August 2001 - Remembering Kimberly Rogers

For those of you who do not know who Kimberly Rogers was: she was a working-class woman who struggled all her life against poverty,

Kim fled an abusive relationship in Toronto to move home to Sudbury and start fresh. She graduated from social services at Cambrian College with high praise for her work with handicapped children.

Kim was pregnant — and she needed welfare because, battling ill health, she couldn't work. You can't live on Ontario student loans, and yet you're a criminal if you get welfare at the same time. When Kim pleaded guilty to having received $13,000 of welfare over three years, Judge Greg Rodgers ordered her into house arrest. Kim launched a court Charter challenge of her six-month welfare ban. She told the court about running out of food, with no local agencies able to provide more. She was depressed, sleepless, frightened about her baby's future. Kim was found dead in her overheated Sudbury apartment while confined to house arrest and forbidden to leave her apartment - in August 2001 - the greatest heat wave Sudbury had experienced for many years.

When I lived in Sudbury, I was a member of the "Committee to Remember Kimberly Rogers" and spoke at a rally to pressure the provincial government to undertake an inquest. All rally participants expressed outrage at the death of Ms. Rogers and the government policies which created the circumstances for her death. We called for an inquest to fully explore the relationship between Harris' anti-social policies which criminalized poverty and the death of Kimberley Rogers

Welfare fraud versus corporate fraud

Black and Radler looted $85 million US. ($102 million Canadian) from the shareholders of Hollinger International Inc. As always, the sins of welfare recipients are treated far more harshly than the sins of the rich and powerful

LINK: Remembering Kimberly Rogers