If You Voted For Change I Ask You

Why haven't you taken to the streets to express your outrage about the broken promises of the provincial fiberals......you did it when Harris KEPT his promises and you voted for McGinty and he promised CHANGE and McGinty and you are still blaming Harris........

Mom struggles on $1,008 a month TheStar.com - News - Mom struggles on $1,008 a month
McGuinty government has raised assistance rates 5.3%, gains wiped out by jumps in the cost of living

Rob Ferguson
Toronto Star

Back in 1995, after a brand new Progressive Conservative premier named Mike Harris cut welfare rates 21.6 per cent, a single mother with one child was getting $957 a month in social assistance.

Almost 12 years later, the payout is now $1,008 under the Ontario Works program. That's an increase of 5.3 per cent after two modest raises from Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government.

But as single mother Elita McAdam knows all too well, the cost of living has far out-paced her welfare income.

"You pay most of your money toward rent and then you suffer," says the 37-year-old, who spends 80 per cent of her cheque on her east-end apartment and utilities. There's not much left over for her and son Liam, 7.

Costs have gone up dramatically since 1995, when gasoline was 49 cents a litre. Now it's 80 cents, down from recent highs closer to $1. And a loaf of bread that was $1.69 in 1995 today costs upwards of $2.29.

Overall, a basket of goods and services worth $100 in 1995 now costs $124.16, according to the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator, an inflation rate of 24 per cent that dwarfs the welfare rate increase.

Critics say the McGuinty Liberals talked a good game in opposition. But the Liberals didn't promise much in the last election, other than to index welfare rates to rise with inflation and to end the partial clawback of the federal National Child Benefit Supplement to low-income parents, set at $162 per child.

But welfare increases haven't kept up with inflation and the clawback of the child supplement remains – about $122 is deducted from parents on welfare.

The Liberals have struggled with a deficit they've been trying to slay since coming to power in 2003 to find the government's books $5.6 billion in the hole.

But anti-poverty activists note Statistics Canada defines low income in the GTA as below $32,500 a month for a family of four.

Take to the streets.......