No spending diet

Cost of special meal ticket for welfare recipients still fat despite promised chompdown on abuse

By SUE-ANN LEVY

Published in the Toronto Sun

The number of Toronto welfare recipients collecting a controversial meal ticket has grown by at least 20% since 2005 -- despite a supposed provincial clampdown on those eligible to receive it.

Low income tenants and homeless people are being driven from central Toronto to make way for an oversupply of higher income housing. Public housing is being replaced by condos.

Check out OCAP's Map of the PATH. Click Here

Click Here to download OCAP Radio's field audio from the action.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) is preparing to mobilize homeless people and their supporters to come down into the showpiece underground PATH system for a mass panhandle. We want to make clear why we are carrying out this action and what users of the PATH can expect from us.

Huge cuts to social programs and a desperate lack of affordable housing have fueled a crisis of homelessness in Toronto. Instead of meeting the needs of the homeless, those in power are looking to drive them out. Hostels have been closed and people forced onto the streets to beg. Then, police are used to harass and criminalize people trying to survive.

Today (November 8) members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty occupied the Office of Premier Dalton McGuinty.

After gaining entrance to the inner office of McGuinty’s “policy shop” on the top floor of a secure government building, the OCAP delegation announced that work at the office was finished for the day.

When security and police arrived a meeting was brokered with Tony Dean, the Cabinet Secretary and boss bureaucrat for Ontario. Mr. Dean said that the Liberal Government was well aware of the poverty that exists and was taking steps to correct a “complicated situation” . OCAP rejected this and instead told him to tell his boss that immediate action must be taken.

PHOTOS

• Graeme's Gallery

FLICKR:
• Lots of great shots on Spirited_Away's Flickr page
• A few nice photos on Mute's Photo Blog
• A bunch of photos up on Jovesky's Flickr page too

VIDEO

YOUTUBE:
• Some footage from the march heading to Queen's Park, with a little commentary thrown in
• Quick Clip from the march on September 26
• Interview with Anne from Health Providers Against Poverty
• An interview with another Anne, this one from Housing Action Now
• And another interview, with Michael of the Homelessness Action Group
• Speeches at Queen's Park
• Getting onto the lawn at Queen's Park
• Toronto Anti-Poverty Ad for September 26

NEWS MEDIA

• CITYNEWS: Hundreds Of Anti-Poverty Protestors Converge On Queen's Park (includes video)

• TORONTO STAR: Anti-poverty protesters make an election pitch
• SUN MEDIA: Day of Action rally draws crowds
• TORONTO STAR 2: Protests slow traffic