People who treat welfare like a paycheque had better start looking for a job, says Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak.

Able-bodied people who have been on welfare for a “long time” should see their benefits “steadily decline,” Hudak proposed Thursday in a new policy paper on social assistance reform.

“It’s time to take a very different course.”

Hudak said he would let welfare recipients who find employment keep more of the extra income to help them gain a “toehold” before clawing it back.

“We want to reinforce in Ontario the dignity of a job,” he told reporters after releasing the 22-page document that will shape his party’s platform in an election expected as early as this spring.

The move to break down the so-called “welfare wall” that claws back earned income as people transition to work from welfare was praised by social assistance reformers, but the Tories came under immediate attack for the plan to slash benefits for long-time welfare recipients.

“Many are facing a whole range of obstacles … you need to support those persons, not penalize them,” said Community and Social Services Minister John Milloy, noting only 11 per cent of people on welfare have been there for three years or more and 53 per cent get off within one year.

“Listening to Tim Hudak on welfare reform is like going to Kim Kardashian for marriage tips.”

Troubles can range from addictions to literacy challenges, lack of a phone or proper clothes for job interviews.

Hudak, who was part of the Mike Harris government that chopped welfare rates by 22 per cent in 1995, said his party hasn’t decided how quickly or by how much to trim long-term benefits.

He also proposed merging the separate bureaucracies around the Ontario Works welfare program and the Ontario Disability Support Plan to save about $140 million a year as the province struggles with a $14.4-billion deficit.

That would make it easier for disability payment recipients to get access to welfare programs helping them find jobs, along with tax credits for employers who need financial help in making accommodations for them.

New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath agreed welfare needs to be reformed but called Hudak’s idea on curbing benefits for long-term recipients “wrong-headed,” the Star’s Richard Brennan reports.

Hudak also called for welfare recipients to be given food cards, similar to bank cards pre-loaded with cash, “to make sure the dollars are going toward their intended purpose.”

His push for an end to clawbacks echoes a recommendation in a major report to Premier Dalton McGuinty on social assistance reform released last year by former New Democrat cabinet minister Frances Lankin and statistician Munir Sheikh.

The pair and former TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond, in his report last winter on making public services sustainable, also recommended combining Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program.

“At least they are looking at the issue and have adopted some of our recommendations,” Lankin said Thursday. “I hope it is the beginning of a discussion with all three parties.”

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About 400,000 Ontarians are on welfare. A single person on welfare receives $606 monthly.

Gail Nyberg of the Daily Bread Food Bank said that low stipend is an incentive to find work.

“So the answer (from Hudak) is to make it even harder? Not too wise.”