A Green government would declare war on poverty by doubling welfare and disability benefits if elected June 2.
Green Leader Mike Schreiner unveiled the party’s fully costed campaign platform Thursday with some ambitious goals to help Ontario’s most vulnerable people.
Schreiner said his party would “phase in a basic income with the first step being to double ODSP and OW rates and reduce aggressive clawbacks.
“The system is broken,” he told reporters.
To help fix it, the Greens would spend some $20 billion on increasing Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) and Ontario Works (OW) payments, which would be eventually tied to inflation.
That’s by far the largest commitment of any of the four major parties.
ODSP currently pays up to $1,169 per month.
In a surprise move on Monday, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford said he would raise ODSP rates by five per cent — even though that $425 million promise was not accounted for in Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy’s April 28 budget.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath would immediately increase OW and ODSP rates by 20 per cent and has said she would “legislate that raises must, at minimum, be indexed to inflation.”
Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said if he wins, ODSP and OW benefits would increase by 10 per cent on July 1 and another 10 per cent one year later before leveling off at two per cent hikes annually as of 2024.
Like Schreiner, both Horwath and Del Duca have vowed to resurrect Ontario’s basic income pilot project that Ford scrapped in 2018 in spite of a campaign promise that year to keep it.
The Green platform also makes a slew of environmental pledges, including “cash incentives up to $10,000 for buying a fully electric vehicle and $1,000 for an e-bike or used electric vehicle.”
More to eat.
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