Grandparents in Hamilton Ontario have been cut off from temporary funds to help them raise their grandparents. Some of these grandparents live on a fixed income and have been told by Minster Meilleur to go on welfare.
M. Hughes
Grandparents in Ontario losing temporary care funding.
Grandparents in Ontario trying to raise their grandchildren are already facing financial difficulties. They are by and large retired on small pensions.
The kids are children with fetal alcohol syndrome or other health problems that make it difficult for them to be adopted out or put in good Foster care.
No one would love and care for them more than their Grandparents.
Up until recently, there was a bit of financial help from the Government of Ontario in the temporary Care Allowance. Not all Grandparents in the Province were getting these funds, and not all needed help. But some were being cut off arbitrarily.
Hamilton Ontario was the first city in the province to interpret the directive in a way that saw Grandparents, mostly single moms for the second time, to be suddenly cut off.
Then Ottawa joined in the cut idea.
When MPP NDP critic Paul Miller challenged the wording and unfairness to MPP Madam Meilleur, she re-wrote the directives to cut all care givers off these funds citing the term "temporary" care vs custody.
In the rules, if an Aunt, Uncle or Grandparent, took responsibility for the child, most of the cases it was required by Children's Aid, to enroll the child in school, take them to a Doctor, or enroll them in organized sports, it was deemed an action of permanent custody and therefore no longer temporary care.
The Grandmothers point out that there is no permanent care, and that temporary care lasts until the child is 18 years of age.
One Grandmother is being sued by her emotionally ill, daughter who is on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program). The daughter's bouts of mental illness were the reason CCAC (Canadian Children's Aid Society) forced the Grandmother to take charge of the grandchild in the first place. ODSP, is funding the daughters legal fees.
The co-founder of ROCK (raising out Children's Kids) Mary Lee Scott explain just how damaging the re-written directive is to families trying to stay together.
"In most cases the children were receiving financial support from the government. We simply want those benefits to continue no mater whose care these children are in.
On October 21st 2008, The policy was re-written to purge any reference to Grand parents, and now make "anyone" ineligible if she or he treats the children as "one of their own".
If Grandparents are on a fixed income they now must face two options, go on welfare or send the child to foster care..according to Madam Meiilleur.
"Is it the Ministry's goal to separate the grandchildren from their family?"
The total cost to Canada to return the TCA supplement to these children would be $150,000, a small fraction of the $30 billion dollars Steven Harper spends for his own bodyguards.
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