Yesterday, Finance Minister Rod Phillips outlined Ontario’s roadmap for pandemic recovery in the much anticipated 2020 Provincial budget. Ontario's Action Plan: Protect, Support, Recover is based on a record $38.5 billion deficit and provides $15 billion in new support. 

Although the budget outlines initiatives to protect, support, and help our province to recover from the pandemic, much can be said about who benefits from this budget and who is left behind. 

Health care and small businesses have, understandably, received attention in this year’s budget. However, the 2020 Ontario Budget shortchanges local communities and the organizations that serve them. An effective and far-reaching pandemic recovery requires significant investment in both. 

Toronto’s housing crisis existed long before COVID-19, but the pandemic has intensified housing challenges and shone light on the urgent need for immediate solutions, and medium and long-term policy interventions. Low-income and equity-seeking groups identified affordable housing as the top priority for COVID-19 recovery in SPT-supported consultations. 

Though Inclusionary Zoning will not end Toronto’s housing crisis on its own, this promising tool would increase the supply of affordable ownership and affordable rental housing in the city. So what is Inclusionary Zoning? In Toronto, Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) would require a percentage of new condominium and new purpose-built rental housing to be affordable to residents with low to moderate incomes, benefitting a growing segment of Toronto residents who don’t earn enough to afford market prices but earn too much to be eligible for social housing.

Last week our Interim Executive Director, Caryl Arundel, deputed before the City of Toronto's Executive Committee about the reports from the City Manager and the Toronto Office of Recovery and Rebuild (TORR).

The TORR report included 83 recommendations, ranging from detailed, service-related recommendations to others focused broadly on issues and relationships. The report was based on input from Torontonians, including marginalized communities who participated in SPT-supported consultations (summarized in the Community Voices Pave the Road to Recovery report we published last week). The City Manager’s report focused on how the City would address TORR's recommendations.

The Ontario government has undertaken an attack on local democracy once again, and this time the target is changing the rules for municipal elections.

Hidden in Bill 218, Supporting Ontario’s Recovery Act, 2020, a bill focused largely on COVID-19 recovery, the Ford government is attempting to revoke powers from municipalities across Ontario. If passed, municipalities will no longer have the option to use ranked ballot voting.

The board of directors and staff are pleased to welcome Caryl Arundel as the Interim Executive Director of Social Planning Toronto. Beginning October 5, 2020, Caryl will provide direction and support to SPT and continue our important relationships with community partners while we look for a permanent leader for the organization. As excited as we are for the future of the organization, it is nonetheless a bittersweet moment as we say goodbye to our outgoing Executive Director, Devika Shah. She has been a strong and visible voice for SPT and social justice in the city. Please join us in recognizing Devika's contributions and wishing her all the best for the future.

More than 50 non-profit organizations from across our city have come together to build a joint submission to the Toronto Office of Recovery and Rebuild (TORR), calling for an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The short-term (6 months) and long-term (12-18 months) solutions and inter-governmental advocacy priorities that we identified — covering Economic Prosperity, Resident Safety & Wellbeing, and Non-Profit Sector Resilience — should inform TORR's final recommendations to City Council.

We look forward to continuing to work collectively on this critically important initiative!

Read the full submission below, and contact the Mayor and your Councillor to voice your support.

Social Planning Toronto designed the COVIDhelpTO website to help front-line workers answer their clients’ most basic questions around financial and housing supports announced over the past few months — such as eligibility requirements for the CERB, what help is available for people having trouble paying their rent, support for those who’ve recently exhausted EI benefits, and more. 

The English content has now been translated into 14 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Farsi, French, Gujarati, Korean, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Urdu, and Vietnamese.

Racism exists all over the world – Canada, Ontario, and Toronto are no exceptions. Canada’s economic foundations and societal fabric were built on a platform of brutal colonization of Indigenous peoples, Black enslavement, successive waves of exploitation of workers from newcomer communities, and systemic racism that is embedded in every institution today.

Social Planning Toronto acknowledges that police brutality is a devastating symptom of the long-standing and long-ignored reality of anti-Black racism, which has re-ignited deep trauma and suffering for Black people in our city. We completely support the statement issued by Black health leaders calling for the declaration of anti-Black racism as a public health crisis.

As the Mayor, Councillors and Toronto’s new Office of Recovery and Rebuild begin their work on Toronto’s recovery, local organizations representing tens of thousands of people from across the city, including Social Planning Toronto, submitted a letter to the Mayor and City Council that outlines 10 principles for a bold, green, and just recovery.

View a PDF of the letter here »

Read the Toronto Star's coverage here »

In a recent letter, Toronto City Councillor and Board of Health Chair Joe Cressy made clear the pivotal role of race-based, socioeconomic, and other social and demographic data in understanding COVID-19, its impact on marginalized groups, and the development of effective policy, programs, and practices that protect our communities. His letter confirmed the Board’s commitment to pursuing the collection and analysis of race-based and other social data and called on the provincial government to adopt similar measures across Ontario.