grossly inadequate.

The Liberal Government still hasn't kept its promise to end the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS). Since they were elected, the Liberals have only allowed families to keep the cost of living increases to the NCBS that they received in July 2004 and 2005. For a family with one child, the increases amount to $259 a year (or just 16% of what they're entitled to), a far cry from the $1,722 in benefits that go to low-income families that are not on social assistance.

No matter how you look at it, the increases fall far short of what the Ontario Needs a Raise Campaign is demanding – and what low-income families need just to survive. Anti-poverty groups, organizations and low-income people continue to organize across the province to push for increases to social assistance that reflect the REAL cost of living, a $10 minimum wage, and an end to the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS).

The Liberal Government will announce the next provincial budget March 23, 2006 and is currently meeting to decide what new spending will be included.

So keep up the pressure!

Photocopy the ONR postcard template (See RESOURCES below) and get as many postcards signed as possible. Send them to Premier Dalton McGuinty;
Continue to collect signatures on petitions calling for increases to social assitance rates and a $10 minimum wage (See RESOURCES below) and take them to your MPP;
Get your city council to pass a resolution supporting the campaign demands;
Organize a group in your community to meet with your MPP. To find out who your MPP is and how to contact them, call Elections Ontario toll-free: 1-800-677-8683 or go to: http://www.gov.on.ca/MBS/english/common/contact.html#com
Organize forums, marches, workshops or other creative events to keep the campaign visible in your community.

To find out more about the campaign or to get involved, contact John Argue at the Ontario Coalition for Social Justice by email: john.argue@ocsj.ca or phone: 416-441-3714.

Resources >>