A review has begun on how social assistance should be reformed, and how to implement the changes in what is expected to be the largest reform in over 20 years.

Minister of Community and Social Services Madeleine Meilleur spoke at Queen's Park Tuesday, "I want to let you know about our plans for a major review...Our ultimate goal is to empower low income Ontarians, including social assistance recipients, to break out of the cycle of poverty."

Economist Munir Sheikh, the former head of Statistics Canada is in charge of the Social Assistance Review. He is teaming up with the former head of the United Way of Toronto, Francis Lankin.

The commission has a year and a half to decide on an action plan.

The hope for Lankin is "achieving and improving the standard of living and life conditions for many vulnerable Ontarians, and vulnerable Ontario families."

For those who work with people on social assistance, the reform is long overdue.

Mary MacKeigan, of Opportunity Waterloo Region says, "We waited quite awhile since they announced the poverty reduction strategy, so the fact that this reform is finally starting is really exciting."

More than 800,000 people in Ontario depend on social assistance, including Alex Troeger, who lives with schizophrenia.

Troeger says that right now it's not the best quality of life, and while he hopes this will be a great step, he's still cautious, "I think it can help, but only if those final recommendations are followed through."

The review will also include a look at the controversial special diet allowance, a program that came under fire in 2009 over fraud concerns.

The program was designed to help those on social assistance who have health problems such as diabetes.

For now a few small changes have been introduced to make the program more accountable, which means that some recipients may no longer qualify.

However that could all change significantly when the review of the entire system is completed.