Social Assistance Review | Lobbying – Sending a Personal Letter

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Lobbying – Sending a Personal Letter

Three members of government will be key to ensuring a bold and broad review.

The Premier is the head of government. The Minister of Community and Social Services is responsible for the OW and ODSP programs. And the Minister of Children and Youth Services is also responsible for poverty reduction. She brought in the government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy and poverty reduction legislation.

Sending a personal letter to these three members of government is an important way to get the message across. You can send one letter addressed to all three, or separate letters to each of them.

1) Deciding what to write in your letter

You can use our letter template to give you some ideas.

Remember that speaking from your own experience can have a big impact.

So write a letter that talks about your experience with OW or ODSP - the ways the system has undermined you, failed to support you, denied you opportunities, or stopped you from reaching your full potential.

And talk about what you think a good social assistance system would look like – the resources, programs, and assistance that you think would help you and people in your community thrive, have economic security, and be able to live the life you want to live.

Tell these three members of government that they should honour the all-party commitment to poverty reduction by insisting that the Social Assistance Review:

creates opportunities for the voices of low-income people to be heard
identifies and addresses the most punitive elements of the system immediately
re-imagines and creates a system for the longer term that moves people out of poverty by offering meaningful and appropriate resources and programs
starts soon – Ontarians need and are entitled to a social assistance system that really works.

If you are an activist, an agency worker, a community member, or a friend or supporter of a person living on OW or ODSP, write about the experience you have gained from seeing the struggles of the people you know.

And provide your insights into what a good social assistance system would be, and how the life of your local community as a whole could be made so much better if Ontario’s social assistance system had the explicit mandate to reduce poverty – after all, what else should it do?

Check our Resources page for some ideas on how social assistance can be transformed.

Or check the comments on our Tell Your Story page to get the expertise of people with lived experience.

2) Keep your letter relatively short

Short letters are most likely to be read. So keep your letter to two pages at the most.

3) Send your letter to the following addresses:

The Honourable Dalton McGuinty

Premier of Ontario

Room 281, Main Legislative Building, Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A1

e-mail: dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

The Honourable Madeleine Meilleur

Minister of Community and Social Services

6^th floor, Hepburn Block, 80 Grosvenor Street