ACORN members will be at city hall on Thursday, April 18 to respond to a report on the city’s efforts over the last four years to crack down on slum landlords. The city has been quietly cutting inspection and enforcement programs designed in 2009 to help make sure tenants have safe, clean places to live.
Brampton MPP Jagmeet Singh has introduced his private member’s bill created in an attempt to keep a lid on high international money transfer fees.
The Bramalea-Gore-Malton MPP introduced the bill in the Ontario legislature yesterday, where it received first reading.
TORONTO - A mock $10 bill — frozen in a block of ice — was presented to a representative Ontario's Ministry of Labour on Thursday afternoon in protest of the government's minimum wage freeze.
The protest was organized by The Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage, a coalition of several advocacy groups in Ontario.
Members of the group include Ontario ACORN, Worker's Action Centre, and Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.
Nicole Mason, leading member of Toronto ACORN from Flemingdon Park, and Deena Ladd of the Worker's Action Center appeared on CBC Radio's Here and Now. Listen here.
Their message was that Ontario's minimum wage needs to go up to $14 an hour now, and it needs to be indexed to inflation.
Unfreeze minimum wage. Increase it to $14 an hour. Then index it to the rate of inflation.
Sounds simple enough.
The only question now is whether the Wynne Liberals will listen to anti-poverty and labour groups or bow to pressure from the business community who say an increase will only lead to cutbacks in the number of minimum wage workers.
TORONTO, March 21, 2013 /CNW/ - At a province-wide day of action on Thursday March 21st, communities from around Ontario will demand an immediate minimum wage increase. Blocks of ice with frozen $10 bills will be delivered to the Ministry of Labour and MPPs in over fourteen cities.
Ontario's minimum wage has been frozen for 3 years, while the cost of living continues to rise. The minimum wage should bring workers and their families above the poverty line. That means Ontario's minimum wage should be $14 in 2013.
ACORN Canada members have a long history of fighting for better wages in their communities.
CBC's The Current talks about cleaning up the payday lending industry, including the work done by ACORN Canada members. Listen here:
In 2009, because of the work of ACORN members across Toronto, the city created an audit program to inspect high rise rental housing throughout the city. For the first time in history, city inspectors fanned out to every large apartment building in the city. Ten of millions of dollars in badly needed repairs were completed as a result.
CBC News has learned that the Ontario government is going to try to revoke the licence of Cash Store Financial Services, one of the biggest cash advance stores in the country.
The Ontario Ministry of Consumer Affairs alleges that the company broke Ontario's Payday Loans Act, which limits the fees payday loan companies can charge.
Cash Store Financial Services has 200 outlets in Ontario alone: branded as InstaLoans and The Cash Store.
They operate in 19 different communities in the province.