OPEN LETTER TO MIKE HARRIS

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

Dear Mr. Premier;

About the notion that cheaters convicted of defrauding Ontario's welfare system should be cut off social assistance for life, doesn't government sometimes help to create the cheaters?

Although we understand that the idea wasn't exclusively the brainchild of the Mike Harris Government, how long have statistics showing dramatic declines in the numbers of welfare recipients been pumped out by gloating governments?

According to experts in the collection industry, it was going on when the David Peterson Liberals were running Queen's Park. Single mothers on social assistance were enticed back to school by well-publicized government programs. They gave up welfare, put their children in daycare, took advantage of government and bank guaranteed student loans, returned to school for a couple of years, then returned to social assistance. The government, meanwhile took kudos for revealing statistics showing a decline in the number of welfare recipients. Although it never showed up that way in the stats, technically speaking, the Moms weren't showing up on welfare rolls because they had been moved from one government program to another. Indeed, it could be argued that the government didn't save money for which it took credit in the media, but increased it when student loans could not be collected.

While your government's latest salvo against welfare fraud may be well intended, how is it possible to "return integrity to our welfare system" and "ensure that the dollars we have available help those in need go to help those in need"?

It is somewhat naive for your government to have us believe that in those cases where the convicted welfare cheat is a parent, the benefit portion for children will still be paid, though the benefit for the parent will not. Surely, the children of the cheating welfare parent will suffer through the lesser benefits no matter what.

Perhaps for the first time in recent history, howling social activists and legal experts have a point when they argue that the punishment is out of proportion to anything currently being done to other members of society.

Doctors found guilty in court of defrauding the Ontario Health Insurance are not banned for life from practising and receiving OHIP fees.

"In any other context you are allowed to pay your penalty and rejoin society as a full member," laments Andy Mitchell of the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto. "This seeks to isolate recipients of welfare for some special cruel and unusual punishment."

The lifetime ban for welfare cheaters set to kick in by April 1, coincides with a time when criminal convictions for welfare fraud are actually in decline, mirroring the reduction in welfare rolls. As you know, in 1998-99--when about $1.8-billion in benefits were paid to 300,000 welfare cases involving 660,000 people--welfare investigators turned up $60-million in payments that people were not entitled to receive.

While benefits were reduced or terminated in 16,900 cases, court convictions for fraud related to welfare actually fell to 747 from more than 1,100 a year earlier.

You should go back to the drawing board on welfare fraud, Mr. Premier. Besides, aren't you already in enough trouble because of hospitals rerouting patients?