Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force Poverty Task Force

Poverty Task Force/United Way Community Update #102

Election Education # 5

Dear Colleagues, 

Sometimes it is all about capturing the eye of new voters. Élections Québec launched a  corny TikTok campaign to encourage youth vote. Is anyone in your municipality connecting with the youth vote? 

Poverty, Voting and Elections 

We are continuously updating our Poverty, Voting and Election Resource Page to include more municipal resources and voter information.  Please check it out and share the link widely to all candidates. 

Candidate Lists have been confirmed and posted on each municipality website. 
ElectHerNow Grey Bruce reports that as of September 6th, 80 women have registered to run for municipal office in Grey Bruce.  Visit your local municipality’s website for all who are running in your area and then learn more about them. 

All Candidate Debates and candidate meeting opportunities have started. Please share with Jill Umbach (povertytaskforce@unitedwaybg.com) what is happening in your municipality. 

Georgian Bluffs 

  • 27 Sept – Kemble-Sarawak United Church, 7pm. 

Grey Highlands

  • 8 Oct  – Flesherton Kinplex
  • 13 Oct.– Osprey Hall

Questions for Candidates: the Poverty Task Force and its members are submitting questions for debates and posing questions at forums.  We recommend the following questions to start: 

  • How would you address affordable housing and homelessness in your municipality? 
  • Do you support income solutions (living wage, basic guaranteed income, increase to social assistance) to address food insecurity and housing affordability? 

Voter registration deadlines have passed. Voterlookup.ca is no longer collecting or confirming information for the 2022 municipal and school board elections. 

  • People should access the Election Help Desks of each municipality to register.
  • Voters will need to have a Voter Information Letter in order to vote. The letter will be mailed to everyone on the Voters’ List in October. 
  • The letter will have voting instructions and a unique Personal Identification Number that will be used to log into the internet election site or onto the telephone election platform. 
  • Find your Election Help Desks on your municipality website. Call or visit them in-person to register.  

A person with no fixed address or no internet/phone can be added to the voters’ list. An affidavit for the individual needs to be completed to be added to the voter list, if they don’t have any identification with a qualifying address.

  • Go to an Election Help Centre before or during the voting period (Oct 14-24) to fill out an affidavit, get added to the voter list and be issued the voter information letter (includes the PIN). 
  • If they have no internet access or phone they would be able to vote at the Election Help Centre.

Living Wage Campaign

  • In time for the Labour Day Weekend, the NDP Party raised a Living Wage billboard in Owen Sound by the downtown Tim Hortons.  The billboard reads “If you’re working for a living, you need a living wage.” 
  • David McLaren explains “It’s a message intended for workers who find themselves short of cash at the end of the month, and for employers who can afford to pay their workers more. It’s for politicians who refuse to make a living wage a policy for their own staff and a requirement for contractors who want to do business with the City (as other cities in Canada have already done).”

 In the news: 

Stay well, Jill  

Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force Poverty Task Force

Poverty Task Force/United Way Community Update # 78

Dear Colleagues,

As world leaders gather in Scotland for the UN Climate Change summit, we need to consider the deep interconnection between poverty and climate change.  “The impacts of climate change tend to be larger on more vulnerable populations and reinforce existing demographic inequities, highlighting an unfortunate commonality between climate change and COVID-19.” (Grey County Draft CCAP, pg. 25)

People with low income have very little savings and ability to adapt to increased costs of living. The newly proposed general minimum wage of $15.00/hr effective January 1st, 2022, raises the rate from $14.35 but it does not come close to paying a Living Wage. In 2019, Grey Bruce’s Living Wage was calculated at $18.39. People’s ability to relocate to secure jobs and affordable housing requires resources that many people with low income do not currently possess. People who are already affected by food insecurity, will find it even more difficult to put food on the table if climate change impacts food availability like the pandemic has.

The data collected by the Bruce Grey Food Insecurity Data Collection Hub (BruceGreyFood.com) reflects an increase in the number of people accessing community meal programs and food banks under the pandemic. But while the pandemic lockdown has lifted we have not seen a decrease in usage but rather numbers are increasing and new families are accessing these services.

“It is for that reason that as we continue to try and learn from this pandemic, we need to, at the same time, identify ways in which we can apply these learnings in the fight against climate change.” (Grey County Draft CCAP, pg. 25)

The Grey County Draft Climate Change Action Plan is now available for review and comment at Draft Climate Change Action Plan. County staff would welcome feedback on the draft CCAP.  Comments can be sent to the Planning Department at linda.swanston@grey.ca until November 5th, 2021. 

RECONCILIATION BEGINS WITH US

  • Land acknowledgements are an honest and historically accurate way to recognize the traditional First Nations, Métis and/or Inuit territories of a place.  According to Anishinaabe-kwe Wanda Nanibush, land acknowledgements have one goal, regardless of format: they commemorate Indigenous peoples’ principal kinship to the land. Nanibush says “they’re a starting place to a change in how the land is seen and talked about [and they] help redefine how people place themselves in relation to First Peoples.”
  • Treaties Recognition Week. November 1-7th, 2021. It is important to learn about treaties and the transfer/ownership of land as an important part of t of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. As well as understanding what it means to live on Unceded land. 
  • We need to recognize and respect Indigenous peoples’ inherent kinship beliefs when it comes to the land, especially since those beliefs were restricted for so long.
  • Learn more about the Treaty history of where we live at: https://www.saugeenojibwaynation.ca/treaty-history
  • We know Ontario would not exist without treaties. https://twitter.com/solmamakwa/status/1455123667168415745?s=27
  • Hear from Saugeen Ojibway Nation Environment Office video with Doran Ritchie sharing Harvesting & SON Rights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4bky7svtxc

MENTAL HEALTH AND ADDICTIONS SUPPORTS

  • Indigenous Trauma-informed Supports: The provincial government is investing over $36 million to support community-led mental health and addictions in Indigenous communities across the province. This funding will help ensure culturally appropriate and trauma-informed supports are readily available, including supports for Indian Residential School Survivors and their families.

HOUSING SUPPORTS/RESEARCH

  • Spark Housing Initiative, The Meeting Place will be hosting focus groups to gather qualitative data on the housing situation in the Northern Bruce Peninsula. For more information you can reach out to The Meeting Place at 519-596-2313 or info@tobermorymeetingplace.com

EMPLOYMENT SUPPORTS

  • Grey Bruce Virtual Job Fair:  November 23rd from 2-7 pm. Job seekers are encouraged to register early as spaces are limited. Register grey.ca 

DIVERSITY, INCLUSION & EQUITY

  • Grey Bruce Pride: have launched a Community Needs Assessment Survey.  They are asking people in the 2S-LGBTQQIAP+ community how they experience life in Grey Bruce and to suggest ways that you would like to see to make things better in the community. 

FOOD SECURITY SUPPORTS

  • Community Foundation Grey Bruce: announced its Fall Grants with a larger number awarded for food security programming such as expanding community gardens in Meaford, Owen Sound and Durham. As well as a new Community Closet and Pantry at the South East Grey Community Health Centre, and hot food programs or meal classes through the United Way of Bruce Grey, Safe ‘N Sound, Southwest Ontario Aboriginal Health Access Centre, and The Chesley Baptist Church Hot Meal Program.
  • Gateway Centre for Excellence in Rural Health: in partnership with Guelph University they are carrying out a study on food accessibility and insecurity among rural seniors in 4 counties: Huron Perth Bruce and Grey. 
  • Studies show that rural seniors face more significant challenges and are at a greater risk of food insecurity than their urban counterparts. Surveys will be completed by phone with seniors over 70. Please contact Casandra Bryant for any questions at: casandra@gatewayruralhealth.ca 

Stay well, Jill 

jillumbach Income Security Action Group, Media

$2,000 donation to help tackle precarious work

Peace & Justice Grey Bruce is a member of the Bruce Grey Poverty Task Force. In partnership with the PTF’s Income Security Action Group, Public Health and United Way of Bruce Grey we are launching a campaign to work on bringing a living wage to Grey Bruce.  The article below highlights the work of the Peace & Justice and new funding from the Society of Energy Professionals to address issues of precarious work.

By Denis Langlois, Sun Times, Owen Sound

Thursday, August 28, 2014 5:06:17 EDT PM

Peace & Justice Grey Bruce wants to get as many people as possible talking about what it calls the social and economic dangers of “precarious work.”

The local non-partisan coalition plans to use a $2,000 donation from the Society of Energy Professionals to continue to shine a light on the problem and lobby governments for action to address it.

David McLaren, a member of the organization, said a chunk of the money will be used to produce a report on precarious work, a term used to describe the low-wage and often part-time or temporary jobs that are on the rise in Ontario communities.

“We’re also going to be continuing our partnerships with other people. We’ll be trying to make this an election issue for the municipal election. And we’re going to be producing a lot more materials,” he said in an interview Thursday during an event and cheque presentation at the Grey Bruce Health Unit in Owen Sound.

“The idea is to go out and bring more people into the tent, if you like, under the umbrella, to talk about this. And some of those people will be in positions to do something about it as well.”

McLaren said social agencies and anti-poverty advocates cannot fix the problem on its own. Companies and businesses also need help.

“As soon as (employers) start paying higher wages, then they too become in precarious positions, so the only other place to look is to government. Government does have a mandate, they do have some authority under various legislation,” he said.

Municipalities, for example, can mandate that all of their employees receive a “living wage,” which is about $15 an hour in Grey-Bruce, he said. They can also insist that the companies they contract to provide services will pay their employees a living wage as well, he said.

The province, meanwhile, can require a higher minimum wage, while the federal government can revise its taxation system and legislation to support better-paying jobs, he said.

Peace & Justice Grey Bruce says precarious employment is work that does not pay well enough to get a person to the end of the month. Most often, the job does not include benefits. Some people are working three part-time jobs to make ends meet.

The organization says 20% of Owen Sound families are low income with a median income of $15,590 a year, which Statistics Canada says is about half of what is required for a family of four to stay out of poverty.

McLaren said Peace & Justice Grey Bruce is part of a coalition of organizations that is working to tackle precarious work. It also includes the United Way of Bruce Grey, the local poverty task force, the Grey Bruce Health Unit, municipal politicians and unions.

Dick Hibma of the Society of Energy Professionals said his local, which is made up of 1,100 Bruce Power employees, supports efforts to assist people in precarious jobs that have no voice.

He said his union wants to see all people paid a living wage.

The political decision-makers, including members of the provincial and federal governments, hold the key to fixing the problem, he said.