Courtesy TheMarkNews.com
While there are some hopeful reports
that our economy is in recovery, the thousands of people in this
province who have lost their jobs and remain without work have
discovered that our social safety net has become
threadbare.
A
single person living on social assistance in Ontario has just $572 to
make it through the month. As the provincial government convenes a
review of social assistance as part of its poverty reduction strategy, people in our city continue to go hungry each
month.
In real terms, someone on social assistance has 40 per cent less money
today than they did prior to the devastating cuts in 1995.
To
demonstrate what this means for people living in Toronto, The Stop
Community Food Centre has created a campaign called “Do the Math,” which
includes a website
that helps calculate the real cost of living for a single person in
Toronto.
Completing the survey, it becomes obvious that social
assistance is woefully inadequate. Even the most frugal person cannot
hope to live on just $575 a month. After paying rent, there is not
enough left for healthy food, let alone clothing, a telephone, or bus
tickets.
This inadequacy has driven tens of thousands of
Ontarians into a chronic state of crisis, living in precarious housing
and relying on food banks and charities to get by.
To help bring
attention to this issue, The Stop challenged myself and other prominent
Torontonians to “Eat the Math.” On April 6, I will go to The Stop’s
Davenport Road community centre and pick up a standard food hamper
distributed by the food bank. These emergency hampers are meant to
provide a three-day supply of food each month for people in crisis. My
challenge will be to live, as most food bank users do, on its contents
for an entire week.
I hope that this small act of solidarity will
help raise awareness about the crisis facing our jobless friends and
neighbours. At the end of the week, on April 13, The Stop will bring
together “Eat the Math” participants and residents to discuss our
experiences and our challenge to ensure that everyone in our community
can access good, healthy food each month.
As a first step, The
Stop, along with Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown,
and communities across the province have asked the provincial
government to immediately introduce a $100 per month “healthy food
supplement” to make it easier for all people living on social assistance
to eat better and live in dignity. I wholeheartedly add my voice to
their call.
The Mark News is
Canada’s online forum for opinion and analysis.
