NAPO
National
Anti-Poverty
Organization
ONAP
Organisation
Nationale
anti-pauvreté
Articles Kimberly Rogers
Public Interest Party Spokespeople
Tragedy Highlights Increasing Criminalizaiton Of The Poor
Public Interest Party Spokespeople
Committee
to Remember Kimberly Rogers
Laurie McGauley
Tel 705-674-0282
Peter Desilets
Social Planning Council of Sudbury
Janet
Gasparini, Executive Director
Tel
705-675-3894
Ontario Social Safety Network
Barbara Anello
Tel 705-494-9078
Nancy Vander Plaats
Tel 416-438-7206,
cell 416-801-4169
Ontario Steering Committee on Social Assistance
Beth Walden
Tel 705-942-4900, cell 705-943-0885
Income Security Advocacy Centre
Jacquie Chic, Legal Director
Tel 416-597-5820, ext. 5144, cell
647-229-5820
Cynthia Wilkey, Counsel
Tel 416-597-5820 ext. 5152, cell
416-892-8941
Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Kim Pate, Executive Director
Tel 613-238-2422, cell 613-298-2422
National Anti-Poverty Organization
Pam Kapoor, Acting Executive
Director
Tel 613-789-0096, cell 613-298-0902
Linda Lalonde, President
Tel 613-789-0096
National Association of Women and the Law
Andrée Côté, Legislative and Law Reform
Tel 613-241-7570
[email protected]
Kim Brooks, National Steering Committee
Tel 613-533-6000, ext. 78346
[email protected]
Legal Education and Action Fund
to be confirmed
23
October 2002
The
Inquest into the death of Kimberly Rogers:
WHO
SHOULD CARE, AND WHY?
-
Pam Kapoor, National Anti-Poverty Organization
Since 1995, after the elimination of the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) and the introduction of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), the second-class citizenship of poor people in this country has become more assured. Our society, not helped by regressive governmental policies and seemingly institutionalized discriminatory attitudes, encourages negative attitudes toward low-income people and the perpetuation of stereotypes. We have become a culture tolerant of blatant discrimination, complacent about the oppression of more than 5 million low-income people in Canada.
The
sport of portraying social assistance recipients as “cheats” or
“thieves” or “bums” has become a cornerstone of government
electioneering and social policy. Governments,
mainstream media, and segments of the corporate culture have assisted in the
development of hostility toward poor people – a result of increased societal
acceptance of poor bashing. In
recent years, poor-bashing has reached the point of widespread blatant
violations of the most fundamental human rights of poor people.
The most blatant example is the lifetime ban on receiving welfare imposed
as a penalty for so-called “welfare fraud”, often the survival strategies of
those condemned to live and try to provide for their children on criminally low
levels of financial assistance.
So
how do we combat the image of welfare recipients, and others on income support,
as lazy abusers of the system? The
economically secure may always have a tendency to look down upon low or no
income members of society, but what is the bridge between individual behaviours
and government choices? What about
political will?
The
Ontario Provincial Coroner’s inquest into the death of Kimberly Rogers
provides a forum through which some of these questions may be explored.
In an effort to expose government culpability in the tragic death of a
pregnant woman convicted of welfare fraud and sentenced to house arrest, even
when the prosecutor and the judge knew she would be banned from receiving
welfare and would be utterly unable to provide for basic necessities, public
interest groups intervening in the case (and our allies) are, not surprisingly,
coming up against disparaging criticism about Kimberly’s life and offensive
generalizations about “choices” and “lifestyles” of low income people.
While
understanding this as an important moment in the struggle to expose and
eliminate systemic imbalances that deliver economic disadvantage to millions of
people in Canada, the dignity of Kimberly must remain paramount.
Her life ended too soon due to scandalous and violent politics.
Our challenge is to carry our message respectfully while seizing this
opportunity to put the facts on the public record and build another critical
stepping stone towards a just society.
Who
should care about this inquest and its outcome?
The
millions of people living in poverty in Canada today.
Advocates who represent poor people, many of whom are poor themselves, in
the face of oppressive and demeaning government bureaucracy and scrutiny.
Activists who take on the system and fight for a voice for poor people.
People who are incensed by government policies – federal, provincial
and territorial – that criminalize poor people and increase poverty.
People who are fighting to claim human rights for all of us.
We are the anti-poverty movement.
We
all know (many of us first hand) what dire impact the latest onslaught of
government policies are having on poor people.
We know that though Kimberly lived and died in Ontario, this tragedy
could have taken place in any community anywhere in Canada.
The Ontario government is certainly not alone in implementing
discriminatory and dangerous policies. We
need only look at contemporary British Columbia to know that some regions are
swiftly eclipsing even the Ontario Tories in terms of income support slashing,
program dismantling, resource canceling – wholesale desertion of poor people
and poverty issues.
Every
single one of us has a vested interest in the recommendations that will be
handed down by the five-member inquest jury in mid-November.
Emblazoned on the public record may be insightful citations of the direct
link between government policies that violate fundamental human rights and the
increasing criminalization of poor people.
We
are looking for recommendations that point to the cascading nature of
institutionalized discrimination towards poor people in Canada as illustrated
through …
…
the cancellation of CAP and the introduction of the CHST – key examples of
federal abandonment of responsibilities
…
subsequent fatal tampering by a provincial government with income assistance
programs leading to inadequate welfare rates and heightened paranoia about
welfare fraud
…
discriminatory sentencing schemes set up by the federal government post-CAP that
have contributed significantly to ongoing criminalization of poor people
[everyone should have equal access to conditional sentencing but it should not
be imposed discriminatorily on poor people, and not without at the same time
ordering the provision of adequate
assistance]
…
the disproportionate prosecution of women for welfare fraud and a gendered
analysis of conditional sentencing and low-income women’s unique survival
strategies
…
governments’ blatant disregard of international human rights obligations and
concerns raised by U.N. human rights bodies about the situation of poor people
in Canada
An
inquest jury’s recommendations, however, carry no weight and are in no way
legally binding. For that reason,
it is imperative that we coalesce, as a movement, around the positive and useful
aspects of those pending recommendations. In
many ways, the real impact of such an inquest emerges long after the courthouse
doors have closed. It is entirely
up to us to mount public pressure in an effort to press governments to implement
useful recommendations. What comes
out of this inquest may be, for the anti-poverty movement, another prong in our
platform for government action, campaign for change, our struggle for human
rights.
For information about the inquest, the interveners, the
policies, and to learn more about Kimberly’s story:
Justice
With Dignity – the Committee to Remember Kimberly Rogers
http://dawn.thot.net/Kimberly_Rogers
National
Anti-Poverty Organization
Contact NAPO by phone at 1.800.810.1076.
TRAGEDY HIGHLIGHTS INCREASING CRIMINALIZATION OF THE POOR
By Pam Kapoor, National Anti-Poverty Organization
The
August 9th death of Kimberly Rogers in Sudbury, Ontario, the 8-months pregnant
woman serving time under house arrest for welfare fraud, has revived discussion
about the criminalization and feminization of poverty in Canada.
By
now, the facts surrounding Kim’s case and personal circumstances are well
known. Charged because she received
student loans and social assistance at the same time, Kim pleaded guilty to a
charge of welfare fraud in April. Her
Ontario Works benefits were cancelled for three months and she was sentenced to
six months house arrest. After her
conviction, Kim’s legal team launched a challenge of the suspension of
benefits and the constitutionality of the law itself.
The case will be heard this September in Toronto.
Experts agree the results of this Charter challenge will have resounding
implications on welfare law around the country.
Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry
Societies, Kim Pate, says this case speaks to “…broader issues regarding the
context in which Kim was set up to fail in the first place,” and that the
judicial challenge should serve to “interfere with such illegal practices.”
In
an effort to have benefits reinstated, at least until the Charter challenge
ends, Kim’s lawyers argued that the welfare ban violated Sections 7, 12, and
15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Justice
Gloria Epstein then granted an injunction which allowed Kim back onto social
assistance. The house arrest
sentence, however, remained unchanged.
The
arcane option-eliminating practice of house arrest for poor people is not unique
to Ontario alone. In Nova Scotia,
welfare reforms which became law on 1 August call for benefits to be cut from
anyone sentenced to more than 30 days of house arrest.
Efforts
to criminalize poverty are real. A
1997 study of 50 cases of welfare fraud convictions and found that 80% were
sentenced to time in prison, one of the highest percentages of incarceration for
any group of defendants outside of murderers (pg. 4, Morris,
Glasbeek, and Martin, “We’re Being Cheated!
Corporate and Welfare Fraud: The Hidden Story,” Canadian Scholars
Press, Toronto: 1997).
The
feminization of poverty is undeniable. Example:
over 10,000 people, primarily women and single mothers, were cut off
social assistance in Ontario in 1995 due to the new definition of spouse in
welfare law which was declared illegal in June 2000 because it violated the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Further,
the Ontario government cut child care subsidies while requiring single parents
to participate in workfare.
The
Ontario Tories declared war on the poor nearly a decade ago, mounting a
multi-pronged assault: workfare, a
welfare fraud hotline, and questionable new investigation procedures.
Harris understands wartime propaganda:
despite evidence to the contrary, his team works to convince the public
that poor people are not really poor - they are cheating the system and should
be punished.
In
fact, improper welfare payments, usually a result of error, do not constitute
even a small problem. A 1997 report
indicates there is less ‘waste’ in the welfare system than in most other
large government systems. The
study showed that corporate crime, white collar fraud and tax evasion in Ontario
cost the public far more every year than the entire cost of the social
assistance system.
By
March 1997, Harris’ “Welfare Fraud Hotline,” introduced in 1995, had
brought 92 allegation referrals to police, of which 32 went to the Crown
Attorney, leading to a whopping 9 convictions.
Advocates
say the best way to deal with welfare fraud is prevention, not recovery or
punishment: “The crackdowns by
welfare police result in high human cost, as well as civil and human rights
violations,” asserts Josephine Grey of Low-Income Families Together (LIFT),
“Instead of reviewing internal systems, investing in worker training and
improving the eligibility requirement processes, they perpetuate poverty. It’s a witch hunt. Why
don’t they attack poverty instead of attacking the poor?
It’s barbaric.”
A
November 2000 evaluation by the Ontario Social Safety NetWork of the Tories’
attack paints a dark picture. Maximum
welfare benefits were cut in October by 21.6%.
A single person receiving maximum welfare suffered on average a decrease
of $150 per month. Last year, the
maximum amount that a single person received for shelter was $325, while the
average monthly cost of a bachelor apartment in Ontario was $561.
A single parent with one child had only $2.24 per day to spend after
shelter on food, transportation, or user fees for public services.
In February of 1998, 62% of people on welfare in Toronto were using some
of their ‘basic needs’ allowance towards shelter costs, up from 34% before
the Harris rate cuts.
Everyone
knows that welfare benefits, across the country, have long remained far below
the poverty line. And while cost of
living increases over time, maximum welfare benefits have gradually eroded. In Ontario, maximum welfare benefits for a single parent with
one child dropped from 75% of the poverty line in 1995 to roughly 60% in 1998.
The
day-to-day reality for people on social assistance is real.
Even
the government’s own statistics can acknowledges the problem.
Using data from the 1998-99 National Population Health Survey, a StatsCan
report released this August admits that roughly 3 million people in Canada are
“food insecure.” In a 1998
study, nutritionists at the University of Toronto found that 70 of single
mothers using food banks in Toronto had gone moderately or severely hungry in
the past year. Among coping
mechanisms cited to avoid going hungry: non-payment
of utility bills, selling possessions, or buying food on credit.
First
to sound the alarm about the thousands of people for whom the Canadian social
and justice systems do not work, front-line advocates are grieving the death of
Kim Rogers at many levels. Says
Amanda Chodura, Director of the Sudbury Elizabeth Fry Society who spent many
hours with Kim during her ordeal: “I
don’t feel guilty. We did
everything we could. But I do feel
guilty as a member of a society that could allow this to happen.”
Chodura
says that at a grieving session held last week for those who worked with Kim on
the case, including workers from Better Beginnings (pre-natal health) group and
the community legal clinic, advocates were grappling with a number of emotions. Local meetings will continue to plan for next steps.
“The
case brought on such profound feelings of hopelessness,” says Chodura.
Comparing the sentence of house arrest and welfare ban to “the modern
scarlet letter,” Chodura admits that some service agencies were reticent to
lend a hand given Kim’s guilty plea. Nonetheless,
an overall feeling of resignation exists: “We
know we’ve got to keep doing what we’re doing.
It’s more important now than ever.”
Public
reaction to the tragedy has been deep and far-reaching.
Vigils have taken place in communities across Canada, and most
particularly throughout Ontario.
A
number of local and regional groups have held rallies and actions calling for an
inquest into the death of Kim Rogers, and on the Ontario Tories to reinstate and
increase benefits and related programs. National
organizations are doing the same. The
Legal Education and Action Fund released a media statement last week calling for
an inquiry, while the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the
National Anti-Poverty Organization are planning a joint application for
intervener status at the imminent inquiry.
Says Bonnie Morton, President of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, “We said when the CAP (Canada Assistance Plan) was eliminated that people would start to die. She (Kim) may not be the first, but is the first we know of in such a circumstance. The way social policies and political commitments are handled in this country, Kim will surely not be the last who’s suffering ends in tragedy.”