It’s a good thing the Ford government is in the midst of a broad review of Ontario’s social assistance system.

That means it has no excuse to ignore a new report that provides some badly needed advice on how to fix this broken system and make it easier for people to get off welfare and into the workforce.

And it comes just in time. Cuts and punitive measures introduced last year by former social services minister Lisa MacLeod proved to be disasters that had to be paused or reversed.

But, as the report from Ontario 360, a project of the Munk School of Global Affairs, shows, helping people to get off social assistance will take a lot more than simply reversing course on bad decisions.

Consider, for example, that the authors of the report found it necessary to tell a government in 2019 to stop treating people on social assistance like criminals.

But they did. They found that complicated reporting and monitoring requirements imposed on people on assistance “have more in common with the corrections system” than they do with other social programs.

Worse, the researchers found, those requirements and the thinking behind them actually work against what the goals of social assistance should be — getting people out of poverty and into the labour force.

“Low benefit rates leave people in deep poverty, and program rules create barriers to their participating in the labour force and improving their lives,” the report says.

That should be obvious, but sadly it is not. The result? “Reduced economic activity and foregone tax revenue.”

Happily, there are signs that the Ford government is beginning to realize that people on social assistance need a helping hand, not a punitive slap in the face.

For example, the new Social Services Minister, Todd Smith, announced last month that he is reinstating the $67-million Transition Child Benefit cut by MacLeod. It helps some families feed and clothe their children.

And the government is also scrapping changes it made that would have reduced how much someone on welfare can earn through a part-time job before getting kicked off the system.

What remains to be seen is whether or not the government will go ahead with a plan it had announced to alter the definition of disability for those receiving benefits under the provincial support program. Doing that would force more people into even deeper poverty.

That’s because a single person on Ontario Works currently receives a monthly maximum of $733 while someone on Ontario Disability Support Program benefits receives considerably more — $1,169.

The answer to getting disabled people back into the labour force isn’t to reclassify them and make their lives harder. It’s to give them the medical care and support they need to get back to work.

It’s true the government is spending $9.4 billion on social assistance a year for the nearly one million people who receive it.

But the government’s focus on accountability rather than results is wasting taxpayer dollars, rather than saving them, the authors of the Ontario 360 report argue.

In short, a focus on cuts rather than results has not only made the lives of the poor more miserable, but it has worked against efforts to get people back into the labour force.

Those who are conducting the review of social assistance would be well-advised to read this report before making drastic changes that may make it more difficult for people to survive, thrive and get back to work.

In the end, such changes won’t save money. They will just guarantee that more people are trapped in a punitive system that wastes lives and taxpayers’ dollars.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2019/11/04/good-advice-on-fixing-ontarios-welfare-system.html