As you likely know, the Provincial Liberals are currently touring the
province with a consultation scam to make it seem like they care about
poor people while they do nothing for us. We are going to go to the
Toronto closed-door consultations and tell Minister Matthews and the
government that we don't need more talk, we need action!

June 18th
3:30 pm
meet at PARC - 1499 Queen Street West

We have been unable to get a bus so if you have one (or a car or van)
please let us know at the OCAP office as we are scrambling to make sure we
have enough space for people to get there.

Accessibility - call or e-mail to make arrangements.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCAP Not Participating in Sham Consultations: Minister Matthews lies to
legitimize secret 'poverty meetings'

(June 11, 2008) Yesterday, during an interview with CBC's Metro Morning,
the Minister of Children and Youth Services, Deb Mathews, claimed the
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) was invited to and attended a
secret poverty consultation.

In reality, these meetings have been designed expressly to avoid
interacting with anti-poverty groups like OCAP and with poor people in
general. OCAP has never received an invitation to attend these
private consultations. These meetings make no attempt to address systemic
poverty in this province, rather they seek to allay the public's concerns
"within existing resources."

"We don't need to waste our time in secret consultations. We need a
government that is actually going to do something about poverty," says
A.J. Withers, an OCAP Organizer. "We know what the problems are. Welfare
and disability rates are too low, we need a livable minimum wage now, we
need more affordable housing and we need the housing we do have to be in
decent repair."

The Liberal government would like the public to believe it will make real
and substantial changes in people's lives. Instead, this government
continues to quietly chip away at crucial money and services. "While
they talk about reducing poverty, the Liberals continue to let welfare and
disability rates lose ground to inflation. They slashed the Special Diet
supplement that let thousands of people eat healthier food, and they
introduced the confusing Ontario Child Benefit that means parents probably
won't be able to buy coats for heir kids this winter," says John Clarke of
OCAP. "This is not a government that actually cares about poor people, it
is a government trying to get political capital by talking a lot about us,
but doing nothing for us," Clarke says.

While Matthews is a liar, she was right about one thing: there have been
protesters outside of her sham consultations, in cities all across
Ontario. This month, in Toronto, we plan to be among them.

**
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
10 Britain St. Toronto, ON M5A 1R6
416-925-6939 ocap@tao.ca www.ocap.ca
**