The Ontario government is replacing the Special Diet Allowance Program with a new nutritional supplement program.
As it designs this new program, the government must ensure that it is not viewed in isolation from other aspects of the social assistance system and the problems that people who rely on it experience on a regular basis.
There is widespread recognition that the levels of financial support provided through Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program are insufficient to meet even the most basic needs of the people who rely on these programs. This means that people on OW and ODSP cannot adequately afford healthy food, appropriate shelter, clothing, transportation, hygiene supplies, and other basic items.
There is also widespread consensus that the poverty experienced by people on social assistance is directly related to poor health outcomes. Income and food security are two of the primary social determinants of health, and people with low incomes have been shown to have a much higher incidence, prevalence, and severity of chronic illness, acute illness, injuries and death. People relying on social assistance incomes thus have more extensive needs for additional dietary support.
Communities across Ontario agree that the entire social assistance system needs to be re-imagined so that programs can be created that better support the financial, educational, employment training, nutritional, and social needs of the people who rely on them. Ontario has responded by committing to undertake a Social Assistance Review as part of its Poverty Reduction Strategy.
Recognizing that the new program will be created before the Review can take place, we urge the Ontario government to use the following five principles as guideposts for the development of an “Ontario Nutritional Supplement”:
1. CLEAR POLICY OBJECTIVE:
The overriding policy objective of the new program must be to ensure that people who depend on social assistance benefits, who have associated additional dietary costs due to health challenges, receive the additional financial support that they need for dietary purposes.
2. ACCESSIBILITY, ADEQUACY, AND EQUITY:
The design of the new program must be driven by a commitment to:
- Genuine accessibility to the program. This includes ensuring that the program is delivered locally, and that health challenges be verified by a range of health care professionals, including nurse practitioners, physicians, registered dietitians, registered midwives, and traditional Aboriginal midwives.
- Adequate levels of support. This includes using an evidence-based process to determine levels of financial support so that the supports provided will be sufficient to meet the additional financial requirements of people with health challenges. Such a process must reflect the needs of people living in communities with disproportionately more expensive food costs, such as those in remote, rural, and otherwise food insecure areas.
- Regular adjustments to keep up with rising costs. A special market basket measure that reflects the costs of nutritional needs related to various health challenges should be developed as the benchmark for determining increases.
- Equity. This includes ensuring that all people on social assistance who have health challenges are given financial support appropriate to their needs.
3. MEETING THE NEED:
The new program must provide monetary support.
Expansion of the Ontario Drug Benefit, distribution of coupons, or some other non-monetary program intended to only provide access to nutritional beverages and vitamins will not be sufficient to meet the variety and extent of the special dietary needs that people with health conditions require.
The new program must start with an initial budget at least equal to the current budget of the Special Diet Allowance program, which the Premier has indicated is approximately $250 million per year.
4. RESPONSIBILITY FOR CURRENT RECIPIENTS:
Ontario has already committed to ensure that current recipients of the Special Diet Allowance Program will continue to receive this benefit until the new program is put into place. However, recognizing that people’s health and social circumstances can change at anytime, it is essential to ensure that everyone – current recipients or those newly diagnosed – who meets the criteria of the Special Diet Allowance Program should be granted access to that program during this time of transition.
Ontario should also ensure that no one will be worse off as a result of this transition by grand-parenting every person who is now covered by the Special Diet Allowance Program into the new program.
And Ontario must also ensure that no one will lose their entitlement to OW or ODSP as a result of the cancellation of the Special Diet Allowance, because of the way in which OW and ODSP general budgetary requirements are calculated.
5. TAKE THE TIME TO GET IT RIGHT:
Ontario should take the time to get the new program right, recognizing that an insufficient program will result in higher costs to government in other parts of the health care system.
The government’s primary consideration should be to ensure that the new program has a coherent policy objective, as outlined above, and a sound delivery mechanism, and that key stakeholders – including health care experts, community agencies, advocates, municipalities, social services delivery agents, and people with lived experience – are adequately consulted in the design of and prior to the implementation of the new program. The process and its results need to be open and transparent.
TAKE ACTION!
Click here to help make sure the new Ontario Nutritional Supplement meets the test.
Click here to download the Five Principles for a New Nutritional Supplement Program PDF
We talked about the five principles for the new nutritional supplement program at our May 20th meeting. As members of 25in5 Hamilton Network for Poverty Reduction, we endorsed the principles unanimously
I am a family doctor who sees daily the crushing impact of poverty on people’s lives & health. Current social assistance programs are clearly inadequate.
Last week one of my patients, who is on ODSP, broke down in my office. She will be unable to afford her apartment if she loses the special diet supplement and will become homeless.
We talked about the five principles for the new nutritional supplement program at our May 20th meeting. As members of 25in5 Hamilton Network for Poverty Reduction, we endorsed the principles unanimously
+1
We started out with “Ontario needs a Raise” not just people who are on SDA currently. Lots of people have not been able to access adequate, healthy food because they can’t get a healthcare worker to sign the SDA form. We are being shoved by the government into thinking that only sick people need healthy food? What nonsense! Everybody, rich or poor, needs healthy food, at least, as much as they need an O.H.I.P. card to access medical services.
In 1995 the Harris government thought we were enjoying welfare so much we needed a push off and to ensure we received a sour taste he cut welfare by 22% and started workfare (also cutting charity programs). This to encourage people to work for their reduced checks! The charity programs could use the free labour and receive $ 150 per month? to monitor the workfare labour. They balanced the budget eventually at a high cost of the poor. Now the McGuinty government is doing a simiar tactic and also appeasing the harassed over taxed underpaid public by blaming the poor and not his badly flawed e-health program. We must yet have another notch on our belts to pull for the general good. Starving and ill health even our homelessness and death will not change the need to blame the poor for their falling into poverty!!!!
How big is the 200,000,000 special diet allowance as compared to other spending for Ontario? e-health got notices around 600,000,000 with not much to show for it apparently. And what about the ‘green resourses’?Is it panning out? These are also important programs but compare them to the peoples immediate needs! If our elected officials refuse to hear their constituents then why should the lead??? That first step is a doozie!
And one more thing— How is workfare panning out? It must be costing them a bundle to run this program and all its aspects. Has it really helped many off the system permanently? Alot of jobs are shared/parttime. Some people just can’t leave the system. I’m on CPP and Workfare because CPP is not enough! I only receive my all important (I can’t afford the deductable on Trillium) drug card. Workfare and CPP do not bring me up to ODSP amounts. ODSP recipients are hurting. Some of us are beyond even that! I think stronger words than I can express and my frustration is undescribable!!!
There is nothing special about Special Diet. It means food for poor people. Professionals have no role in approving food for people. Give back to the poor what Mike Harris took away and what McGuinty failed to correct.It is a desperate situation for the many that I have seen. The Special Diet Allowance is merely a step towards raising the rates for all. There is no beauty in tinkering with the SDA. Those with psychological problems, the deaf and the blind plus many others have never been helped.
As a diabetic (type 2) on insulin,I am very angry that the special diet was cancelled! My diabetes is now getting worse. My glucose sugars are rising,become very unstable. My spending for food,fresh fruits,skim milk cheese,lactose milk,diet yogurts,sugar free juices such as President’s choice,snapple,are under stress. I am a learning disabled,self-employed person. Premier McGuinty : you need to understand what conditions are like for diabetics and disabled in Ontario. Health Minister Deb Matthews: You must reform the ODSP. Workers and ODSP staff like Maria Caputo and Marilyn Renwick need sensitivity training in dealing with the diabetic disabled in Ontario. Mr.McGuinty: You are becoming a very glib,phony Liberal-Fiberal! I recall Lester Pearson,Diefenbaker,Trudeau,John F.+Robert+Ted Kennedy: Dalton McGuinty-SHAME ON YOU FOR making phony balony false promises you never intended to keep!! I will vote NDP next Provincial election,McGuinty,as you should be swept from office as garbage!
I am so(using colourfull language) about this government especially my own MPP Bruce Crozier in the riding of Essex,Ontario showing a callous and uncaring attitude on the backs of ODSP & OW recipients and the Poor in general. Especially not complying with the Ontario Human Rights decision. Cutting the Special diet was nothing less that full out reprisal for everyone exercising their right under the Ontario human rights code.
Deb Matthews says she is responsible for the taxpayers.When I am actually able to afford things to buy in the store I pay taxes on that item even more now with HST possible? So I too am an Taxpayer as everyone else on ODSP OW and the Poor when they are actually able to afford something if anything at a Store.
I too will never vote Conservative or Liberal again untill the day I die. I will vote NDP from now on and everyone I come across I will suggest they do the same due to this latest fiasco by this goverment.
When assessing the “costs” to taxpayers, our elected officials are neglecting to factor in the actual costs of poverty. Ill health resulting from food insecurity, especially in vulnerable populations who have ALREADY jumped through administrative hoops to be deemed worthy of this special diet allowance, can be seen down the line in increased emergency care and chronic health services, poor educational outcomes for children, etc..
A recent survey completed by the Ontario Association of Food Banks provides a real estimate of the costs of poverty, including food insecurity, on the public sector. And, trends show that food bank usage overall has increased in the last year, coinciding with the recession. So this special diet allowance, in many ways, is simply a minor (but much needed) offset to the actual burden of poverty.
Way to go, Liberals…download the effects of bad governance onto the most vulnerable, again. This time, by taking away people’s daily bread…..
I am Torontonian, whose family has been in Canada for several generations. I was born into poverty, and have endured illnesses that have plagued me as a result.
There are so many studies that speak to how lack of nutrition affects our bodies. Knowing this, our government has seen fit to eliminate the special diet, continue to clawback, and take earnings from people on social assistance who need these funds.
Even working, persons on social assistance can never see themselves catching up on their bills, buying gifts for loved ones, celebrating the holidays, going on vacations, saving for their burials, or establishing a small savings account for emergency situations.
What is really on the minds of those who have the power to decide what we eat, where we live, how long we live, what medications we will be given, even what quality of care and what type of health care we receive, what drop in we can use, what food bank we should go to, etc.? It seems that some of these decisions determine how long we will live and even our quality of life. Decisions that are made for the poor are not the decisions that are made for persons who are blessed enough to have a better life.
I have hiv, hep c, ibs, cancer etc. I need more special diet $$, 250 is about a weeks worth of healthy food for me.
This is just so terrifying to me I an barely read it much less process it. Without nutritional supplements I would be so ill it’s impossible to imagine for me. Every time I take drugs I gain weight from the toxins… Drugs can control some of my stuff but I have already gained 100lbs on them and cannot imagine what it will be like to have to justify the supplements I take to medical people who believe only in big pharma….
It just makes me want to be dead… too hard to manage.
I’m angry that they cut this part of our checks on May 1st BEFORE they had the new program in place! So what we are to do further without with no other replacement in site for probably a year or 2 while they figure out how they are going to dump this on the Ministry of Health??
People need the food from the special diet supplement NOW, not 2 years from now.
All I can say is we chose them to represent us in our government. If this is how they want to show us what they think of us by making us the ones to pay for all the cut backs then we must really think about all this and remember this for the next elections.
Come on folks we are the poor, the frail, the aged but we are the majority. Lets stand together on this and find some kind of government who will stand up for us and realize the pain they have caused in this country.
There is very clear, undisputable evidence about the links between poor nutrition, poor health and poverty. The cost savings to the health care system alone would readily justify reinstating the special dietary allowance and an adequate food allowance for all on social assistance.
At one time we spoke about the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.
Now we can speak about those who live a healthy lifestyle, hence, they age gracefully. Then we can compare them to those for whom existance is composed of daily struggle just to survive.
An elite government and those who look forward to their golden years and do not give a damn about their fellow human beings, whose future is more illness compounded by a life of stress, in their ‘golden’ years.
Think of the cost to society, in health and other related expenses, that shall become a necessity for those who manage to hang on to live long enough to see those ‘golden’ years.
What a society we live in!
This supplement is desperately needed.
IM A PATIENT ON THE ODSP. IM CANCER SURVIVER AND I NEED KEEPING THE DIET IN MY WHOLL LIFE. MY ALLOVENCE LESS $97.00 FROM 2006. AND HAVE APPLY THE HUMAN RIGHT TRIBUNAL AND NOTHING HAPPEND, NO ANSWER , NOTHING FROM 2006 CASE, AND I NEED THIS DIET ALLOVANCE , THE LIFE IS DIFICULT VERY MUCH , FOR SOMBODY HU CAN NOT WORKING ANNY MORE.AND LIVING THIS Smoll PACKET MONEY , and this money is going cut DAWN TOTALY,
It is obvious that poverty is very low on the mcGuionty Government’s list of priorities. I challenge you to proove me wrong Mr. Premier.
It is obvious that poverty is very vlow on the list of priorities of the McGuinty government. I challenge you to prove me wrong Mr. Premier. We need a stronger NDP presence in the legislature, holding the balance of power.
As a Nurse Practitioner working for 3 First Nation Health Centres, I see the positive effect this supplement has had for people who live in poverty.
Allowances for those on Ontario Works and ODSP are too low for healthy living – and hence the cycle into poor health begins….and then continues.
This program is too important to cut back on and should be expanded for those who are at greatest risk in this province.
Let’s do something that benefits all sectors – allow a supplement that directly supports healthy local food – then contract out local organic farmers to grow it. Utilzie the skills of local health units, such as dieticians and nutritionist, community food advisors, and others,to move the agenda. Other not-for-profit groups and expertise and connections to help make it happen. Poverty is not good for everyone, especailly since it is compounded by all the environmental issues that a healthy food system depends on for sustainability. Get connected!!!!
Iam a very upset with life in canada. I have been here for 26 yrs work all my years here never asked for help was laid off in 2008 .EI finished in 2009 register with employment agencies.But work with them is not regular.I even clean houses to help my self.I askedfor help from Ontario works.They turn me down.But helping people out there that is not doing anything to help them selves.This is not fair .iam not happy about that. I need some kind of help.
I am so fed-up of the so called services we have going supposedly to HELP the Disabled or needy. Even Meals On Wheels is charging way too much per month… I who could TRULY use delivery can’t afford them. I only have 188/monthly after I pay rent. I pay `internet` only as bills, had to give up my cheap cell. I am now in the very weak bones mode, barely able to walk, struggle out of bed so on… I NEED V-D and Calcium and V-C with ONLY 38 on the diet program. That 1% kicked me up from 177 to 188 in my name. Wow am I so safe now!