Poor-hate continues to grip Supreme Court

Catholic New Times, May 18, 2003

MONTREAL -- Writing in StraightGoods.com, social worker Reuel Amdur slammed Quebec government's ongoing attitude toward the welfare poor-from Rene Levesque's policy of cuts to assistance to young people, so severe that it left them suicidal and eating out of garbage cans, to the recently adopted legislation "to fight poverty and social exclusion" which, among other things indexes social assistance to cost of living.

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, according to Amdur, continues the trend. In the infamous Gosselin decision, it lauded Levesque's program of cutting benefits to young people to $170 a month. Recently, the Supreme Court decided not to hear the appeal of Frank Lambert against the province of Quebec. In 1990, Lambert, a welfare recipient involved in a work placement, contested the government's policy of paying participants less than the minimum wage.

Commenting on the Lambert case, Jean-Yves Desgagnes, spokesman for the Front Commun des Assistes Sociaux du Quebec, charged: "This demonstrates that the Supreme Court does not truly understand the reality and discrimination of which the poorest of the poor are the victims." He remarked on the fact that these decision-makers are "handsomely paid" for their dirty work.