Tomorrow, September 15, ACORN members in Ottawa and across the country will join the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) to send a clear message to the Harper government: your cut backs will affect us all. 

Thousands of government workers are being fired right now. Not only do our communities need good, well-paid jobs, we need badly need the services those workers provide. Cuts to food safety programs, cuts to programs for seniors, cuts to services that put unemployed Canadians back to work - these will affect us all. 

To find out more about the work that PSAC does, visit their website. 

If you can join ACORN members when they rally with the PSAC, contact the ACORN office nearest you. 

Government also reduces planned hike to child benefits as it tackles deficit.

The provincial government is scaling back a planned hike in child benefits and freezing social assistance, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Sunday, as Ontario grapples with a solution to its $16-billion deficit.

Rather than rising by $200 per year in July 2013, the child benefit will rise by $100. It will increase by the same amount one year later.

Provincial social assistance programs - which include Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program - will be frozen.

"We believe these are the right choices," McGuinty told reporters in Toronto.

The announcement comes just days before the government's seminal March 27th budget containing McGuinty's response to a growing financial crisis in the province. 

With speculation rising that the City of Toronto may try to pull the plug on the Occupy Toronto movement's stay in St. James Park, those in the camp remain steadfast in their determination to draw attention to financial inequalities between society's haves and have-nots.

Despite rain and cold, the downtown park remains packed with dozens of tents, and spirits remain high among those staking out the space as the protest nears the one-month mark.

Even rumblings that Mayor Rob Ford has intimated that the occupiers should move on have not dampened the protesters' resolve.

"They've had a peaceful protests but I think it's time we ask them to leave," Ford said during a news conference held to discuss the Eglinton LRT Wednesday morning, "Again I have to confirm this with the chief and I'm not here to speak on the chief's behalf ... I think everyone can appreciate it's been a peaceful protest but I think it's time that we ask them to move on."

Ford's statements were backed by non-specific comments by city manager Joe Pennechetti that the City was looking into "appropriate steps" to deal with the site.

ACORN Canada supports the thousands of Canadians who have taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest income inequality, corporate greed and a broken economic system. Inspired by #OccupyWallStreet, the movement that began less than two months ago in downtown Manhattan, and has now spread to over 1000 cities in 100+ countries.

This movement is exposing the underlying unfairness of an economic system that has left a tiny elite with a disproportionate amount of wealth while hardworking Canadians struggle to make ends meet.

The 35,000+ members of ACORN Canada have a message for these brave citizens camped out in parks and public spaces across Canada today: we've got your back, we support your calls for a fairer Canada and we'll always be a friend to the #occupy movement.

Reasons to support the #occupy movement in Canada (Source: CCPA):

-Canada's richest 1% have doubled their income share between 1970 and 2007.

-$6.6 million a year is the average compensation for Canada's 100 best paid CEOs.

-1 in 10 Canadians live in poverty including 1 in 4 aboriginal children.

Nearly 100 Toronto ACORN members joined with community and labour groups in an impressive rally of over 10,000 Torontonians who marched from Yonge and Dundas Square to City Hall to protest proposed service cuts.

 

Sept 3rd, 2010 by Kristen McKenzie, 24 Hours Vancouver

Labour Day is just around the corner, but some local workers say there’s not much to celebrate this year.

Members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Canada (ACORN Canada) rallied outside Liberal MLA Harry Bloy’s Burnaby office Thursday protesting the province’s $8 an hour minimum wage.

“What do we want? Higher minimum wage!” the protesters chanted in unison before trying to enter the office, which they found locked.

“We were told yesterday Harry Bloy would be in his office,” said ACORN Canada member Amanda Boggan. “I guess we maybe scared him off or something … we were hoping to convince him that it’s really important for the Liberals to raise the minimum wage right now because people are really suffering. We were hoping he would hear our stories so he could be better informed about the issue.”

“The $8 an hour minimum wage is appallingly low,” the post-secondary student added. “As a mother, people can’t afford to feed their families, feed their children on that low a wage … people are stuck in these [minimum wage] jobs. They really can’t escape them.”

ACORN member Pearl Davis who works at a donut shop, knows all too well the struggles associated with earning a lower wage.

“I’m having a hard time making ends meet,” the New Westminster resident said. “The rent’s always going up, the bills are going up. I can’t go out and do anything. I can’t go on vacation because I can’t afford it. I don’t have any fun. I just sit at home.”

ACORN is advocating an immediate increase in the minimum wage to $10 an hour, a change Davis believes would be a step in the right direction.

“At least it’s a start,” she said.

Bloy wasn’t available for comment.

 

Original article at: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/local/2010/09/02/15229011.html

Today, Ontario's minimum wage rises to $10.25 per hour - the third and final rise in the past three years.

It was an assertive community based campaign coupled with the by-election loss in York-South Weston (one of Ontario's poorest ridings) that eventually saw the McGuinty government to reverse its long standing opposition to minimum wage increases. Toronto ACORN members were a critical component of this campaign, packing into Town hall meetings, collecting petition signatures and building community support in working family neighbourhoods across Toronto.

Minimum wages remain one of the most important anti-poverty tools available to governments because of there "trickle-up" impact on wages of other low wage workers.  By raising the wage floor we are able to elevate more workers out of poverty - and not just minimum wage workers - but workers earning near the minimum wage.

Unfortunately, Ontario has no more new minimum wage increases planned, leaving open the possibility of these gains being lost to inflation and cost of living increases in years to come.  Ontario ACORN is calling for the Province to lay out a plan for future raises to bring the minimum wage above the poverty line and to peg the minimum wage to inflation.

Toronto ACORN worked closely with the Toronto District Labour Council as well as a number of other groups to help win this important campaign.

Employment Insurance is a key piece of Canada's social safety net, and an important economic stabilizer.  In past recessions it has prevented deeper, longer recession and reduced the shock of job losses on working families and their communities.

As this economic downturn continues, we have an EI system that is weaker than in previous recessions.  Only 42% of unemployed workers receive EI at any given time – Because fewer workers qualify and benefit weeks are reduced.

Now is the time to expand EI to protect workers, their families and vulnerable communities.

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Earlier Today, Ontario MPP Deb Mathews released the McGuinty administrations Poverty Reduction Plan.

The plan contains a series of encouraging steps as well as number of clear challenges.

First, the good news; The plan commits the province to reducing Child Poverty by 25% in 5 years and contains some new money for a number of poverty reduction programs including the Child Tax Benefit, the Rent Bank Fund and for the hiring of new employment standards officers to crack down of bad employers.

Now, the challenges; Scaled to the population of Ontario, Quebec made the equivalent of $1 billion of new annual investments in poverty reduction during the early years of their plan. Ontario has only committed to spending $300 million, some of which may have already been allocated. Further, the plan calls on much of the resources required to be meet the goal of 25 in 5 to be committed by the Federal Government, with no hint as to whether or not the Fed's would actually provide the resources.