We were promised an activist government, but Ontario has not yet met the target of its first poverty reduction strategy: to reduce child poverty by 25 per cent. Nor has the government set a concrete target or timeline to reach the commitment of the second poverty reduction strategy, already a year old, which includes the laudable policy goal of ending homelessness.

This budget did continue the annual one per cent increases in ODSP and OW rates. And provided another top-up to single people without children who are receiving OW. However, these rates remain woefully inadequate.

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