People are not talking about poverty: Chief Lyle Sayers

NEWS RELEASE

NORTH SHORE
TRIBAL COUNCIL

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Changes to social services equal to funding cuts for First Nation and communities

According to Chairman Chief Lyle Sayers for the North Shore Tribal Council, planned changes to social assistance programs introduced in the 2012 Provincial Budget are equal to funding cuts for First Nations and communities across Northern Ontario.

Sayers and other community leaders have deep concerns over the negative impact that combining health related discretionary and non-health related discretionary benefits into one program will cause.

The issue is in the way the programs are being merged.

Ontario Works service providers will have less money to get into the hands of people who need it on an emergency basis.

For example, the program is accessed when people who have fallen behind in payments need support to keep the lights and heat turned on, or to help prevent evictions.

The new funding model limits the amount of monies available to all communities, and will particularly have a negative impact on people living in the north.

With the proposed budget change there will be less funds available for those who really need it.

So in effect this is a program funding cut.

In larger centres there are many groups available that help make up income shortages in a variety of ways.

The proposed funding model will have a very negative impact on First Nations and smaller northern communities where these organizations do not have offices.

Sayers and others are calling on Premier McGuinty to suspend this change until consultations with First Nations and other northern community leaders are held.

“People are not talking about poverty,” Sayers says. “No one wants to think about the fact that the person living next door to them might be sitting in the dark and going without food.”

Additional facts:

• Hydro rates in Ontario are rising by 3.3 percent in Ontario this year alone.
• Rents in Ontario can increase by up to 3.1 percent this year.
• Ontario Works benefits will increase by 1 percent sometime later this fall.
• A single person anywhere in the province receiving Ontario Works benefits collects $598 a month.

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