The choice is before us

This article has been adapted from the diocese’s pre-budget submission to the Ontario government. The provincial election was called before the submission could be sent, so the content was re-worked into a provincial election resource, which can be found at www.toronto.anglican.ca/sjac.

Today, Ontario is at a crossroads. We face political and economic uncertainty both at home and internationally. Climate-related disasters are increasing in number and severity. Our communities are already facing deepening crises of poverty, precarious housing and homelessness, while the opioid overdose crisis continues to ravage lives, and we are unlikely to meet even our modest climate action targets. All these things leave us increasingly vulnerable to the challenges ahead.

At the time of this writing, we are on the brink of an early provincial election, which will likely be held before you read this. But regardless of who is in power at Queen’s Park, we are still called to love our neighbours as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being, and to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation. Our advocacy continues to reflect these baptismal calls.

Poverty reduction

More than one million Ontarians relied on food banks last year – up 25 per cent from the previous year and 86 per cent since 2019-20. A report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) found that an estimated 81,515 Ontarians experienced “known homelessness” in 2024, a 51 per cent increase since 2016. Chronic homelessness has tripled since 2016, now accounting for more than half of those experiencing homelessness in Ontario. Worse, the emergency services designed to help those who fall through the cracks – whether food banks or municipalities – are themselves struggling to keep up with demand.

Social assistance rates

Social assistance is intended to provide support to people who have no other options. The Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is intended to support people whose disabilities prevent them from working full-time, while Ontario Works (OW) is meant to help those in crisis to rebuild their lives. Yet both ODSP and OW rates fall well beneath the poverty line, trapping recipients in poverty.

In particular, OW rates have been frozen since September 2018, while the cost of living in Ontario has gone up more than 20 per cent in that time. Though the minimum wage and other provincial income supports have been indexed to inflation, OW rates and earnings thresholds have remained stagnant, eroding the value of these benefits. A single individual on OW cannot afford to rent a bachelor apartment anywhere in Ontario, much less secure food, clothing and transportation. Moreover, the division between “basic needs” and “housing” benefits means that a person on social assistance who becomes homeless loses the “housing” component of the benefit, making it more difficult to escape from homelessness. Instead of being helped to get on their feet, social assistance recipients are pushed into ever deeper poverty, contributing to rising homelessness, hunger and demand for social and health services. We urge the provincial government to bring both OW and ODSP rates into alignment with the poverty line, to index OW rates and earnings thresholds to inflation, and to combine the basic needs and housing components of social assistance into one flat rate.

Decent work

Having a job should keep people out of poverty, yet a quarter of households accessing food banks in Ontario this past year had employment as their primary source of income, double the percentage before the pandemic. While the minimum wage is indexed yearly, it is still $2.30 to $8.80 per hour lower than a living wage, depending on the community. Moreover, to afford the average rent for a currently listed apartment in Ontario, a minimum wage worker would have to work 106 hours a week. We urge the government to gradually raise the minimum wage to the median living wage in Ontario, and thereafter index it to inflation.

Ontario also continues to lack paid sick leave. For low-wage and precariously employed workers, this can all too often lead to financial hardship, as they must go to work sick or forfeit a day’s pay. Going to work sick has negative public health impacts and can also worsen health conditions for the employee, leading to potential medical complications, possible job loss and a greater burden on our healthcare system. We urge the government to require employers to provide employees with 10 paid sick days annually.

These recommendations would cost the government little but would save public funds in terms of health care costs, while reducing the housing benefits required to bridge the gap between high rents and the low incomes of many workers.

Rent control

Another policy intervention that could save public funds and prevent homelessness is to close rent control loopholes, such as the exemption on units built or converted after Nov. 15, 2018, vacancy decontrol, and above-guideline rent increases. Taken together, these loopholes result in asking rents increasing at a rate far higher than inflation, not to mention tenants’ incomes. This causes Ontario to lose affordable housing units faster than we can create them and increases housing precarity among tenant households. Already, more than 260,000 households in Ontario spend 50 per cent or more of their income on shelter costs. In Toronto, 1 in 5 food bank users spends 100 per cent of their income on housing.

In 2024, 70 per cent of parishes in our diocese supported a motion calling for the closing of rent control loopholes in Ontario. Our diocese has endorsed the Fair Rent Ontario campaign, along with Feed Ontario, the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario and many other organizations. We urge the province to extend rent controls to units built or converted since 2018; end vacancy decontrol; and limit above-guideline increases.

Social housing

Along with stronger rent controls, we also need robust investments in social housing. The market cannot provide sufficient housing for low-income tenants and people exiting homelessness, nor is it sufficient to create more emergency shelter. While shelter capacity in Ontario increased by 34 per cent from 2019 to 2024, chronic homelessness has grown by 138 per cent as people become trapped in the system without housing to go to. Unsurprisingly, unsheltered homelessness has exploded in communities across the province, creating friction between encampment dwellers, municipalities and residents who want to use public spaces for recreation. However, without housing options available, unsheltered homelessness will not go away. Indeed, the AMO report warns that without significant intervention, homelessness in Ontario could more than triple in the next decade, particularly under an economic downturn.

Criminalizing people in encampments tramples on human rights and dignity while failing to resolve the underlying issue. Moreover, incarceration is much more expensive than housing. Making robust and sustained investments to create transitional, supportive and rent-geared-to-income housing is ultimately more cost-effective, while making our communities safer, boosting economic productivity and treating people with dignity.

Overdose prevention

The overdose crisis claims the lives of seven Ontarians every day. The death toll would be even higher but for the heroic work of staff at supervised consumption sites, who reversed more than 21,000 overdoses between March 2020 and January 2024. These sites save lives and promote public health, not only by reversing overdoses but also by reducing public drug use and needle litter, and reducing the transmission of HIV, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases and infections. They also take the strain off our already burdened emergency services. We urge the province to maintain supervised consumption sites and indeed to expand them where needed, together with enhanced access to addictions treatment, as part of a continuum of care for those who use drugs and the public health and safety of all Ontarians.

Climate change

Climate change is already being felt in the increased number and severity of wildfires, flooding, droughts and heatwaves. The 2023 Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment warns of elevated risks to Ontario’s food production, infrastructure, businesses, communities and ecosystems. Yet Ontario’s carbon emissions rose from 148.5 megatons in 2020 to 157 in 2022, making it increasingly unlikely that the province will achieve its target of 144 megatons by 2030.

Road transportation already accounted for the largest contribution (40.9 per cent) to Ontario’s carbon emissions in 2022. If the province moves ahead with the addition of Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, the removal of bike lanes and restrictions on municipalities seeking to create new bike lane infrastructure, Ontario’s carbon emissions will grow even higher. The mega-highway projects will also pave over some of Ontario’s best farmland, exacerbate urban sprawl and lead to higher levels of air pollution, without easing traffic congestion long term. The cost of these projects could be better spent on improving public transportation for the benefit of all Ontarians.

The province’s energy production is also moving us father from our climate action goals, with gas-fired power projected to account for 25 per cent of Ontario’s electricity supply in 2030, up from 4 per cent in 2017. Investing in renewable energy sources and storage would reduce carbon emissions, while being cheaper and safer than nuclear energy.

The choice is before us. Trusting in God, empowered by the Spirit, may we keep working and advocating for the building up of our people and communities so that we may be strong, cohesive and resilient to face the challenges ahead.