Raise The Rates Coalition

We live in the wealthiest province in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet the signs of poverty and suffering are all around us. We have the ability to provide everyone in Ontario with enough to live with dignity – and the Raise the Rates campaign is a grassroots anti-poverty effort to mobilize a movement to force the government to live up to that promise.

Ontarians are struggling. We are fighting back.

Jointly organized by a coalition of community-based organizations, legal clinics, unions, food banks, and anti-poverty advocates – and open to all allies who want to build a coalition and make an impact – we are a growing movement fighting for:

• Immediate and meaningful increases to social assistance rates
• The end to the erosion of social assistance benefits
• A living income for us all

Join the Raise the Rates Campaign Today!

Email: raisetheratescoalition@gmail.com

#RaisetheRates

Raise the Rates is always excited for new organizations and individuals to join. We are united by a single guiding mission – to meaningfully increase the rates of social assistance to allow all Ontarians to live with dignity.

That, however, is not enough to guide our movement. Members of the coalition have politics that cut across parties and issues. Our Basis of Unity lays out a common direction and guiding principles for how we work in relationship to one another, the value of lived experience, and the vision for a more inclusive and equitable society we are advancing.

Our Values

We make space. Our coalition has members who are activists volunteering their time, people with critical lived experience, and paid staff members or allied organizations. All perspectives are welcome – but we endeavor to elevate and privilege voices that are not often heard or have been historically ignored.

We build collective power through community-based organizing.  We commit to being courageous in how we advocate, we are supportive of those willing to share personal experiences, and we are undaunted by challenges we face as we bring more partners and allies into our coalition to push for real change.

We start with respect. Ending legislated poverty isn’t only about outcomes – it demands a different answer to the question of what we owe our fellow humans. That starts in how we relate across differences within our coalition by recognizing everyone’s inherent value. It expands outwards by fighting not only for an end to poverty but by emphasizing the need to embed the dignity of all in our social systems.

We stand firm against hate. While we believe in a broad tent united in ending legislated poverty and increasing human dignity, there is no room in this movement for racism, ableism, or discrimination based on sexual orientation, religion, country of origin, citizenship status, ancestry, income, or any other marker used to create artificial hierarchies and divide people.

We recognize a diversity of tactics and opinions in our pursuit of dignity for all people receiving OW and ODSP. Underpinning that goal is the inherent justice of ending poverty and we embrace all groups who share that vision.

Poverty is neither a character flaw nor a choice.

All Ontarians deserve enough to live and that means funding all benefits for everyone on social assistance and making discretionary benefits easily accessible eliminating wait times and means testing.

People should not be kept in a poverty trap or punished for working by a welfare wall. That means they deserve their entire social assistance income without deductions or punitive claw backs.

Barriers to accessing support are numerous and have been intentionally erected by systems of power to further atomize and disenfranchise. These barriers are legal, economic, bureaucratic, and cultural, including immigration status, inequitable geographic access, overly complex application processes, and linguistic challenges. All barriers to support must be removed to ensure equitable access to social assistance.