OCAP Food Action: McGuinty Dollars for Food

On August 20, 2011, dozens of OCAP members and supporters entered an upscale Loblaws grocery store. We loaded each of our carts with roughly $250 worth of groceries and took them to check outs. After they were rung through, we produced Dalton McGuinty I.O.U coupons that, we insisted, were worth the $250 people were losing as a result of his Governments massive cut to the Special Diet program. We suggested to the managers that they should give us the food and send the bill to the Liberal Government.

The challenge to poverty that we took up that day was not a gesture but a call to action. It points to how the poor can and must fight back in the face of the austerity agenda of every level of government. Imagine if the action we did in one Loblaws was taken up by others and done on a far bigger scale. Picture thousands of people doing things like this every day across the Province for several weeks to press a demand for an increase in social assistance rates. It would have an impact as large as that of a major strike. When they cut your income, remove the services you depend on and throw you into deeper poverty, organize with others in your communities to become, not a quiet and reasonable voice, but a problem they have to deal with.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• ocap
• loblaws action
• poverty
• raise the rates
• ontario
• McGuinty
• special diet

[marcelthemaoist]

We need to start using the self-scans ;p