The Ontario government is implementing new regulations to block people without legal immigration status from receiving social assistance benefits.
Premier Doug Ford took to social media on Aug. 13 to announce amendments have been made to the Ontario Works Act and the Ontario Disability Support Program Act to clarify the criteria for social assistance eligibility.
“Taxpayer-funded social assistance was never meant to support people living in Ontario illegally,” Ford wrote in an Aug. 13 X post. “As of today, it doesn’t.”
The announcement follows a pledge made by Ford last month to make changes after media coverage about a tribunal decision that granted Ontario Works payments to a man who arrived in Canada decades earlier on a temporary work permit that has since expired….