Poverty Issues Advisory Committee

Annual Report 2007

Over the past year the Poverty Issues Advisory Committee (PIAC) has struggled with a severely reduced membership. In the face of expected attrition, lack of reserve members and in particular, deferred recruitment, PIAC has pursued its mission to provide Council with well considered recommendations in our common battle against poverty in Ottawa. We are pleased to present our Annual Report for 2007 and Workplan for 2008.

PIAC renewed its recommendation to CPSC and Council that basic dental care be restored to adults on social assistance and further that Council lobby federal and provincial governments to develop a publicly funded oral health care strategy that address the needs of all Canadians.

Based on presentations from three recipients of ODSP and the release of the City of Ottawa Housing Strategy, PIAC put forward to CPSC and Council, two motions recommending that ODSP rates be increased annually by the inflation rate and that a panel of disabled persons and their advocates be included in any investigation into the planning and delivery of housing and support services. This panel would also investigate the feasibility of a disabled person choosing his/her own caregiver.

An appeal from Residential and Support Services in the Housing Branch resulted in PIAC recommending that Council call upon the relevant Ministries of the Provincial Government to rectify subsidized housing and homelessness issues with sufficient and flexible funding.

PIAC has developed closer ties with other Advisory Committees; namely, the Health and Social Services Advisory Committee, the Seniors Advisory Committee and the Rural Issues Advisory Committee. Information is exchanged, motions in common are supported and members attend each others meetings.

Various presentations were made to PIAC over the year; for example a new aide organization that collects and distributes furniture to recently arrived refugees; introduced their presence in our community. PIAC also receives information from City staff in the form of a presentation on a number of issues important to our work. A member from PIAC was chosen to participate in the Community Project Funding Program where annual granting to non-profit organizations was decided.

PIAC members have participated in a number of Community Organizations and activities this year. These are Poverty Awareness Week, Dossier Hydro, Just Food, and the Anti-Poverty Forum – “Rethinking Poverty” to name a few.

The bulk of the additional work of research, recording and reporting back to PIAC was done by the Adequate Income and Support Sub-Committee (AI&S). Members have dedicated extra time to do this important work. Their report for 2007 follows.

2007 Adequate Income and Support Sub-Committee (AI&S) Annual Report  

The Working Poor

AI&S has spent most of its efforts this year on acquiring and reviewing studies and reports on the working poor from a wide variety of sources. As well, meetings were had and contacts made with individuals familiar with different aspects of the issue through their work; for their input. However, opportunities to meet directly with actual representatives of the working poor are very limited as they generally also suffer from a poverty of free time. We have begun to make contacts with organizations that offer employment support to different target groups, and we hope to be able to piggy-back on some of their events to speak directly with the working poor in attendance.

For a more comprehensive understanding of the issue and to be able to make targeted recommendations we have been looking at as wide a range of identifiable groups whose numbers include those who are working but still poor. These would include recent immigrants and new Canadians, Aboriginals, single and two parent families, youth and seniors seeking to supplement their income, Rural residents, including farmers and related workers. We have also included those who are self employed; whether operating a small business, dependant on contract or freelance work or make their living through the creative arts. In each case we will be looking at all aspects of life that are impacted by their low income as well as the programs available, designed to relieve their situation and how effective they are.

Since establishing linkages to include rural input into our study represents the most logistically difficult part of the task, PIAC member Hope Suggett; herself a rural resident : was appointed to approach the Rural Issues Advisory Committee (RIAC) to request their assistance.

Her presentation to RIAC during their July 17^th , 2007 meeting gave a brief overview of PIAC’s history and the results of several important reports presented and approved by Council, including their influence beyond the city.

RIAC was told Adequate Income and Support’s current compilation of information on problems of the working poor and that many of these issues extended into the rural areas and therefore RIAC was asked to help identify specific rural issues.

To illustrate just one problem; reference was made to a largely hidden issue-Hunger. She quoted from the Canadian Association of Food Banks’ 2006 Annual Report, that although many Canadian rural communities are located in prime agricultural areas; more than 60,000 food bank users in 2006 came from rural communities of less than 75,000 people. As well it was pointed out that some rural communities in Ontario have a hunger rate three times the entire Provincial average.

RIAC was very responsive to our request and they appointed Sue Cannon as their representative to liaise with PIAC’s AI&S Sub-Committee to help identify and compile issues of the rural working poor.

Since her appointment Sue Cannon has meet with AI&S and has begun to establish contacts with individuals and agencies in rural Ottawa to help us in our task.

AI&S has also met with Claude Beauchamp, Director of the Eastern Ottawa Resource Centre and established an agreement to work together on the rural component of this issue.

As our sub-committee members are few, we hope to engage volunteers to assist in gathering and reviewing data. To ensure that data is easy to understand and properly recorded, we are developing a general form that will allow us to determine those issues that are unique to a particular group, shared by more than one group or affect all groups.

Dental Care

We continue to monitor the growth in support for a comprehensive national oral health strategy and we are encouraged by the growing number of health agencies and other bodies in support of the concept of universal access of both preventive and treatment services to all Canadians.

We feel that Council’s support of our recommendations on this issue and its subsequent lead on a similar motion to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has played a valuable role in this increase in attention to the problem and in some way to the Provincial Liberal Government’s pledge to extend dental coverage to the working poor.

We continue to have informal contact with Dr. Ian McConnachie, now President of the Ontario Dental Association, met with us when we worked on our recommendations to Council. His Association has taken steps to improve access of seniors and long term care residents to dental care and is currently seeking to do the same for children of low income families. Dr. McConnachie has indicated that he would like to meet with us again in the not too distant future to share information and ideas.

School Fees

In monitoring the effect of our recommendations on school fees, there is anecdotal evidence that there have been fewer requests for fees in some schools this year; however they still continue to be a problem.

At a full day workshop on the topic organized by the Social Planning Council of Ottawa, parents, community workers, educators, representatives of school boards and one of our members met to develop strategies to address the problem.

Some of the ideas to come out of the workshop included an information campaign to inform parents of what they should not be charged fees for under the provincial education act a linking with other municipalities in a joint lobbying effort. A working group was also struck to draft a letter to the provincial government urging them to fully fund those course necessities for which fees are being charged as well as to explore the feasibility of a class action suit similar to the one in B.C. that outlawed the charging of school fees.

Basic Needs Strategy

AI&S continues to follow up progress on implementation of the Basic Needs Strategy. 

The Poverty Issues Advisory Committee hereby submits our 2007 annual report and looks forward to having a renewed membership in May to continue to assist Council in the continuing battle of poverty eradication in our communities.