Time For A Food Stamp Program

The following issue was discussed on talk radio and it is surprising the number of people who still stereotype people on social assistance as bingo playing, beer drinking, lazy slobs who would just blow any extra monies. There is no question there are people like that but their kids still deserve a decent meal everyday so how do we try to make that happen. It would seem to me that a food stamp type of program would be the answer......

Doctor stands up for the poor
February 02, 2007
Carol Goar

It is reassuring, in a sad way, to live in a city whose board of health publicly exhorts the province to raise welfare rates so people can eat properly.

At least one government agency is taking a stand against hunger. At least one senior bureaucrat, Toronto's medical officer of health Dr. David McKeown, is willing to call food a basic right. At least one group of public officials understands that malnutrition is a health issue.

Unfortunately, all the board of health can do is appeal to the consciences of MPPs and enlist the support of Torontonians. The rest is up to Premier Dalton McGuinty.

This week, the board, which consists of six city councillors, six citizens and a school board representative under McKeown's leadership, called on Queen's Park to:

# Increase social assistance rates to cover the cost of a frugal, but healthy, diet. In Toronto, an individual needs $189 per month to meet his or her nutritional requirements, according to public health officials.

# Explain how social assistance is supposed to work. The province provides $548 a month to an individual with no other means of support. But it is impossible to find a decent apartment in Toronto, let alone buy food, for that amount.

# Raise the minimum wage so that working families can afford groceries.

# Recognize the link between poverty and poor health.

"Many Toronto residents are forced to choose between paying the rent and buying healthy food," McKeown said. "This situation is unacceptable and must be addressed on an urgent basis."

This isn't the first time the head of Toronto's public health agency has shone a spotlight on poor nutrition, poor housing, poor sanitation or poor wages. The tradition dates back more than a century.

But it comes at a pivotal juncture.

As budget season approaches, churches, unions, teachers' federations, community groups and a wide array of voluntary organizations are mobilizing with new energy to put poverty on the political agenda. Posters are popping up in bus shelters all over the city telling McGuinty to keep his hands off the National Child Benefit Supplement. The New Democrats are spearheading a drive to get Ontario's minimum wage raised to $10 an hour.

The Toronto City Summit Alliance is lobbying for the inclusion of a new Ontario Child Benefit in the provincial budget. The Senate is undertaking a study of urban poverty. There is renewed debate on a guaranteed annual income program.

McKeown lent medical credibility to these efforts. He put hunger in the headlines.

But as several board members noted at Monday's meeting, forests have been cut down to produce earnest reports like his. This time, the words have to precipitate action.

Nick Saul, executive director of The Stop Community Food Centre in Toronto's Davenport West neighbourhood, left the committee room feeling unusually optimistic.

"It was the strongest McKeown's ever been on this issue," he said. "The senior bureaucrats (at city hall) are committed. There's momentum in the community. You never know what the tipping point will be."

He had three specific reasons to be hopeful.

First, McKeown has promised to reach out to medical officers of health across Ontario. Some are already eager to speak out about nutrition, housing and poverty. What began in Toronto could grow into a multi-city movement.

Second, the board of health has agreed to include anti-poverty activists in its dealings with the province. It is determined to show McGuinty and his ministers the real-life damage their policies are doing. It is willing to be confrontational, if necessary.

Third, advocacy groups have resolved to stay the course. "In past years, we've made our deputations, then let go," he said. "This time, we're going to follow through."

Food is a good starting point, Saul says, because it is so elemental.

All voters, regardless of income or ideology, buy groceries. Most know how much they spend. Few would consider $6.33 per day – the amount McKeown says a person needs to eat properly – extravagant or outlandish.

The challenge will be to get Ontarians to plug that number (which works out to $189 per month) into this equation: Welfare income minus shelter costs equals the food and clothing budget.

An individual on social assistance receives $548 a month plus a GST credit of $20.94. The average rent for a bachelor apartment in Toronto is $740. That leaves a food budget of $0, a clothing budget of $0 and a scramble to come up with the missing $171.06.

It is little wonder so many welfare recipients suffer from diabetes, anemia, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, arthritis or some combination.

It shouldn't take a local medical officer of health to point this out to the province.

But it is heartening that Toronto has one who does.

Carol Goar's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.