THUNDER BAY - Community leaders, physicians, and service providers from across the province say the Ford government’s policies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic have ignored the needs of those who are most vulnerable, including people living in the city of Thunder Bay.
Just Recovery Ontario, a coalition of community leaders and service providers held an online media conference on Thursday to speak out about how the provincial government’s policies have failed to protect the people of Ontario.
Speakers included emergency room physicians, outreach workers, and housing and childcare advocates, who discussed the need for guaranteed paid sick days, protection from evictions, and basic income for those living in poverty.
“It is imperative that the province brings in a new budget to ensure many things,” said Angie Lynch, a Northern Ontario legal worker and member of Just Recovery Ontario.
“One of them is to ensure everyone in Ontario has ready access to guaranteed paid sick days so people don’t have to go to work sick and continue to spread this pandemic. We need to ensure tenants are protected from evictions. Every Ontarian needs at least $2,000 a month to be able to afford their basic needs and live in dignity. It’s imperative that people have access to justice and that appeals relating to housing and income are heard through a tribunal system that works.”
Thunder Bay professor Max Haiven, who was speaking on behalf of the local group, Not One More Death, detailed how government inaction currently and over the past several decades, has left vulnerable people in the city being disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Here in Thunder Bay, we are dealing with an extremely grave situation where COVID-19 rates are presently four times the provincial average,” Haiven said.
“That terrible situation with the virus has been compounded by the fact that we have at least 450 people experiencing houselessness at this moment in quite a small city, of whom 66 per cent at least are Indigenous.”
Haiven said this is the result of decades of policies by the current government and previous governments to cut social assistance programs for those in need and instead focus on the rich and powerful in the province.
“It is a terrible situation, but it’s a terrible situation that mirrors the terrible situation throughout the province because of years of neglect by governments that has not seen the needs of unhoused people as paramount,” he said.
“The crisis the government now is failing to address has been decades in the making. It has been decades in the making because of an ideology that has animated multiple governments that suggests what serves society best is the needs of the rich and the powerful. That has left so many of our neighbours and fellow citizens behind and now it’s time to face the music.”
Haiven added that the cancellation of a basic income pilot in Thunder Bay by the Ford government has made it impossible for many people to escape poverty.
“That neglect has been compounded by a long history of colonialism and anti-Indigenous racism in Thunder Bay, which has led to a situation where now as COVID-19 rips through our community, it is disproportionally affecting Indigenous people, unhoused people, and poor people,” he said.
The situation is made worse by what Haiven said are policies that elect to spend more money on policing, punishment, and incarcerating people rather than getting to the root causes of the issues.
“That money should much more effectively be going to upstream causes of addiction and crime rather than punishment,” he said.
“In Thunder Bay, it’s becoming increasingly clear that ideology that this government and previous governments have taken that put the needs of the rich and powerful above the needs of everyone else needs to end. This government pretends to be a government of the people. I certainly hope in this budget and future budgets they take that to heart and act in the interests of all people.”
The provincial government is expected to table its 2021 budget on March 24.
