A report by the Ryerson Leadership Lab and the Brookfield Institute
Posted on March 22nd, 2021
ACORN members have put together a formal submission for the Ministry of Government & Consumer Services to share our views on the Ministry's proposals to regulate high-cost credit in Ontario.
ACORN Canada a entrepris une étude axée sur les prêts aux intérêts élevés, en particulier ceux contractés en ligne.
ACORN Canada report on a study focusing on high interest loans, especially those taken out online.
Résumé du rapport
Summary report
This backgrounder is meant to explain the demand made by ACORN Canada (ACORN), the National Pensioners Federation (NPF) and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) for a $50 credit towards the Internet service bills of all needy Canadians (“Canada Broadband Benefit”) during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
CIRA's 2020 report on digital development in Canada
“I just can’t afford the internet” is a common theme that’s emerging from a series of testimonies ACORN Canada has collected talking to its members across Canada. The testimonies also clearly show that the most vulnerable are being hit the hardest as telecom companies continue to record billion dollar profit. The pandemic has underscored, greater than ever, the need for affordable and reliable internet.
With internet plans ranging from anywhere between 50 to 150 dollars and more, as Corey Daniels, an Ottawa ACORN member says: “Just because the internet is there, doesn’t mean I can access it”. Read this resource to read testimony of Corey and many more ACORN members who are struggling to access the internet.
Posted on 14 June
This report is to bring the attention of the city of Toronto to the issue of increasing renovictions that is pushing tenants out and what the city can do to address it.
Posted on 11 June, 2021
The federal affordable housing programs need to target those who need it most. This one-pager highlights the segment of population that needs to be targeted to ensure that everyone has access to affordable housing.
The Fight for the Right to Housing and No Displacement
Posted on 3rd February, 2021
The federal government is giving huge tax subsidies to billionaire landlords or the Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Through this report, we highlight the blliions of dollars that have been lost by way of these sweetheart tax deals and the action that needs to be taken to ensure that affordable housing is developed and maintained. Time to REIN in the REITs!
ACORN is working to bring the vision for LeBreton Flats of our members living in the surrounding neighbourhoods to decision makers.
Toronto ACORN's report on the State of Repair for 2020
CAPREIT tenants have united to form the ACORN CAPREIT Tenant Union (ACTU) and launch a national coordinated campaign to overhaul CAPREIT's business practices.
Tenant Testimonials
This document details ACORN's policy position on Employment Insurance on EI. At a time when thousands of low-income Canadians are struggling to pay for their rent and put food on the table, it's critical that the federal government modernises EI.
It has been six years since Toronto’s living wage estimate was calculated at $16.60 in 2008.
Since then, the cost of living has gone up: the cost of child care has risen by 30 per cent; rent has increased by 13 per cent; the cost of public transit has grown by 36 per cent. This report updates Toronto’s living wage to reflect what it takes for two working parents with two children to make ends meet in 2015. It’s based on the needs of a family with two parents and two young children ages 7 and 3. Each of those parents needs to earn $18.52 per hour, and work 37.5 hours per week, in order to afford the basics in life in this very expensive city.
In a new nationwide survey among 3,000 Canadians conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Canada for the Broadbent Institute, Canadians were asked about their perceptions of inequality and the distribution of wealth in Canada. The findings demonstrate that Canadians vastly underestimate how skewed the distribution of wealth actually is and think there should be a much more equitable distribution.
New research shows that in Ontario, large employers are the biggest culprits in perpetuating a low-wage economy.
Written by Metcalf Innovation Fellow and labour market policy expert Tom Zizys, the paper examines our under-performing labour market and challenges the popular notion that the threat to good jobs is inevitable.
Better Work chronicles the economic and political changes that have brought us to our current situation. It reconstructs the advent of our global economy and reflects deeply on its effect on employment practices. Central to its thesis is a simple proposition: workers are not a cost to be constrained but, rather, an asset to be invested in.
Among industrialized countries, Canada has the highest proportion of residents with a post-secondary education. Yet we also have the highest rate of degree holders working in jobs earning half the median income or less. We know there are many external factors at play, and that a rise in precarious employment and the widening gap between knowledge sector and entry-level jobs is creating income disparity. But the question remains, are we responding to the emergence of technology, globalization, and increased competitiveness in the most efficient and equitable way? Are our workplace practices, labour market institutions, and the norms and values that shape our economic thinking supporting the best interests of both employers and employees?
Un extrait de Global Grassroots sur salaire de subsistance, par John Anderson.
There are over 338,000 migrant workers in Canada. This number has more than doubled since 2006. As Canada increasingly relies on a work force of transnational migrant workers with temporary status, an industry of third-party for-profit recruiters has emerged to match workers with jobs in Canada.
This report exposes how temporary foreign workers are paying thousands of dollars in recruiting fees — equal to as much as two to three years’ wages in their home currency — to work in minimum wage jobs in Ontario.
The People’s Budget campaign was initiated as a response to the continuing evidence of the failure of the austerity agenda. Austerity measures have had a devastating impact on the people of Ontario, particularly its most vulnerable citizens. When even organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Economic Forum are calling for a reconsideration of the austerity agenda, it is time for Ontario to chart a new course.
ACORN members are concerned about what will emerge from the government’s 100-day review. We can look to other countries with Conservative leaders to imagine what the Province’s reforms could look like. In recent years, the UK has implemented a series of social assistance reforms which have contributed to a 169% increase in homelessness since 2010 . Similar reforms could be disastrous for low-income Ontarians.
Ontario ACORN members are demanding an increase to allowable employment income before deductions and increases to allowable asset limits for ODSP and OW recipients
In 2006 the United Nations held a convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 28 states: “States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing.”
“Adequate” does not include unhealthy and dangerous housing standards or negligent property owners.
Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms“ guarantees the life, liberty and personal security of all Canadians.”
ACORN MEMBERS DEMAND a housing allowance that guarantees ODSP and OW recipients’ healthy housing where they can freely choose a home that guarantees their personal security from violence and negligent property owners.
The first comprehensive report on child and family poverty in Toronto since 2008 will be released by Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Social Planning Toronto, Family Service Toronto, Colour of Poverty-Colour of Change, and the Alliance for a Poverty-Free Toronto .
New data in the report shows that Toronto is becoming an increasingly divided city. Where a child is born and raised in Toronto greatly influences their chances of success.
Canada’s disability income expenditures are rising at an unsustainable rate and the largest and fastest growing program is social assistance. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ontario where ODSP expenditures increased 44.8% between 2005 and 2010.
This report by Metcalf Innovation Fellow John Stapleton, provides critical insight into the intricate drivers behind the alarming rise of disability income expenditures.
More than two decades have passed since the House of Commons’ unanimous resolution “to seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among Canadian children by the year 2000” and four years after the entire House of Commons voted to “develop an immediate plan to end poverty for all in Canada.” Neither the promised poverty elimination nor plans have materialized.
Posted on June 12, 2021
BC ACORN Provincial Platform was released today which highlights the issues related to housing, disability and income assistance rates, labour issues and predtaory loans.
ACORN Year End Report 2020
Posted on March 17, 2021
ACORN Canada members prepared a document highlighting issues that they would like the newly constituted Women in the Economy Taskforce to consider in light of the Federal Budget 2021.
ACORN membeers made a formal submission to the Federal Government for Budget 2021 to make sure that the multi-billion dollar budget goes to people and not wealthy corporations.
This presentation gives information on the suite od federal government supports available during COVID-19.
See ACORN's annual report for 2019.
Stay safe while you fight back by following these steps at ACORN actions.
Posted February 24, 2020
ACORN Canada's Platform for the 2019 Federal Election
ACORN Canada, founded in 2004, is a grassroots membership based organization that has rapidly grown into one of the country's most effective voices for low- and moderate-income Canadians. With over 130,000 members in 22 chapters in 9 cities across the country, our central purpose is to effectively represent and champion the interests of Canada's low- and moderate-income urban citizens on the critical issues of social and economic justice.