Did you know that major changes are happening to education in Ontario — including funding cuts, increased class sizes, and mandatory e-learning? Last week, Social Planning Toronto, the Coalition for Alternatives to Streaming in Education (CASE), and Working Women Community Centre hosted a panel to discuss how these changes might impact academic streaming, equity, and the state of public education in Ontario.

2018 was a challenging year for Social Planning Toronto. Yet despite a leadership change, our small but mighty organization continued providing sector leadership and putting our noses to the grindstone in communities.

With a difficult year behind us, a new year upon us, and a new Executive Director to lead us (click here for a message from Devika Shah), it seems an appropriate time to share a few highlights of our community planning and research work over the past year.

Reforms Ignore Strong Proposals From In-Depth Income Security Study and Leave People With Disabilities in Jeopardy

“The Ontario government’s announcement to reform social assistance promised a compassionate and empowering system while offering few specifics, dropping many of the important reforms that were on the table before the election, and committing to a new definition of disability that will likely block many Ontarians with disabilities from getting the income support they desperately need,” said Peter Clutterbuck, Interim Executive Director of Social Planning Toronto, in response to the Province’s proposed changes to Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

After a rigorous selection process, Social Planning Toronto enthusiastically announces and welcomes Devika Shah as our new Executive Director.

Devika is passionate about building a civic society in Toronto—the city she loves—that is grounded in diversity, equity, social and economic justice, and active democratic engagement. Her interdisciplinary background and experience in the environmental sector have strengthened her commitment to advancing grassroots, community-led, multi-stakeholder solutions, which she views as the most powerful lever for achieving systems change.

In the lead-up to Toronto’s municipal election, community groups and coalitions asked candidates for Mayor and Council to commit to actions around poverty, housing, road safety, and ranked ballots. 

On October 22, Toronto elected its new City Council. Social Planning Toronto has produced this election update to show which members of the new Toronto City Council supported these progressive campaigns to make Toronto more liveable and its elections more fair.

Do you belong to a resident-led group that has a great event idea and needs funding?

Apply for a Neighbourhood Grant! 

Update (November 12, 2018): City Councillors Cynthia Lai and Jennifer McKelvie have recently endorsed the Prosperity Pledge, bringing the total number of Council members (including Mayor Tory) who have signed it to 19.

Of the 26 members of Council elected in Toronto on Monday night, 17 signed a “prosperity pledge,” committing to fully fund and implement the city’s first poverty reduction strategy, adopted unanimously by the previous Council in 2015.

The “Prosperity Platform” campaign, led by a community and faith coalition, demands that the new City Council take action and fully fund, implement, and monitor progress on the poverty reduction strategy. In the months leading up to the election, the campaign sought signed pledges from 239 candidates (for whom contact information was available) registered for election.

The Ontario Government was bound and determined to have its way in forcing a 25-ward system on the City of Toronto, regardless of how disruptive its actions have been on the City’s election process.

This has come at great cost to the City and also to the many new candidates for municipal office whose hopes were dashed with this abuse of provincial powers. For a brief moment, the courts tried to protect our local democracy under Charter Rights, but in the end, the courts upheld provincial authority, which the Premier was prepared to impose legislatively in any case through the unprecedented use of the notwithstanding clause.

Social Planning Toronto is an incorporated and registered non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to:

• independent social planning and community development,
• social research and policy analysis,
• community education and advocacy, and
• the development and coordination of human services.

SPT is governed by a 15-person, volunteer Board of Directors elected by its individual community and organizational membership at the Annual General Meeting.

We currently have 2 vacancies on our Board of Directors and are seeking nominations to fill those vacancies—one for a term that runs until May 2019, and another that runs until May 2021.