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Social Planning Network of Ontario

SPNO Letter Regarding the 2011 Census

July 20, 2010

The Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario

Dear Prime Minister Harper:

I am writing on behalf of the Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) to express our astonishment and deep concern about the recent decision of your government to discontinue the mandatory long-form questionnaire for the 2011 Census in favour of a voluntary National Household Survey (NHS).

The SPNO is a network of 18 social planning organizations throughout the Province of Ontario. As local research and development organizations, we work to enhance the quality of life of people as they live and work in local communities. We work to create an equitable and socially inclusive Ontario.

Hard To Have Dignity If You're Hungry

The McGuinty government's poverty-reduction strategy is not addressing the needs of hundreds of thousands of Ontario residents. In fact, the most recent Ontario budget heightens the food insecurity people on social assistance experience and undermines the well-being of our communities.

Food insecurity means everything from being hungry to not knowing where the next meal is coming from to being chronically malnourished due to poverty. The decision to cut the Special Diet Allowance threatens access to healthy food for tens of thousands of people. The Ontario budget also reduces the real income of people on social assistance because the 1 per cent increase in social assistance does not keep up with the rise in consumer prices.

Many organizations have justly been critical of the recent cut to the Special Diet Allowance, but we want to put it in the context of two things: the systemic impacts on health of food insecurity caused by poverty; and the common resolve of our organizations to work together with our patients, clients, neighbours and fellow Ontario residents to support their rights to a decent, livable income.

A Recovery-Free Zone: The Unyielding Impact of the Economic Downturn on Nonprofit Community Social Services in Ontario

TORONTO, July 8, 2010

Community service organizations across Ontario report an unyielding dilemma, driven by the economic recession: how to meet increasing demand for services with falling revenues from funding sources.

A Recovery-Free Zone, a survey of 311 non-profit community service agencies across Ontario, released today by the Social Planning Network of Ontario follows up one year later on a similar survey conducted in 2009. It shows that service demand continues to rise with 68% of respondents seeing a greater demand in April 2010 than prior to September 2008. Almost 80% of respondents attribute this increase in demand as primarily or in part due to economic conditions.