Home

Social Planning Network of Ontario

SPNO Partners with ISARC on Poverty Free Ontario

SPNO is working on the Poverty Free Ontario initiative in conjunction with the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC), which is dedicated to faith-based approaches to public policy reform in areas of social justice and poverty elimination. ISARC’s current campaign can be found at www.faithtoendpoverty.ca

2009 Figures Show Growth Rate of Poverty in Ontario the Highest of All Regions in Canada since 2007 Election

TORONTO, June 17, 2011

Statistics Canada figures released this week show that Ontario’s poverty rate increased to 13.1% in 2009, a growth rate of 17% since the 2007 provincial election year (See Table following).

“Using the province’s official low income poverty measure, Ontario’s poverty rate of 13.1% is slightly below the Canadian average of 13.3%,” comments Peter Clutterbuck, Coordinator of SPNO’s Poverty Free Ontario campaign, “The rate of Ontario’s poverty growth, however, has increased the highest of all other regions of Canada since 2007.” A total of 1,689,000 Ontarians in 2009 lived in poverty, which is 277,000 more than in 2007.

While the rate of poverty growth by age group is lowest among children at 3.5%, Poverty Free Ontario notes that the proportion of working age adults (18 to 64 years old) living in poverty increased from 11.2% to 13.4%, a growth rate of 19.6%. Ontarians 65 years and older also show an extremely high poverty growth rate of 41.9% since 2007, although the overall proportion of seniors in poverty still remains below 9%.

Moving to a Poverty Free Ontario

The Social Planning Network of Ontario (SPNO) plans to launch an initiative to build cross-community support for a Poverty Free Ontario by the end of this decade.

Social planning councils have a long history since the 1930s of advocating for low income people, whether welfare recipients or working poor. In recent years, the SPNO and its organizational members have assumed a lead role in urging the Ontario Government to adopt a poverty reduction strategy for Ontario. Specifically,

In the summer-fall of 2007, SPNO mobilized cross-community support for poverty reduction in Ontario and released a report on “Ontario as the Child Poverty Centre of Canada”, which prompted Premier McGuinty prior to the October 2007 election to commit to the development of a poverty reduction strategy within one year of his Government’s re-election.
SPNO strengthened its cross-community mobilization on poverty reduction by developing a Policy Framework and Blueprint for Poverty Reduction and by conducting two tours of the province visiting 30 communities prior to the release of the Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy in December 2008.
Since 2009, working with community leadership in Toronto and across the province, SPNO has focused on the Put Food in the Budget Campaign (PFIB), promoting the adoption of a benefit increase of $100 a month Healthy Food Supplement for all adults on OW and ODSP as the first step towards adequacy in benefit levels to enable all Ontarians to live with health and dignity.
Partnering with The Stop Community Food Centre and guided by the PFIB Steering Committee, the SPNO has provided organizing and field support for the use of the on-line Do the Math survey tool (9,000 completed) and has engaged 20 communities across the province in the Do the Math Challenge.