New Reviews of ongoing ODSP Entitlement VERY IMPORTANT

Thanks for this info. Does this impact everyone currently on ODSP, or are recipients who were recieving assistance under the Family Benefits Act exempt? It's been my longstanding impression that those recipients were "grandparented", and exempt from any medical reassessments. But since the ministry revoked people's "permanent" Special Diet Allowances, I don't trust anything the government promises.

Thanks. I'll ask around to see if people I know have been receiving these review forms. I had been aware that many people have been coming up for financial review, to make sure they still qualified based on things like residency and (lack of) means, but I hadn't heard anything about wholesale medical reviews. That's horrific.

When I've come up for financial review, I've been told each time that my medical eligibility would never be reviewed because my file dates back to the FBA days.

Of course, the fear that we'd be facing widescale disentitlement has been around for a while - at least since the Lankin and Sheikh report, but I always expected that it would require a change in the legislation. It's extremely worrisome that they're able to do this under the existing legislation.

True. I wonder if there were any identifiable patterns in who was asked to re-apply for the Special Diet Allowance. I know it took a few years before they got around to everyone.

Does anyone have any evidence of these reviews currently taking place? I ask because my partner and I have searched for more information regarding these reviews and found nothing. The Toronto Star that I used to write for would've been all over this story.

Nothing here that shartal hasn't already outlined, but it's good to see that word is starting to spread.

Ontario Government Launches Major Attack on ODSP

Invisible Austerity: How the Liberals are Getting Away with Slashing Social Assistance by A.J. Withers

There has been a consistent and concerted concealed attack on social assistance recipients in Ontario under the Liberal government. Why haven’t more people fought back – especially when poor people were being attacked under Harris the Left was united against those attacks. I think there are two key reasons for this. The first is that the Liberals employ this notion of constructive engagement – the appearance that they are approachable and will listen to us. But while segments on the Left talk with them they are fucking us over. The second reason is deeply related – certain sectors of the Province are much safer under the Liberals than the Tories. The Liberals were never going to lay 100,000 people off, for example. So, people take small concessions from the Liberals and don’t fight them – essentially selling out the most vulnerable to be less insecure. Rather try and slow the rate of austerity, we think that it needs to be stopped and that, if we are united, we can stop it.

Carol Goar: Stop blaming ‘computer glitch’ for welfare woes

Maybe this isn’t a computer problem. Maybe it goes deeper than technology.

If that turns out to be true, the $242-million social assistance management program that the government just rolled out will never work. Computers treat people as interchangeable widgets. They don’t take into account that Ontarians who depend on social assistance (446,500 welfare recipients, 448,500 disability support recipients) have unpredictable lives, unstable housing, intermittent earnings and episodic illnesses. They don’t allow for flexibility or discretion.

That was the fundamental flaw in Ontario’s previous social assistance management system. Initially policy analysts thought its design errors were correctable. But when the province finally got the bugs out — at a cost of $200 million — the truth became apparent. The system was doing exactly what it was meant to do: reducing the government’s payroll, eliminating the room for individual judgment, penalizing recipients for deviating from the province’s harsh rules, and cutting the welfare rolls.

The provincial Liberals inherited that year-old system when they took power in 2003. They could have replaced it, repurposed it or gone back to a face-to-face system. But they didn’t. What they did instead was add more rules, make a few minor adjustments and create new incentives to push people into the workforce.

Nor will the new system make allowance for unforeseen circumstances: domestic violence, evictions, sudden changes in earnings, medical emergencies or funerals. That was never the intent, as Community and Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek made clear. The government was modernizing its computer software to deliver social assistance benefits “more efficiently and consistently.”

Official Raise the Rates Campaign Statement on ODSP Medical Reviews

The Medical Reviews for those on ODSP must be suspended!

The Raise the Rates campaign of community groups and unions calls on the Wynne Government to immediately suspend the implementation of medical reviews for people on ODSP. The accelerated review process is occurring at the worst possible time for people living in poverty and under conditions that have not been properly prepared.

The reviews are presently taking place in the midst of a major crisis within the social assistance system brought on the by introduction of the SAMS software. All across Ontario, OW and ODSP offices have been thrown into crisis. To transfer people from ODSP to OW in significant numbers, which could be the result of the review process, while the delivery system is in complete disarray, would only make things worse. The reviews must be suspended until SAMS is actually working to meet people's needs or its failure has been acknowledged and the system withdrawn.

In addition, it is massively unfair for these medical reviews to proceed while there is a huge backlog waiting to be transferred onto ODSP from OW. The fact that people whose disability has has been accepted by ODSP are waiting for the ODSP benefits they are entitled to, while the Government presses ahead with enhanced medical reviews, is a clear indication that austerity driven cost savings are the issue and not the needs of people on social assistance. Until those needs have been addressed, the reviews must be put on hold.

Finally, we are demanding that certain basic changes must occur before the reviews proceed. At present, they are virtually a repeat of the original ODSP application process. They need to be far less stringent and complex in line with their role of reassessing rather than establishing entitlement. It is also necessary to ensure that no one has their ODSP benefits cancelled or interrupted unless it is clear that they are aware that they face review and that they have proper access to medical and advocacy services. Anything less than this will ensure the process is not one of legitimate review but of saving money for the Ontario government at the expense of people in poverty.

For all these reasons, Raise the Rates demands that the Ontario Government immediately suspend these reviews until these conditions are addressed and a properly prepared fair and reasonable medical review process has been put in place. .

Endorsed by

Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP)CUPE OntarioHealth for All

To add your organization as an endorser, contact ocap@tao.ca