Doug Ford Criticized for Out-of-Touch Comments Comparing Ontario Works Recipients to Lazy Youths Watching ‘The Flintstones’ Cartoons at Home

Advocates calling for increased social assistance rates say Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford’s recent comments about people receiving support through the Ontario Works program are “inaccurate” and “unfortunate.”

Last Friday, while at an announcement promising to build a tunnel under the 401 that experts estimate will cost tens of billions of dollars, Ford was asked about potentially doubling Ontario Disability Support Program rates — a campaign promise made by both the Ontario NDP and Ontario Liberals

Ford responded by attacking recipients of Ontario Works, a different social assistance program. He accused recipients of staying home all day and watching, of all things, The Flintstones.

“Healthy young people that are sitting on the couch watching the Flintstones, they should be out there, they should be working,” Ford said.

“There’s people who’ve been on Ontario Works – welfare, healthy people, for their whole lives – while these hardworking people are paying for them to sit on the couch and watch the Flintstones or the soap operas or whatever they’re watching,” Ford added.

The Flintstones is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon sitcom about cavemen which aired for six seasons between 1960 and 1966. According to social assistance advocates, the choice of cartoon used in his example was not the only out-of-touch part of Ford’s comments.

“It reminds me a lot of when Mike Harris used to talk about welfare moms spending money on beer,” Ron Anicich, co-chair of the Raise the Rates Coalition, told PressProgress. “This is something we’ve heard from the provincial Progressive Conservative party over and over again during the years, it’s just bizarre that it still happened in 2025.”

Anicich said it was also strange to hear someone claim people could take advantage of social assistance, given the fact that the rates are so low.

“It’s not possible for somebody to take advantage of the system, that just doesn’t make sense,” Anicich said. “When you make $733 a month on Ontario Works or $1,368 on ODSP, that’s well short of the cost of a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in this province.”

The maximum amount a single person can receive from Ontario Works is $733 a month. This is less than a third of the cost of the average one-bedroom apartment in Toronto, which was $2,499 in the third quarter of 2024 according to the Toronto Region Real Estate Board’s Rental Market Report.

Trevor Manson, Secretary Co-chair of the ODSP Action Coalition, said Ford’s characterization of Ontario Works recipients as young, healthy people who choose to stay home and watch TV is flat out wrong. He said people from all walks of life use social assistance, including single mothers, people who speak English as a second language, people with disabilities who are not able to qualify for ODSP and people without homes.

“The number of homeless people on social assistance has doubled in two years,” Manson said, citing a Trillium article published last fall.

This statistic is significant, not just because homeless people receive social assistance, but because many people on social assistance are becoming homeless despite receiving support.

The money provided by social assistance falls far short of the poverty line in Canada, which Manson said can cause other issues for people.

“Number one, you’re not going to be healthy if you’re living on that amount,” Manson said. “Number two, you’re going to be damn lucky if you have a house to sit in, bringing in that much money a month.”

The amount provided by social assistance, while already not enough to cover the cost of most housing in the province, according to Anicich, decreases when the recipient does not have a permanent residence. He said homeless recipients of Ontario Works only receive around $350 a month.

Manson and Anicich both say that although the goal of Ontario Works is to get people back on their feet quickly, it’s not realistic given how little support these people receive.

This is not the first time Ford has made comments accusing people of exploiting Ontario Works. Last year, Ford accused healthy people of taking advantage of social assistance during a talk at the Empire Club of Canada.

“It seemed like he just wanted to say something to impress all of his rich donor buddies and he couldn’t think of anything clever or inspiring to say so he decided to pick on poor people instead,” Manson said.

Ford’s comments come at a time where nearly one in four people in Canada are facing food insecurity, and three cities in his own province have declared food insecurity emergencies.

Several cities have called on the province to increase social assistance rates over the past two years, including Waterloo, Hamilton, Owen Sound, Goderich, Orangeville, Mississauga, Kingston and Toronto. Some of the motions directly connect social assistance rates with increased housing precarity, food insecurity and the increase in homelessness.

Angela MacMillan, a Public Health Dietician in the Kingston office of the South East Health Unit told PressProgress that with the increased cost of living people on social assistance are having to make difficult decisions, including where they live and the amount and quality of food they eat.

“They might be looking for other places to cut costs, whether that’s delaying bill payments, cutting down on their medication spending,” MacMillan said.

MacMillan said prolonged food insecurity can lead to serious negative health outcomes, for adults and children: “Adults living with food insecurity are more likely to have chronic conditions like heart disease, depression and diabetes.”

Adults are also more likely to have poor physical health, as well as more likely to access health care services and have longer stays in the hospital – leading to increased healthcare costs as a direct result of people not being able to afford food.

“Frankly, if things aren’t done to address social assistance rates and incomes then we’re going to see it get worse,” MacMillan said.

Anicich said the cost of living, housing and a lack of access to family doctors all compound the issues with social assistance rates, which are all matters the province should be solving.

“He’s trying to address problems that he is directly responsible for. …he needs to have a good long look in the mirror and ask himself why people are homeless, and why people suffer food insecurity.”