Thank you very much.
I want to go back to Ms. Sarangi and the 2023 “A Just Recovery for Hamilton” report. I want to highlight something she talked about in terms of food banks.
In Hamilton, 75% of people accessing food banks are on social assistance. Poverty among seniors and those with disabilities in Hamilton has increased over the past several years. From 2016 to 2021, our seniors' poverty rate, which had been 11%, rose to 12%. People in Hamilton on provincial social assistance have seen their supports completely stagnated, with people on ODSP having an annual income of $9,600 below the low-income poverty line. For the folks on Ontario Works, in many cases for them it's even worse, with their supports being frozen at $733 a month. There's stagnation in social supports coupled with the astronomical increase in the cost of food and rent and the basic necessities for survival.
I'm wondering if you could take the remaining moments here and share what you're hearing in terms of the human impacts of legislated poverty across the country, based on the stories that you've heard and the work that you've done.