Fighting Back Against Cuts to Disability Benefits – from U.K to Ontario

[blake 3:17]

The DPAC Speaking Tour kicked off last night in Sudbury Ontario with a
large community event - after an eventful meeting in North Bay today, they
are on their way to Ottawa for a Town Hall there tonight, then Montreal,
Kingston, Waterloo Region, and back to Toronto. Catch the event in your
City - all details below!

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*Forward far and wide!

Fighting Back Against Cuts to Disability Benefits – from U.K to Ontario

Austerity is Global – so is our resistance.

The Raise the Rates Campaign is hosting an Ontario-wide and Montreal
speaking tour from May 6 - 14th, 2014 of Ellen Clifford from Disabled
People Against Cuts (DPAC) UK.

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/383847668424188/

DATES & LOCATIONS

• May 6: Sudbury
Details: Tuesday, May 6th, 7pm, at Kinsmen Room A of the Parkside Older
Adult Centre on Durham St
https://www.facebook.com/events/1427609067493788/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular

•May 7: North Bay meeting with Organizers

• May 7: Ottawa
Details: Evening Town Hall Wednesday, May 7th, 6:30pm, at Somerset West
Community Health Centre (55 Eccles St)
https://www.facebook.com/events/685486958164060/

• May 8: Montreal
Details: Thursday, May
8th, 6:30pm – Accessibility, Disability and Resisting Austerity at CÉDA,
2515 rue Delisle (Métro lionel groulx). Organized by: Comité d’action
solidaire contre l’austerité – CASA. QPIRG concordia, Endorsed by:
Movement Action Chomage. Comite Chomage Est

• May 12: Kingston Coalition Against Poverty
Details: Monday, May 12th, 6pm at Kingston Public Library Central Branch
(130 Johnson St), Delahaye Room.
https://www.facebook.com/events/616944901716629/

• May 13: Kitchener-Waterloo
Details:Tuesday, May 13th, 6:30pm at Queen Street Commons Cafe (43 Queen
St
South)https://www.facebook.com/events/225928060937800/?ref_newsfeed_story_type…

• May 14: Toronto
Details: Wednesday, May 14th, 6pm at St. Luke’s Church, 353 Sherbourne
Street (at Carlton). Accessible space. ASL available. Free meal provided.
https://www.facebook.com/events/618128368277697/

Who is DPAC: The Cameron Government in the UK has implemented brutal cuts
to programs for unemployed and disabled people. This includes a system
called the Work Capability Assessment that has been used to deny benefits
to thousands of people. Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is an
organization in the UK that has been at the forefront of challenging this
situation. It has mobilized disabled people to fight back and formed
alliances with community organizations and unions in resisting the
austerity measures of the Cameron Government. The hated private company,
Atos, that was carrying out the assessments of sick and disabled people
has been forced to quit as a result of the powerful resistance DPAC and
others have taken up.

Here in Ontario, we also face major attacks. Ontario Works (Welfare) and
ODSP (Disability) rates are too low to enable people to pay their rent and
eat properly. The Special Diet and Community Start Up have been slashed by
the Ontario Liberal government. Under huge pressure from ongoing community
action, the Liberals have promised not to merge OW and ODSP but the danger
remains that they will bring in a UK style assessment system that would
pose a huge threat to disabled people on ODSP. We need to understand what
is happening elsewhere and how people are fighting back and winning
against the attacks.

From May 4-15th, Ellen Clifford from DPAC will be visiting Toronto,
Kitchener, Sudbury, Kingston and Ottawa. She has been campaigning with the
disabled people’s movement for 15 years and, since 2011, has sat on the
National Steering Committee of DPAC. She is also a member of Unite the
Union and works to build solidarity between workers in unions and those
forced to live on social benefits.

Visit: raisetherates.ca for the full schedule & for more information call
the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty at (416) 925-6939

Join the Raise the Rates Campaign Today!

Raise the Rates is a campaign to fight poverty by raising social
assistance rates in Ontario. Jointly organized by the Ontario Coalition
Against Poverty (OCAP), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
Ontario, Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty (S-CAP), Kingston Coalition

Against Poverty (K-CAP), Poverty Makes Us Sick Waterloo Region, Poverty
Makes Us Sick Ottawa, OPSEU and other grassroots anti-poverty organizers
and trade union allies from across Ontario. We are a growing movement
united in fighting for:

• Raise Social Assistance Rates 55%: reverse the cuts, raise the
rates!

• Restore Special Diet and Community Start-Up Benefits

• Stop the Attack on Disability Benefits

• Living wage for all: Raise the Minimum wage above poverty wages

Visit: RaisetheRates.ca
https://www.facebook.com/RaiseTheRates
#RaisetheRates
**
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
157 Carlton St #206
Toronto, ON
M5A 2K3
416-925-6939
www.ocap.ca
Twitter: @OCAPtoronto

[blake 3:17]

A successful campaign in the United Kingdom is being used here in Ontario as an example of how to fight back and win against government cuts.

Ellen Clifford, part of the UK's Disabled People Against the Cuts campaign, is lending her experience to the Ontario anti-poverty movement by sharing the story of how her group was able to push back against program cuts for unemployed and disabled people.

“If you fight, you can win,” said Clifford, in North Bay Tuesday with members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty to speak about the UK campaign and how it relates to what’s happening in Ontario.

In the UK, Clifford said the government instituted social services cuts which included the outsourcing of "work capability assessments" to a private firm called Atos. She suggested the so-called assessments were designed to get sick and disabled people off benefits. And, in one case, Clifford said a man in a coma was declared fit for employment.

She said disabled people mobilized to fight back, teaming up with community organizations and unions, eventually forcing Atos to back away from its contract with the government due to public and political support.

John Clarke, of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, said social service cuts are already happening here.

He pointed to cuts under the Liberal government in recent years, making it more difficult to access special diet funding and reductions to community start-up dollars aimed at preventing homelessness.

Clarke noted the recently dissolved Liberal government has backed away from a plan that would have merged Ontario Works with the Ontario Disability Support Program. But he said the latest provincial budget noted the Liberals still plan to move ahead with other social assistance reforms based on a 2012 review led by Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh.

In addition, Clarke said cuts to social services in Ontario are not something new.

He said social assistance rates were cut by the Conservative government under former premier Mike Harris in the 1990s.

And Clarke said restoring those rates is the focus of another Ontario Coalition Against Poverty campaign called Raise the Rates, income that families need to feed themselves.

http://www.nugget.ca/2014/05/07/campaign-fights-program-cuts

[blake 3:17]

A successful campaign in the United Kingdom is being used here in Ontario as an example of how to fight back and win against government cuts.

Ellen Clifford, part of the UK's Disabled People Against the Cuts campaign, is lending her experience to the Ontario anti-poverty movement by sharing the story of how her group was able to push back against program cuts for unemployed and disabled people.

“If you fight, you can win,” said Clifford, in North Bay Tuesday with members of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty to speak about the UK campaign and how it relates to what’s happening in Ontario.

In the UK, Clifford said the government instituted social services cuts which included the outsourcing of "work capability assessments" to a private firm called Atos. She suggested the so-called assessments were designed to get sick and disabled people off benefits. And, in one case, Clifford said a man in a coma was declared fit for employment.

She said disabled people mobilized to fight back, teaming up with community organizations and unions, eventually forcing Atos to back away from its contract with the government due to public and political support.

John Clarke, of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, said social service cuts are already happening here.

He pointed to cuts under the Liberal government in recent years, making it more difficult to access special diet funding and reductions to community start-up dollars aimed at preventing homelessness.

Clarke noted the recently dissolved Liberal government has backed away from a plan that would have merged Ontario Works with the Ontario Disability Support Program. But he said the latest provincial budget noted the Liberals still plan to move ahead with other social assistance reforms based on a 2012 review led by Frances Lankin and Munir Sheikh.

In addition, Clarke said cuts to social services in Ontario are not something new.

He said social assistance rates were cut by the Conservative government under former premier Mike Harris in the 1990s.

And Clarke said restoring those rates is the focus of another Ontario Coalition Against Poverty campaign called Raise the Rates, income that families need to feed themselves.

http://www.nugget.ca/2014/05/07/campaign-fights-program-cuts