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Mayor Miller Singled out Toronto's Poorest to explain the Budget woes in his First Comments about the City-Wide Garbage Strike!

Major David Miller had the audacity to not once, but twice to blame the poor; in his June 22, 2009 news conference discussing the garbage strike.

The Mayor said, "the world has changed since last year; its a very different world, our welfare costs, for example, are up significantly. To make sure no one could miss his point he said it again just at the end of the conference. "As I said before ... the world has changed and the city has extremely serious budget challenges one needs only to look at our welfare rolls to understand."

The same day on Breakfast TV Miller continued his attack on the poor saying, "Because of the worldwide recession particularly because of welfare costs the city is not in a position to be generous. We have to create an affordable agreement".

It's only $572 dollars a month Mayor Miller, that's a yearly income of $6864. That is the amount of basic welfare paid to a single person who has qualified for Ontario Works. That is only if the person is housed in some way.

The $572 breaks down into $356 for the shelter allowance, no home this money isn't available just $216 allocated for Basic Needs.

Stats Canada's Low Income Before tax-cut offs (LICO) lists the poverty level for someone living in Toronto (with 500,000 or more residents) as $20,778.

Someone on welfare would be below the Stats Canada established poverty line by $13,914.

Clarification

The Toronto Tribune was concerned that should this strike continue and Mayor Miller use the welfare rolls alone, as he did three times on June 22, 2009, that there is an implication implicit or otherwise to blame the poor for Toronto's budget woes. The Toronto Tribune contacted the Mayor's office to discuss his comments.

Stuart Green, Deputy Director, Communications, Office of Mayor David Miller responded to our concern, "There is no implicit or explicit attack on the poor here, this is about the number of people on welfare. The city pays social services. It is not about people who are recipients; it never has been. It's about the number of people who qualify. The Mayor is a very progressive guy and he's doing everything he can to try and help those who are in dire straights and there are more of them right now. That's all he was talking about. Welfare costs were downloaded to the city by the Mike Harris government. We're in a position where given the worldwide economic situation there are more people receiving social assistance that's what he is talking about. The simple math is that if you have more people on welfare the city costs go up exponentially; because of the downloading by the Mike Harris Government. That's the reality."

Good! Our suggestion would be for the Mayor to remember the poor in Toronto have enough problems and really have nothing to do with the garbage strike. Some of the Main Stream Media ran his welfare quote and it did appear that the progressive Mayor was blaming the poor. Someone on welfare who has to figure out how to live on $572 a month has enough problems. According to the weekly Ontario Coalition Against Poverty Housing List, which provided the lowest cost housing unit available for that week a rooming house can cost $450-500 a month; giving the poor the challenge of having all other basic needs like food, clothing, grooming (shampoo, soap) and transit with just $72 to spend for all of these other needs.

Miller neglected to focus on an extra burden on tax payers for 2009 the 2.4 % raise city councilors received after Miller and his personally selected executive committee agreed to increase their annual salaries from $96,805 to $99,153. Lashing out at the poor seems unfair trying to live on $572 a month doesn't allow for extras such as cable; perhaps they are unaware of the Mayor's comments. They are an all but defenseless group. Had Miller gone after some of the others who have received the city's largesse they would have responded with an instant press conference condemning the Mayor. The poor are too busy dealing with their difficult circumstances to respond to the comments letting them stand unanswered. Going after the one group that can't or won't respond and are not in anyway responsible for the city's multiple and complex issues seemed grossly unfair.