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5 Ontario NDP MPPs have wrapped up a two-week “social help” weight loss program that they are saying helped draw consideration to the difficulties of attempting to eat properly on $95.
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Nonetheless, former NDP MPP Rima Berns-McGown likened it to “cosplaying poverty,” arguing it’s at all times a nasty concept to fake you’re oppressed if you’re not.
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NDP MPP Monique Taylor stated she lived on a weight loss program of pasta, rice and bread to lend her voice to people who find themselves already working onerous to attract authorities’s consideration to social help meals budgets.
“It’s about ensuring that we’re utilizing our platform,” Taylor stated Friday.
Anti-poverty teams are calling on the Doug Ford authorities to double Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Incapacity Help Program (ODSP) advantages.
The Ford authorities elevated ODSP charges by 5% beginning this month however left OW charges unchanged.
NDP MPPs Taylor, Chandra Pasma, Lise Vaugeois, Jessica Bell and Joel Harden lived on a two-week $95.21 meals funds to deal with this challenge.
Pasma, her get together’s poverty and homelessness discount critic, stated it was not possible to eat a nutritious diet on beneath $48 per week.
“What we do know is folks in Ontario are actually going hungry proper now,” Pasma stated. “As MPPs we will’t probably know what it’s wish to dwell on Ontario Works or ODSP, however what these two weeks have highlighted for us is the wrestle to afford recent wholesome meals on such a small funds.”