Two sides of Ontario Works social assistance (OW staff vs OW recipients) dated March 08 of 2023

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN/INTEREST

First time I needed OW social assistance (NOT the Public Works assistance) was in April 2006 as was advised by a lawyer of a neighbourhood law firm in Ottawa.

It was very confusing initially Ontario Works sounded like Public Works or something similar, after a bit of research it was established that Ontario works was govt. provided social assistance program in Ontario, where as Public Works was a organization at the federal level responsible for Engineering projects for the public, mostly civil construction.

Next OW (Ontario Works) has two roles like two sides of a coin. Provincial staff that administers/delivers OW services for the recipients and recipients of OW who apply for social assistance when in need of financial support. One side of OW is the staff or govt. Employees where as the other side of OW is the recipients who have no other sources to support themselves. Both sides would say they were on OW in less than perfect English language but in very different roles. In the beginning around 2006 it was difficult to understand this difference. I am not OW staff rather I am just OW recipients because of my financial situation.

While I was going through my old credit reports I realized that a sales person who was promoting a credit product in a mall or in a store entered OW Ontario Works as employment in the credit card application which was a serious mistake made by him. Credit card was not issued but credit report used to show OW as employment, I tried to fix the mistake in their reporting but was not fixed. Some people call money received from OW social assistance as Income which it is not because income goes through a different payroll processing where as social assistance payment does not have payroll processing.

Published by

{Khalid Mahmood}

Ph:(289)990-6590

Situated in Region of Peel of Ontario Canada.