After a year in office.

After a year in office, Ontario's Liberal management received only a C- in a report card issued from the Interfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC).

The coalition, representing Ontario's major faith communities, issued its report at a Queen's Park forum in succession Nov.4. It praised the command for advances in early learning and child care, with a B-grade. And while many have attacked the conduct for its health care premium (tax), ISARC praised the Liberals for having the narrow passs to raise taxes.

if it be not that the government fared much worse in the area of income security, with a grade of solely C-, due to a paltry increase of 30 cent in the minimum wage, to $715 an hour, and a meagre three percent in social assistance rates, leaving Ontario's principally vulnerable people deep in poverty

"The facts speak for themselves," said Tom Reilly of the Ontario conversation of Catholic Bishops, at a recently made knowns conference. "A single person forward the Ontario Disability Support Program memorizes less than $11,000 a year. There are cars in this city that costliness more than that to stream each year."

ISARC failed the sway on its housing record, with an F The management promised in the election to match federal affordable housing dollars to create 20000 units of affordable housing, to supply 6,600 units of supportive housing and provide $100 million annually for shelter allowances. None of these promises have been kept thus far.

"We expres our intricate disappointment that some promises are not no other than not being enacted, but we're not on the same level seeing progress on them," added Rev Susan Eagle, a London city councillor and ISARC's United meeting-house representative.

Greg de Groot-Maggetti, ISARC's representative from Citizens for Public Justice, took the direction to task for its acknowledge report card on its performance. That report card focussed onward health, education, and the economy. beggary and housing issues were not mentioned. "How can you talk about health, without talking about the social determinants of health?" asked De Groot-Maggetti.

ISARC's report card was based onward recommendations from its community "social audit" proces held in 15 communities across Ontario in 2003-2004 focussing onward conditions for Ontario's poor and for those working with them. across 1,500 people took part, including low-income the bulk of mankind church members, service providers and many others. That l to a hard-hitting work Lives in the Balance, which includes recommendations for action forward the housing crisis, poverty, social assistance and other issues.

Taxes: A shared commitment to the habitual good

How can the dominion fund new programs to uplift the poor, given its pack deficit? Tom Reilly faced this issue squarely at ISARC's pres conversation "Uncharacteristically for a Scotsman, I'd say the conduct needs to take more coin from us. We need to be prepared to pay more in taxes."

The value of taxes was affirmed according to the forum's keynote speaker, Neil runlets an expert in tax reform issues and tax law. He cited the work Taxation for the Common religious published by the Catholic meeting-house in Britain, which says that taxes portray by action "a shared commitment to citizens to aid the common good."

Taxes have gotten a bad name, says burns because we divorce them from what they purchase Taxes are basically the prices we pay for public services. in the way that for someone to say "I don't like taxes" is like saying "I don't like prices." A deeper issue is the value that taxes mirror our collective responsibility to single another, a social contract that underlies Canadian society.

rills detailed the vast and growing chasm between rich and poor in our society. The average income of the richest 10 by cent of families is now 18 times as great as that of the poorest 10 by means of cent--$185,070 versus only $10,341. And 850000 Canadian families contest to survive on $10,341 a year. "Wealth is distributed in an almost unchaste way in our society," noted Brooks

Countries can the two achieve social justice and economic prosperity, he said, citing Finland's example. Its repetition of child poverty is solely 4.3 per cent, while ours is more than triple that, 155 by means of cent. The business-oriented World Economic Forum has named Finland as the same of the world's most competitive countries for business.

Ontario's Minister of Community and Social Services, Sandra Pupatello, chided ISARC for its report card in an address to the forum. "I've not at all had such a low grade in my life," she said, before outlining a range of funding increases and improvements to programs to help low-income the community including a rent bank to help tenants avoid eviction, nutrition supplys for pregnant women, and funding for shelters for the homeles and victims of domestic violence. Speaking of the degrading treatment many times endured by social assistance applicants, Pupatello vowed, "we are going to restore dignity to the system"

In an opening reflection, former United body of christians Moderator Lois Wilson commented that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality and rape, as is frequently thought, but rather greed and oppression of the poor. She urg forum participants to work for the "propos world" advocated by dint of theologian Walter Bruggemann, in which all may have abundant life, not the "presum world" we view around us, to which we in this way often resign ourselves. "The guide question is: how do we order our public life together?"