Basic Pay synopsis overlooks 'human touch' in anti-poverty effort

TORONTO, March 17: The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) is articulating unease over the Ontario government's outline of its fresh public discussion on Basic Income.

"The government's report, What We Heard, clearly didn't hear the voices of frontline social assistance workers," revealed OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas, adding, "In our submission to government, we made it crystal clear that no anti-poverty strategy, whether it's Basic Income or something else, can succeed without the human touch. Yet yesterday's report doesn't even mention frontline social assistance staff at all."

OPSEU acts for over 2,000 workforce employed in offices of the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP, in the Ontario Public Service) and Ontario Works (OW, in municipalities).

"If Basic Income raises incomes for people living in poverty, I'm all for it," the OPSEU President disclosed, adding, "But people in poverty need more than money. They need employment counseling, housing supports, crisis intervention, and personal advocacy. And those things can only be provided by real live human beings who care for a living."

The government persists to flaunt its Basic Income scheme as a possible money-saver for the province, but Thomas assumed even wiping out each social aid worker in the province would only save pennies contrasted to the existing price of social aid in dollars. Employment outlays for ODSP and OW add up to merely 2.3 per cent of program expenses, according to Ontario's Public Accounts.

"Frontline social assistance staff are open to seeing their job descriptions evolve," Thomas observed, adding, "but there is no way we will support any new model of social assistance delivery that doesn't involve them."

Thomas repeated his plea to the government to increase social aid rates throughout the board instantly.

"When this government wants to do something big like privatize Hydro One or put beer in grocery stores, it can whip together a plan and implement it in a matter of months," he commented, adding, “But when it comes to reducing poverty, it's all study, study, study. That's not acceptable. People are poor now. People are hungry now. We need to raise the rates now."