Speaking out against Ontario Works

My curriculum vitae, which I’ve written as a narrative rather than a list of dates and jobs, ends with the words: “I believe people are more important than institutions.” Not a sentence to warm the hearts of employers, but one that is true and belongs in my CV. Anyone wishing to employ my services should know what they’re getting: I don’t take kindly to institutional bullying. I have, or had, a history of standing up for fellow workers. The talented magazine artist named Linda, browbeaten into timid mediocrity; the single mother with a son named Carl required to work long nights and weekends. That sort of thing.

I’ve even compared salaries, especially with female co-workers. I realize that’s cause for being fired, even though freedom of expression is protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I don’t like lies, and I don’t like expedient silence. It goes against my nature. It goes against my conscience.

Did you know freedom of conscience is also protected under the Canadian Charter? Probably not. Most Canadians, like most Americans with their Constitution, have no idea what’s really in the Charter. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien wanted to have the article removed. So, no doubt, would have Mike Harris, former premier of Ontario and instigator of Ontario Works.

My recent yelling match with Claudette Gamache, the OW worker responsible for my file, has left me in a state of fear for the past few days. Anxiety has dogged my every waking hour. I’m uneasy all the time, unable to concentrate on the simplest of tasks. I’ve started doubting myself, even in areas where I know myself to be competent. I dread the ringing of the phone, the arrival of the mailman. I feel threatened, watched, under suspicion. I find myself defending myself to myself in order to shore up a demoralized sense of self-confidence. I feel attacked. I feel powerless.

All this because I dared be honest. Ms. Gamache chose to make my continued eligibility for OW benefits contingent on attending two interviews in widely-spaced locations, one of which meetings was clearly superfluous. So blatant was the duplication that I assumed an error and took steps to correct it. When it turned out to be deliberate, I smelled “jumping through hoops” and said so, adding that I would, of course, attend the interview on the other side of the city if that was what was required.

It wasn’t the right thing to say. I know. Neither is finishing my CV with a perfectly honest statement that, in a better world, would be self-evident.

I cannot help but notice that in this post and in my last, I’ve quite unconsciously repeated the phrase, “It wasn’t the right thing to say.” What would have been the right thing to say? Why, nothing, of course, just submissive, compliant silence. To speak up, to speak out—to speak at all—is to invite reprisals, and everyone receiving OW benefits knows it.

We all live under the fear that at any moment, we'll be called upon to justify our lives, our actions. A caseworker happens upon your file after a period of "inactivity" and calls you in. Sometimes the periods are a few months. Sometimes, they're a few years. The point is, you never know, but when the call comes, you know you're in for a rough ride. You will be interrogated, castigated, made to feel guilty, humiliated, and trivialized. You will know that the only way to ensure the arrival of your next cheque is to bow, scrape, kow-tow, agree to everything, and lie. Yes, lie. No one can live on the $7,000 a year provided by OW. The caseworkers know this, which makes the lying even worse because you're being made to do it as an exercise in power. It is nothing more than sanctioned, institutionalized oppression of a disadvantaged group.

It’s funny how long one can go feeling something without recognizing it for what it is. Depression, for example. Many people suffering depression know they’re feeling helpless, know that joy has vanished from their lives, know they’re not attending to the simplest life-affirming tasks, but never connect the dots. It’s the same thing with op-pression. You can go a very long time knuckling under to it without realizing it’s the reason why you’re fearful all the time, the reason you feel guilty when you've done nothing wrong, the reason you're defensive about things that need no defending. You’re scared because it feels as if at any moment someone’s going to pounce. You’re the Jew in Nazi Germany waiting for the knock on the door, the Alabama sharecropper fearing the arrival of the Night Riders.

For the record, and because I’ve spoken of honesty and conscience, I am not looking for “...whatever work I can find” (Ms. Gamache, verbatim). It is a lie I’ve been coerced to tell. The truth, which I’m afraid to speak lest I be punished, is this:

I have chosen to be on OW (“Welfare”) in order to be of service to others and to contribute, to the world, from my unusual combination of skills. It is an unconventional sacrifice, but not one made out of narcissism or mental illness. Conscience demands it.

I cook and clean and shop for a household of three. I spend long hours nearly every day teaching one of my roommmates to sing (if you read my blog, you know I have a degree in music), affording him an opportunity denied by his Children’s Aid Society group-home upbringing. He doesn’t know his father. His mother drank herself to sleep with a lit cigarette and burned to death. He suffers from ADHD. He was spat out by an insensitive, underfunded public education system. Music is healing him, in a very real way, but teaching the unteachable (no education, ADHD) requires an enormous investment of time. I make it willingly, without thought of remuneration, because I see his self-confidence growing, his anger softening, his ability to trust improving daily. And his voice developing in a “oh my god we've hit a motherlode” kind of way.

Cooking, cleaning, shopping, teaching... These aren’t the activities of a lazy man, which is how OW, in the guise of Ms. Gamache, characterizes me. But let’s add to the list of activities. I’m a writer, and not just of novels. I help friends without jobs, or a penny to spare, prepare their resumes. I write extensively-researched and well-respected tutorials for open-source software, most recently for a music-engraving program called MuseScore. (Open-source software is free, written by volunteer developers. Approximately 2/3 of Internet servers run on open-source software. Android, which powers smart phones and iPads, is also open-source.)

In 2002, I released my own software to the world, a text-processing tool that runs on another piece of open-source software derived from the Unix operating system (you know, the one used at universities and research facilities). It’s over 18,000 lines of commented code with well over a megabyte of documentation and took several years to write. Since then, I have been responsible for maintaining the program, providing support to users from all over the world, dealing with bug reports, and updating my work to reflect current technologies. Last summer alone, I spent over three months reworking the program into what is now one of the best PDF authoring tools available.

Lest you imagine writing open-source software is fun, or merely for the hobbyist, know that it frequently involves 18-hour days, and that non-availability to users is not an option. It is not paid, but it is necessary, demanding work in our networked age. I have the skills to do it, within my specialized field of expertise (typesetting and typography; I am neither a hacker nor a trained programmer), and conscience—a moral life— demands of me that I do it.

I’m also a musician, primarily a composer. With extensive training in classical music, the music I write will never be commercially viable, even when it approaches the popular song form. There are a number of examples of my work on YouTube, fully-realized symphonic scores and arrangements that took months to prepare, from composing the music to professionally engraving the scores to note-by-note rendering of the scores into computer-generated performances. I go to the trouble, again at a huge cost in time, not in the expectation of making money, not to trot out my creative efforts for the vanity of recognition, but because of my need to contribute to the unbroken tradition of classical music. It is one of mankind’s most magnificent accomplishments, but one which is seriously at risk of vanishing in the face of overwhelming commercial and corporate interests. My scores are online so that others can study and learn from them, as well, one hopes, to be moved by them.

So no, I am not “...out there, all day, every day, looking for whatever work I can find.” I’m at home, working hard at what I’m good at. Of course I’d like to get paid. But in the trade-off between giving to the world of one’s talents versus wasting one’s life in meaningless labour, I chose the former. That’s meant a life of poverty, but I’ve embraced it because I’m driven to be productive. I cannot otherwise hold my head up high.

Welfare exists to assist those who, for whatever reason, are in financial need. It is not OW’s place to judge. It is not OW’s place to frighten me into unsuitable labour. It is not their place to sit me down with a “specialist” who has no resources whatsoever to help me find work appropriate to my skills, but rather to acknowledge that paid work in my fields is exceptionally difficult to come by, especially now that I am fifty-six years old. It is not their place to demand an accounting of my “job search”, but rather to trust that, like any normal human being, I'll jump at any suitable opportunity that presents itself.

In terms of the social contract which used to be Canada’s pride, Ontario Works is a thuggish perversion that oppresses and demeans its clients, coercing them into a failing job market by means of threats and intimidation. Those responsible for setting it up and those responsible for its continuance have corrupted the war on poverty into a war on the poor. My case is unusual, I acknowledge, as are my life choices, but my treatment at the hands of OW is not. I am far from unique. As a province, Ontario to be ashamed of itself.

Speech after long silence - Ontario Works, again

Forgive the quote from Yeats in the title. I couldn't think of a better way to say I'm back from a long hiatus. I ceased blogging two years ago when I realized that almost no one was reading my posts. It seemed pointless to continue without an audience. I was also experiencing the chill of knowing that if I wrote the truth about living poor in Ontario, I was likely to be cut off Welfare. “Ontario Works”, as it is called, a double irony lost on no one.

Suspicion and Surveillance, a report from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Social Work, spells out what OW is really all about.

“Rather than being guided by the principles of universality, needs-based eligibility, and rights and entitlements, the emphasis now is on compulsion, sanctions and obligations...the real intent is to deny access to social assistance and to remove those who are on as quickly as possible.”

Living on OW, whose monthly cheques add up to just a little over $7,000 a year, means living with the daily anxiety of being watched and judged. One is required not only to justify every penny in one's bank account, not only to disclose intimate details of one’s personal and social life, not only to participate in futile and irrelevant job seminars, one is also expected to be, in the words of my worker, to whom I just spoke, “...out there, every day, all day, looking for whatever work you can find.”

The chief means by which OW enforces its agenda is “non-compliance”. In order to receive even so much as a penny, one has to sign an agreement stating that one will, quite simply, do everything OW demands. Non-compliance with any directive from one’s case worker means no cheque. (It is difficult to know which allusion in “non-compliance” is more ominous: the echoes of Nazi Germany and 1984, or the pitiless totalinarianism of the Borg—“You will comply!”) Forced signing of an agreement is tantamount to a contract entered into under duress—void under the law, but when you’re handing welfare cheques to bums, who cares about the law?

I’ve just spoken with my worker, a woman named Claudette Gamache, and been threatened with non-compliance. Again. Roused from sleep when she called—the upstairs neighbours have been keeping me up late for months— I was unable to muster my usual composure and got angry with her. Here's the story.

Last February, after months and months of not hearing from her, Ms. Gamache called me in for an update of my file. Right off the bat, she made the delay into my fault. Why was I to blame? I asked her. I’d made no changes in my financial or living arrangements, and was keeping my eyes open for possible employment. She tippy-tapped at her computer, shook her head, and began muttering about “seeing no movement on this file.” More pecking at the computer, and she accused me of not complying with an order to see an employment specialist—2-1/2 years prior! I had, in fact, seen the said specialist and attended the prescribed seminar on online employment.

As we continued, further inconsistencies came to light, all pertaining to missing information I had in fact supplied. Throughout the interview, I was treated with suspicion and frequently chastised, the theme always the same: non-compliance and my “attitude”, which Ms. Gamache characterized as, “...if you’re like this in a job interview, it's no wonder you can’t get a job.” I responded that this was not a job interview, and that in a job interview, I would not be being reprimanded for the oversights of others.

Ms. Gamache then said she was going to set me up with an employment specialist and handed me some forms to sign, renewing my so-called agreement with OW.

A week or two later, I received notification in the mail that I had an interview with an employement specialist on Mar. 15, 2013. A day later, I received a second notification that I had a second interview with another employment specialist. The second interview was for Mar. 18—by coincidence, my birthday— at the office of another OW district entirely. At the same time, my mom, who’s 89, was experiencing unusual confusion and memory loss, necessistating an immediate trip to Elora, hundreds of kilometers away, to assess the situation. (She’s fine now.)

I called both employment specialists to advise them I’d have to cancel. As per OW norm, both were out of the office. I left clear and detailed messages, saying I’d call to reschedule as soon as I got back to Ottawa, and asking that the two specialists clear up between them which one I should see. I also left a message with Ms. Gamache (“out of the office for the next three days”) enquiring about the redundant interviews.

It turned out that the forms I signed included an agreement to meet with both an “employment specialist” and an “Ontario employment specialist”, a distinction that still escapes me. Since it was an absurd duplication to see both, I called the second, the one not in my district, and re-explained the situation. She agreed it was peculiar and said that, since I wasn’t even in her district, I just had to go see the one who was.

Upon my return to Ottawa, I rescheduled with employment specialist #1. Shortly thereafter, I received mail notification that I had failed to show up for the original appointment and was about to be held in non-compliance. I called Ms. Gamache and clarified that I had given proper notification of the cancellation and had re-booked.

A few days later, I received a second mail notification, this time from the offices of specialist #2, again threatening me with non-compliance for having not shown up at an interview.

Second letter in hand, I went to my interview with specialist #1. Let's call her Janine. Unlike Ms. Gamache, she deserves privacy in this matter. What transpired was both shocking and surreal.

When I showed up at the OW offices, Janine was in tears. A close relative had died, and OW was refusing to give her the day off. I offered what solace I could during the next hour while Janine soldiered on, so distressed she couldn’t even remember her computer password. I offered to write a letter to the editor about OW’s stunning lack of compassion, but she recoiled, fearful it would cost her job.

During that interview, Janine said that the whole OW system is broken. The case workers are unhappy, the clients needs aren’t being met, and the whole non-compliance thing is nothing more than bullying. Her job is mostly futile, since real employment is scarce in the present economy, and whatever assistance she could be offering job-seekers has been hacked off at the knees by cuts to employment programs. Not that the programs were all that effective, she went on, since they were largely for people with little education or for whom English is still very much a second language. Worse, the system requires everyone to lie: the clients, who cannot possibly live $7,000 a year alone, and the workers who have to pretend they don’t know. She said, and I quote: “Sometimes I wake up in the morning and wish for the End of Days.”

She was an intelligent and compassionate woman, and deserved honesty in return. I confided to her that my circumstances were unusual. I’m a classically-trained composer, a published novelist, a former typesetter, and a respected open-source programmer . In order to remain productive in these areas, and to pursue what my friend, Tom, calls a Christ vocation (devoting myself to the service of those in need, both in my community and in my immediate circle), I chose, many years ago, to live a life of poverty. “Living poor,” I call it. I have an overwhelming compulsion to be useful, and to give freely to the world what the world so freely gave to me: intelligence, education, talent, encouragement, and practical support. That none of my areas of training and expertise generate much income does not remove my spiritual obligation to continue practising them. Welfare is a choice for me, not to avoid work, but in order to work meaningfully at all. Of course I’d like to have reasonably-paid employment in one of my fields, but they’ rarified and Fate, more than anything else, decides whether I get wind of anything. In short, I’m a hard worker who relies on welfare because the work I do, while highly appreciated by those who benefit, is rarely paid commensurately with the labour involved.

Janine actually congratulated me on my difficult and unusual choices, and wished aloud that more of the people she sees sitting across her desk were like me. I don’t say that vainly, only with gratitude. We spent the remainder of our hour going through the online postings at several job-banks, the same ones I check at home.

To return to our actual story, at the end of our hour, I showed Janine the non-compliance letter from specialist #2. She agreed it would be absurd for me to repeat everything we’d just done. I asked if she could take care of the matter. She said she would, by speaking to Ms. Gamache and contacting specialist #2. To be on the safe side, I called Ms. Gamache (“This is Claudette Gamache, I'm out of the office...”) and left a message bringing her up to date on my interview with Janine, including what she’d said about the second non-compliance letter.

That, I thought, was the end of it. And for two months, so it seemed. Then, this morning, a call from Ms. Gamache claiming I’d refused to see specialist #2. Refused, as if I hadn’t called, hadn’t left messages, hadn’t kept her posted during the whole silly business. More significantly, I had “refused“ nothing, merely cleared up what seemed like a bureaucratic mix-up. I said as much.

The big stick came out quickly. "I don’t think you realize how serious this is. You’re in non-compliance.” Taken aback, I replied that, to the best of my knowledge, the matter of the superfluous interview had been cleared up months ago. Why was she was she calling now? Her response was to repeat: "You’re in non-compliance. You refused to attend an interview. I’m sending you a letter today.”

Over her continued insistence I was in non-compliance, I endeavoured to remind her of the steps I’d taken to deal with the matter, including my communications with specialist #2, my meeting with Janine, and the phone calls to Ms. Gamache herself. I got cross. Who doesn’t when people won’t acknowledge facts? As once before, she criticized my attitude, something which personally she may have had the right to do, but not when she was speaking for the Ontario Works system. Compliant I may have to be, but nowhere in my agreement is it written that I have to act submissively and keep my voice down, too.

I repeated that the duplicate interview had been taken care of months ago, and that it was a dead issue as far as I was concerned because I hadn’t heard about it since. Why was she raising it now? “There's been no movement on your file,” she replied, non-sequitur. “Look,” I said, “if this is a question of jumping through hoops, by all means, set up another interview. I'll be there. But don't threaten me with non-compliance, and stop using that phrase. It sounds like something out of freaking Orwell.”

Of course it wasn’t the right thing to say, but here’s the interesting fact: what I said was true. OW may coerce people into signing an agreement (they also coerce people into volunteering, in direct contradiction to the meaning of both words), but when they deny the right to speak honestly without fear of reprisal, then it’s clear that a darker agenda is at work than providing income assistance and employment counselling.

It goes without saying that Ms. Gamache’s parting shot, having not once acknowledged anything I’d said, was, “You’re in non-compliance. I'm preparing a letter today.”