By Colin McGregor
“Some people are hungry every day, they’re suicidal, and they come to see us. It’s the lot of the community group…”
Marie-Christine, counselor at OPDS (Organisation populaire des droits sociaux, the Popular Organization for Social Rights, in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve) is emotional when she talks about the most desperate examples she has seen. They’ve been refused both social assistance as well as unemployment insurance. Some waiting for an answer to their request for emergency social assistance (officially called aide financière de derniers recours, last resort financial assistance) literally starve while awaiting a reply.
“They’re supposed to answer your request for social assistance in 10 days,” she observes. “But in reality, it can take up to 45 days.” Often, people ask for social assistance with a bit more than the maximum $887 threshold permitted in their savings and their pockets. They’re pushed back another month without money – and often, without hope.
In this case, you have an option. You can make a Demande au pouvoir discrétionnaire de la ministre, a request at the discretion of the minister, based on being totally destitute.
Recent reforms to social assistance by the CAQ government offer only a little raise in this threshold figure for individuals to qualify to receive a cheque, despite recent inflation. But with the request at the discretion of the minister, “they have to answer you pretty fast” says Marie-Christine.
With this request, the situation is presumed to be grave or exceptional, one that prevents a person from satisfying their basic needs for a significant period. Such as violence; humanitarian reasons; or obvious reasons why a debt can’t be paid back (advanced age, state of health, or insufficient financial resources).
The CAQ’s Bill 71 reforms even reduce certain assistance benefits. For example, a solo person gets $829 a month. Before the reform, a couple receiving individual cheques of $807 a month would get the benefits from both cheques combined, $1,614. Now, a couple receives a combined single cheque of $1,258 per month. Debts due by one member of a couple continue to belong to both members: they call that la solidarité de la dette, the solidarity of the debt.
The only positive change in the reforms for people who have already collected social assistance is that the minister cannot sue people for errors over five years old.
The OPDS helps people who are totally destitute obtain social assistance. But many people who are refused assistance don’t know about this discretionary power.
The OPDS offers training courses to notaries and others interested in the labyrinth of social assistance laws and regulations. Sadly, says Marie-Christine, this topic is not well reported in the traditional media.
Get informed. Know your rights!
Photo: Colin McGregor. Homeless encampment, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
Leave a Reply