Ontario Premier Doug Ford recently raised some eyebrows after promoting newly-elected MPP Tyler Allsopp, who won the Bay of Quinte byelection on Sept. 19, to a parliamentary secretary position before he had even entered the doors of the Ontario legislature.
Such positions come with a $16,000 pay bump from an MPP’s base salary of $116,000, making it fair enough to ask why the newcomer was promoted, along with two others, to the plum position.
Ford’s reply, as reported by several news outlets, was that the cost of living in Ontario is “tough” and it is “just not fair” that Ontario MPPs have not received a raise since 2007.
Doug Ford is actually right here (not words you’ll often see in print). MPPs, like everyone else, face increased costs on an annual basis and the salary of provincial politicians has been frozen since 2007, mainly because successive governments have determined it would be politically unpopular to raise them. This happens regularly at every level of government, as upper tier politicians, as well as local municipal councils, are often loathe to raise salaries lest it hinder their electoral prospects, until it reaches the point they feel it deters quality people from running for office. Then they eventually end up having to bump them by a large amount all at once, causing a stink, and the cycle continues.
The thing is, by giving his MPPs a backdoor raise in the form of associate minister or parliamentary secretary positions, Ford is showing his concern for the wallets of only MPPs from his own party. If MPPs are due a raise because the base salary is too low, aren’t the elected members of other parties also struggling? Shouldn’t the government summon the courage to tackle the issue of parliamentarians’ compensation in an honest fashion, political fallout be damned?
And what about Ontarians at the other end of the income scale? MPPs’ base salary may not be exorbitant by some standards, but it’s unlikely there are any struggling to put food on the table.
Landing in the inbox this week was a report from Grey Bruce Public Health on food affordability and food insecurity. The report calls attention to the struggles many Grey-Bruce households face to afford basic living expenses – such as adequate food and monthly rent – as incomes and social assistance rates fail to keep pace with rising costs. While the report is Grey-Bruce specific, the figures are unlikely to be much different in midwestern Ontario communities.
The report indicates the cost of groceries for a family of four in Grey-Bruce in 2024 was $289 a week or $1,250 a month, representing a 1% increase from 2023. A single adult, meanwhile, must spend about $434 a month on food to meet Canada’s Food Guide recommendations, which is also a 1% increase from 2023.
Based on those costs, a family of four on Ontario Works would have to spend nearly half (43%) of their monthly income on food to meet Canada’s Food Guide recommendations. After covering only rent and groceries, they would be left with only $314 a month to cover all other expenses, including utilities, transportation, and medications.
Single individuals on Ontario Works (OW) are unable to meet basic housing and food needs as more than 100% of their income is required for housing alone (107%), with nothing left to cover the $434 needed for food each month.
This year marks the sixth in a row that OW rates have remained the same despite the ongoing impacts of high inflation on the cost of living.
Last month Ford addressed the plight of Ontarians living in homeless encampments by telling them to “get off your A-S-S and start working like everyone else.”
Aside from displaying a distinct lack of understanding of the complex causes of homelessness, the comment gives pause to consider if that’s really enough these days.
Given a recent pay bump, minimum wage earners in Ontario have seen their hourly wage reach $17.20. However, that still leaves someone in that bracket earning $602 a week, or $31,304 a year for a 35-hour week.
With the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Grey-Bruce at least $1,000 (using dated CMHC 2022 figures), plus the annual food cost described above ($5,208) that would leave a single working Grey-Bruce resident about $500 a month from take home pay (about $23,000) for everything else including essentials such as utilities, transportation and medications. If they need a car to get to work, that’s the whole ball game right there, and probably then some.
Remember, MPPs get more than the take-home figure cited above (typically between $25,000 and $27,000) on top of their salary for a Toronto housing allowance if their riding is located more than 50 kilometres from the GTA.
So before you ruin your copy of this newspaper by flooding the pages with tears for the unfair lot of Doug Ford’s hard-done-by Tory MPPs, remember that, with his majority mandate, there is nothing stopping him from giving the same consideration to Ontarians who might better understand the meaning of “tough” times.
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Patrick Raftis is the editor at Midwestern Newspapers. He can be reached at editor@midwesternnewspapers.com
