Rebuild welfare as a path back to stability, build the treatment and crisis system Ontario has been missing, and protect housing stability for the Ontarians closest to the edge.
Make welfare programs more generous, simpler, and more humane for people who need them.
Take provincial responsibility for the mental health, addictions, and crisis systems Ontario has underbuilt.
Prevent eviction, build non-profit capacity, and coordinate discharge so no one falls through the cracks.
You can tell a lot about a society from how it treats the people with the least power to demand anything from it. By that test, Ontario has drifted somewhere it should not be comfortable. We built an income-support system that holds people in poverty instead of helping them climb out of it. Someone with a permanent disability on ODSP is expected to live below the poverty line. Ontario Works pays less still, and its rules punish almost any attempt to work toward something steadier.
We also never built the mental-health, addictions, and crisis capacity a province this size needs. So the same people cycle between shelters, emergency rooms, jail cells, and the sidewalk, and we call that a system.
This section rebuilds social support around three plain ideas: stability, treatment, and dignity. It moves disability support toward a more generous and humane model, and redesigns welfare to help people find their feet again instead of drowning them in paperwork. It takes provincial responsibility for the treatment and crisis services we have been pushing onto cities and hospitals. It also works to stop preventable eviction and homelessness, so that no one leaves a hospital or a jail with nowhere to go but the street.
Move Ontario's welfare programs toward more generous, simpler, more humane supports for people with permanent disabilities, and toward stabilization-first design for those temporarily out of work. Test alternatives where existing programs are failing.
Take provincial responsibility for the mental health, addictions, and crisis systems Ontario has spent years downloading to municipalities and hospitals. Build the secure treatment and crisis capacity that actually exists in peer jurisdictions.
Stop preventable evictions, expand non-profit housing capacity, and coordinate discharge from public institutions so that no Ontarian exits a hospital or jail directly to the street.
| Goal | Lower | Upper |
|---|---|---|
| Total — A Welfare System That Lifts People Up | ($600M) | ($950M) |
| Restore Welfare As A Path Back To Stability | ($500M) | ($250M) |
| Build A Real Treatment And Crisis System | ($100M) | ($200M) |
| Hold The Line Against Eviction and Homelessness | $0 | ($500M) |
Net budgetary impact over the Ontario Budget 2026 baseline. Negative numbers represent net new provincial spending; positive numbers represent net savings or revenue.
Detail on how each cost or savings estimate was derived. All figures represent net budgetary impact over the Ontario Budget 2026 baseline.
| Idea | Lower | Upper | How it was estimated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move ODSP toward a more generous assured-income model for people with disabilities. | ($1.5B) | ($2.0B) | ODSP supports ~500,000 Ontarians at ~$1,300/month. Raising support, simplifying eligibility, and easing penalties adds $1.5-2B/yr on top of the program's current $6B/yr, funding stable, dignified support for people with disabilities. |
| Consider piloting guaranteed income or negative income tax models. | $0 | $0 | Funded within existing welfare-modernization budgets; the one-time $20-50M fits within current administration funding. A permanent rollout would be costed separately, only if pilots show strong results. |
| Simplify Ontario Works into a stabilization-first program. | $0 | ($250M) | Redesigning OW around stabilization and managing the transition costs $0-250M/yr, then saves money as recipients reach stability and move off the program faster. |
| Require Ontario Works recipients to participate in work, training, treatment, or community service. | $0 | $0 | Funded within existing OW operating budgets. Quebec's Objectif emploi and similar programs show a neutral to positive fiscal impact when requirements come with genuine supports. |
| Limit ongoing welfare and social-assistance benefits to citizens. | +$1.0B | +$2.0B | Saves ~$1-2B/yr depending on scope, while emergency services, basic healthcare, and education stay universal. Exact scope, including covered benefits and the treatment of asylum, refugee, temporary, and permanent residents, will be settled in policy detail before legislation. |
| Idea | Lower | Upper | How it was estimated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make mental health, addictions, shelters, and crisis services a clearer provincial responsibility. | $0 | $0 | Operating and capital costs are carried in the Health and Housing and Municipal sections, so they are not counted again here. |
| Expand secure treatment and crisis capacity. | $0 | $0 | The Health section carries the operating and capital costs of expanding mental health and addictions care, including secure beds, so they are not counted again here. |
| Launch a rapid two-to-four-year program to get everyone off our streets and into care. | $0 | $0 | Deliberately kept out of the recurring envelope. This is a temporary two-to-four-year program, undertaken with the federal government to do whatever it takes to get people off the street and into care. The total is genuinely hard to quantify and could run anywhere from roughly $5B to $20B over the life of the program. The permanent capacity that sustains the result is carried by the long-term programs in this section and the Health section. |
| Invest in prevention for at-risk youth and repeat justice-system users. | ($100M) | ($200M) | Funds targeted prevention programs at $100-200M/yr. Evidence from Quebec, Australia, and the US Centers for Disease Control points to a 3 to 5 times return through lower corrections, healthcare, and child welfare costs over 5 to 10 years. |
| Recognize FASD as a lifelong disability across Ontario's systems. | $0 | $0 | Funded within existing social services, education, health, and justice ministry budgets. Implementation costs little, and savings are large as fewer people cycle through child welfare, education, mental health, and corrections. |
| Idea | Lower | Upper | How it was estimated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stop arrears before eviction. | $0 | $0 | An administrative change within existing ODSP and OW operations. Funded within existing budgets. |
| Help non-profits offer more housing services to those in need. | $0 | $0 | Loan insurance for non-profit housing providers, run through existing housing ministry and Infrastructure Ontario capacity. It uses the province's balance sheet rather than direct spending, and the guarantee lowers non-profits' borrowing costs. |
| Move essential supports outside welfare eligibility where possible. | $0 | ($500M) | Extends health, dental, drug, and disability supports to low-income workers outside the welfare system at $0-500M/yr, fixing the trap where people lose essential supports the moment they leave assistance. |
| Coordinate discharge planning across hospitals, jails, and the homelessness system. | $0 | $0 | Coordinates discharge across ministries, with administrative costs funded within existing budgets. It saves substantially down the line through fewer shelter days, emergency room visits, and returns to jail. |
Every dollar goes to work — with up to 75% back in tax credits.
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