“Every breath you take
And every move you make….
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you
Every single day….
And every word you say
Every night you stay
I’ll be watching you”
Every Breath You Take
Synchronicity
The Police
1983
A friend of mine recently travelled from Ontario to Nova Scotia.
Not for a vacation. His stepfather had died unexpectedly. His elderly mother needed help.
He did exactly what the Ontario Disability Support Program requires. Before leaving, he informed his caseworker that he was going. He explained that he had purchased a one-way ticket – with the help of his family – because he did not know how long his mother would need him. He promised to report back once he had booked his return passage.
His caseworker expressed sympathy for his loss and simply asked him to let her know when he would be returning. He believed his absence from Ontario to have been approved. At no point was he told that staying beyond thirty days would reduce his benefits. He returned after approximately six weeks.
When his August payment arrived, $123.65 of his ODSP allowance (about 25% of his usual payment) had been deducted because he had remained outside Ontario for about ten days beyond the thirty-day limit. Did he need less to eat because he travelled? Was his rent reduced? Is there a new negative travel allowance?
The obvious question is not simply: “Is that the rule?” The question is: “Why?”
Ontario undoubtedly has an answer. The province wants to ensure that Ontario disability benefits are paid to Ontario residents.
That is entirely reasonable.
Governments also need to prevent fraud. They need to know that recipients have not moved elsewhere while continuing to collect Ontario benefits. They need to administer the program. Caseworkers occasionally need recipients to attend in-person appointments, provide documentation, or respond to eligibility reviews.
These are all legitimate public purposes but none of them explains this case.
My friend remained an Ontario resident. He intended to return. He did return. He openly informed ODSP before leaving but under the circumstances, could not wait for prior written approval of the absence as required . He concealed nothing. If he had applied to make up the shortfall to Nova Scotia social services, he would have been ineligible for assistance as visitors are not generally eligible for assistance.
He was caring for a grieving parent after a death in the family. He was not attempting to relocate. He was not avoiding the program.
So what public purpose was served by reducing his ODSP allowance?
Equally troubling is the way it happened. Good public administration requires more than applying rules. It requires procedural fairness.
The caseworker appeared to have approved his absence but had not. Was six weeks too long? Did he stay a week too long…. ten days too long?
Had he been told before leaving that remaining away beyond thirty days would reduce his benefits, he could at least have made an informed decision. Instead, he was left to discover the financial consequence only after he had returned home.
That is not transparent administration. It is administration by surprise. But there is another development that raises even more profound questions.
Every month, ODSP recipients logging into the MyBenefits portal must complete a declaration before accessing their account.
Initially, recipients were asked whether they had been outside Ontario for more than thirty consecutive days, reflecting the actual legislative threshold. Today, they are simply asked whether they were outside Ontario at all during the previous month.
Why? If travel shorter than thirty consecutive days has no effect on eligibility, why does the government need to know about it?
What public purpose is served by collecting information about perfectly lawful travel?
The question shifts. It is no longer only about residency. It is about surveillance.
Ontario residents can generally travel outside the province for extended periods while retaining OHIP eligibility, subject to residency rules.
Federal programs such as Old Age Security, Canada Pension Plan, Tax-Free Savings Accounts, refundable tax credits, and countless other public programs that have residency rules recognize that Canadians travel, visit family, care for aging parents, attend funerals, or spend time elsewhere without losing their essential connection to home.
Residency is not measured by where someone sleeps on a given night. It is measured by where they actually live. Why should disability assistance be so different?
The answer may lie less in residency than in the history of social assistance itself.
For decades, welfare programs have been built upon two distinct functions. The first is income support. The second is supervision and surveillance.
Recipients report changes in income. Changes in assets. Changes in family composition. Changes in housing. Changes in relationships. And, in some cases, changes in physical location. The state does not merely provide assistance. It continually monitors continued eligibility.
That supervisory tradition may have made sense when welfare was viewed primarily as temporary relief.
But ODSP is different. Many recipients have permanent disabilities.
Their need for income support does not disappear because they spend several weeks helping an elderly parent after the death of a spouse.
Yet the administrative culture remains remarkably similar. Presence becomes evidence of compliance. Absence becomes something requiring explanation.
It is almost as though the province assumes that a person with disabilities should remain within sight of the program.
One remark my friend made has stayed with me. When I asked whether he appealed the deduction, he said he did not.
Not because he agreed with it. But because, as another recipient observed during our discussion, people receiving basic assistance become conditioned to avoid scrutiny whenever possible.
They learn that asking questions, challenging decisions, or drawing attention to themselves often feels riskier than quietly accepting an unfair outcome.
That may be one of the least visible costs of highly supervised programs. People stop asserting their rights because they fear attracting further attention.
Ontario would likely argue that clear rules are necessary. If exceptions become too broad, administration becomes more difficult. Fraud becomes harder to detect. Consistency becomes harder to maintain.
Those are legitimate concerns. But good public policy asks another question.
Does the rule actually solve the problem it was designed to solve?
If someone permanently leaves Ontario, residency rules should absolutely apply. If someone secretly relocates while continuing to collect Ontario disability benefits, the province should act.
But if someone openly reports an urgent temporary absence and remains an Ontario resident throughout, returns exactly as promised, and was away only because an elderly parent needed help after a death in the family, reducing benefits seems to accomplish very little. In fact, it accomplishes nothing except to remind recipients that they remain subject to a degree of supervision unknown to almost every other income security program in Canada.
The issue is larger than one deduction. It is about the relationship between residents and the state. Most public programs begin with a presumption of honesty unless evidence suggests otherwise.
Basic assistance programs too often begin with a presumption of the need for continuing supervision unless recipients continually demonstrate compliance. That distinction says something profound about how we continue to think about poverty and disability.
Ontario has every right to protect public funds. It also has an obligation to ask whether every rule still serves a meaningful public purpose. Rules should exist because they solve identifiable public problems—not because they reinforce administrative habits inherited from another era.
A person with disabilities who temporarily leaves Ontario to care for a grieving parent should not have to wonder whether compassion ends at the provincial border.
And if the government now wishes to know about every trip outside Ontario—even those that have no effect on eligibility—it owes recipients, and the public, an explanation.
Until then, one is left with an uncomfortable conclusion. The province appears to be supervising not simply where people live. It is supervising where they go.
And again – just one more time – and with program integrity clearly in mind – what does the deduction of $123.65 accomplish?