19May 2014 by johnastapleton

Guest Blog from Tess: Without warning! How government can empty out a bank account and leave you with nothing

I’m a single mother of two boys.  One is living with me. We get help from Ontario Works and live in subsidized housing.  My son who lives with me is in high school full-time. He was born when I was his age and in high school. I finished high school. I finished two university degrees. I struggle with occasional bouts of depression, chronic fatigue, and pain. At the beginning of February this year I went to an ATM to make a withdrawal.  Instead of leaving with cash, I left with overwhelming distress.  There was no money for me to take out of my only bank account.  Had I been a victim of technological theft?   Being the beginning of the month, this was especially stressful as I would not receive my…
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22Jan 2013 by johnastapleton

Stop wondering about under-subscription of benefits

Getting the Learning Bond and Education Savings Grants is really hard for low-income parents I have become mildly annoyed by those who can’t figure out why the Canada Learning Bond (CLB) and the Canada Education Savings Grants (CESG) are undersubscribed among low-income parents. There really should be no mystery. All you have to do is shadow a low income parent (usually a woman) through the process and it all becomes clear. The following is a composite (mix and match) of my shadowing activity with four very motivated young lone parents who had heard about these benefits and wanted them for their children. I get to their places about 8:00 a.m. and ask if they are ready for it. There is the usual last minute kerfuffle about getting a child to…
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13May 2012 by johnastapleton

Why do we enforce the most stringent ‘adult entry’ rules on the most vulnerable?

We all know that Canada is an aging society. But how many of us know that the median age in Canada was 26 in 1967 and is now age 42[1]? Most of us are living longer and having smaller families. Yet we don’t seem to stop to think too much about what an older Canada means for the extensions in the stages of our lives. Much has been written about the incredible lengthening of old  age in our society. People who retired at 65 in  1967 typically lived into their mid-seventies. Now they live a decade or more longer. Our working lives used to end at age 65 but mandatory retirement laws have been scrapped and our federal government is postponing the receipt of Old Age Security to age 67.…
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