[Ontario] Anti-poverty marchers target provincial budget

from The Toronto Star

Food banks, churches, agencies see demand skyrocketing
`Hunger March' today to call for 40% raise in welfare rates

CHRISTIAN COTRONEO
STAFF REPORTER

The army that gathered in a city park yesterday boasted its own cavalry, a phalanx of armed guards and its very own colonel.

That would be the Colonel.

Known by no other name on the city streets where he has lived for more than 20 years, the Colonel prepared to join protestors at Queen St. E. and Church St. for yesterday's Hunger March.

"Why are we marching?" the Colonel asked. "Because people can't feed themselves. How can you feed yourself on $520 a month when your rent is $420?"

He still manages to find funds for a can or two of consolation.

"I'm trying to figure out how to drink a beer in this park," he said, eyeing the police officers — on horseback, bicycles, many in riot gear — on all sides.

Organized by about 40 advocacy groups, including the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, the Canadian Auto Workers and the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, the march was aimed at the provincial budget that will be handed down March 23.

"What we need to see is a 40 per cent increase in social assistance because that is the amount that people have lost in spending power on social assistance since the Harris cuts in 1995," Kathy Hardill of Health Providers Against Poverty said, referring to the former Conservative government under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves.

"Thousands of people go hungry every day."

According to a survey by the Daily Bread Food Bank, the average annual income among its Greater Toronto clients is $10,938. After rent and utilities, the average client is left with $4.46 per day. Another survey in Regent Park pegged that figure as low as 35 cents a day.

Tammy Woolman is part of that equation, having been on disability since 1993. She saw her monthly cheque rise from $930 to $959 last year, for the first time.

"A $29 raise," the single Peterborough native scowled. "Whoop-de-do."

So Woolman boarded a bus in Peterborough yesterday morning, along with about 30 others, to join the march.

All that frustration culminated in a surprisingly civil march of about 500 people from the Metropolitan United Church park to the site of Toronto's future opera house, at University Ave. and Queen St. W., which has benefitted from public and private funding.

Arthur McBride would like to think he had something to do with the peaceful protest. The Peterborough resident spent much of the afternoon wafting bubbles through the crowd.

"They bring out the joy in everyone," he said. "I think we need to pump up the goodwill."

When construction seemed to block one street from marchers, Staff Sgt. Frank Bergen proposed another route.

"Is that okay with you guys?" he asked protestors, before informing police units.

The procession wound its way through afternoon traffic, soliciting beeps from taxi drivers and stares from crowds through restaurant windows.

"The reality is everyone has the right to a peaceful demonstration," Bergen said.