°Canada
Assistance Plan° | °Régime
d'Assistance publique du Canada° |
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Government
of Canada Support to Provinces and Territories at an All-Time High
December
18, 2009
The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, announced today
that total transfers to provinces and territories will increase by $2.4 billion
in 2010-11, bringing total federal support to $54.4 billion, the highest level
ever. Our Government is pleased to be providing unprecedented and growing
federal transfer support that will help to provide the services, programs and
assistance that Canadians rely upon, particularly in these difficult economic
times, said Minister Flaherty. Transfers in support of health care
and social services are a top priority for our Government as we transition our
economy through the current challenging economic times. Equalization payments
to provinces for 2010-11 will total $14.4 billion, an increase of $187 million.
The overall program is growing in line with the economy, with provincial amounts
reflecting changes in the ability of provinces to raise revenues.
- includes
a table showing Transfer Payments to Provinces and Territories for 2009-2010 and
2010-11.
Source:
Department
of Finance Canada
Related link from Finance Canada:
Federal
Transfers to Provinces and Territories
There are four main transfer
programs: the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), the Canada Social Transfer (CST),
Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing (TFF).
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INTRODUCTION
From 1966-67 to 1995-96, the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) was the funding mechanism that spelled out the specific details of the federal government's financial contributions to the cost of provincial and territorial ("P/T") social assistance and social services. In April 1996, the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) replaced CAP as the vehicle for federal transfers for to P/T governments for social programs. The formula for federal contributions changed from federal-provincial cost-sharing (50-50) to a block fund that now included health insurance and post-secondary program costs. Eight years later (starting in April 2004), federal transfer payments to provinces and territories for health services were transferred to the new Canada Health Transfer, while those for post-secondary education and social assistance and services went under the new Canada Social Transfer.
This page of links started with a few CAP documents that I thought worth preserving and sharing, and it's since grown to include a number of pieces of historical information on welfare in Canada. The CAP/CHST/CHT/CST page focuses more on the federal government's role over time in Canadian welfare policy; you'll have to visit the Welfare Reforms in Canada page of this site for P/T perspectives on the evolution of welfare in Canada.
NOTES:
|
| |
CHST Legislation CST Legislation (incl. the social assistance residency question) |
(early 1990s - the beginning of the end for CAP) |
|
| | | (incl. full-text discussion paper, plus supplementary papers on CAP, guaranteed annual income, income security for children and people with disabilities) |
|
|
Pulkingham and Ternowetsky Online Report (Summer 1998) |
|
(Fall 1997 - National Council of Welfare) [welfare reforms pre- and post-CHST] | |
| (incl. Federal Transfers to Provinces and Territories from Finance Canada ) | | ||
1996
international social assistance study Social
Assistance in OECD Countries Social
Assistance in OECD Countries Participating
countries: |
|
|
| The Pre-CAP Days |
Canada's
Unique Social History
This is a comprehensive
online introduction to social welfare and social work that anyone interested in
the history of social programs in Canada should bookmark. The site comprises hundreds
of pages of text, audio-visual material and links to more information. Prepare
to spend hours - I did.
This is a must-visit site
with something for everyone with an interest in Canadian social programs.
This site is the creation of Steven Hick, Ph.D., Assistant
Professor, School of Social Work of Carleton University in Ottawa.
The
project was funded by Heritage Canada.
Here are just
two of the eight modules:
- Rise
of Income Security (module 3) offers 38 topics providing information about
social programs from the 1800s to the post-CHST world
-
Rise of Capitalism
and Social Welfare (module 2) offers 17 topics from the origins of social
welfare in the Middle Ages to the 1930s Depression in Canada
The
Great Depression: A Canadian perspective
- An
excellent site for information about the 1930s in Canada.
-
Includes good multimedia (slide show, RealAudio version, etc.)
Windows
of opportunity: social reform under Lester B. Pearson(PDF file - 568K,
12 pages)
by Jim Coutts
[historical information on the creation of several
of Canada's key social programs in the early to mid-sixties]
"...in
only five years of two minority governments Pearson enacted the Canada-Quebec
Pension Plan, The Canada Assistance Plan, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and
Medicare, all keystones of the modern social security system."
Source:
Policy
Options: November 2003 Issue
(Theme: Corporate Governance)
[ Institute
for Research on Public Policy ]
------------------------------------------------------------------
Poor
Laws (England, 17th Century)
"The history
of the English poor laws is often divided into the Old Poor Law and the New Poor
Law the watershed between them being the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.
Not everything changed in 1834, however. One important and complex piece of poor
law legislation which originated in 1662, and which did not finally disappear
until 1948, was the Settlement Act."
Source:
The
Workhouse
------------------------------------------------------------------
BACK
(to the list of topics at the top of this page)
| The History of CAP |
ANNUAL
REPORT OF THE CANADA ASSISTANCE PLAN for the year ended March 31, 1968
- the full 16-page report presented to Parliament - includes information on
the background, objectives, main features, application and administration of the
Plan - a collector's item, scanned from the original...
The
Evolution of the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP)
1985
John E. Osborne This is a copy of the 21-page Appendix to the
1985 Nielsen Task Force report on the Canada Assistance Plan. It's an insider's
view of the first 20 years of CAP and its historical precedents. This is good
stuff.
| "No
sooner had CAP been launched than the Minister of Finance proposed, in September
1966, that it be terminated. In a statement to the Tax Structure Committee, he
offered to terminate it as of March 31, 1970, and to replace it with a combination
of tax abatement, equalization payments and adjustment grants unrelated to program
costs." From The Evolution of the Canada Assistance Plan By John E. Osborne, in the Nielsen Task Force Report on CAP (1985) |
The
Canada Assistance Plan: A Twenty Year Assessment, l966-l986 (~23 printed
pages with graphs and tables)
Allan Moscovitch
Carleton University
January 1988
This excellent critical analysis of CAP's first twenty years provides
detailed information about programs that preceded CAP and about the inner workings
of the administration of CAP.
BACK (to the list of
topics at the top of this page)
| CAP
Legislation CHST Legislation |
Canada
Assistance Plan -- (Consolidation up to S.C. 1996,
c. 11)
CHAPTER C-1 (Repealed March 31, 2000)
Thanks to Vincent Calderhead
for graciously donating his copy of the statute to share with other visitors to
this site.
NOTE: Like the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Assistance Plan is
not only the name of the program but also the official title of the statute.
It's
incorrect to refer to the CAP statute as the CAP Act.
According to s.1
of the CAP statute, "This Act may be cited as the Canada Assistance Plan."
Canada
Assistance Plan Regulations -- R.C., c. 382
- Last amended 1986/07/09
CHAPTER
17 (Bill C-76), Statutes of 1995
An Act to implement certain provisions
of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 1995
Table
of Contents - incl. links to text
Whole
document in one file (110K)
- incl. provisions for the winding-down
of the Canada Assistance Plan (section 30 foll.) and the startup of the Canada
Health and Social Transfer (section 48)
Source:
Canadian
Legal Information Institute
Federal-Provincial
Fiscal Arrangements Act, Chapter F-8
Regularly updated
See:
Part V : Canada Health and Social Transfer (sections 13 to 23)
Part V.1 : Canada Health Transfer, Canada Social Transfer
and Health Reform Transfer (sections 24, 25)
Canada Health and Social Transfer Regulations - updated to August 2004
|
BACK
(to the list of topics at the top of this page)
| Welfare Statistics |
NOTE: for links to welfare statistics for a specific
province or territory,
go to the Key Welfare Links page of this site and
select a jurisdiction in the left-hand column.
---
As of September 2, 2010, the latest national, public statistics on welfare dependency in Canada's provinces and territories are for the year ending March 2005. Over five years ago. That's unacceptable.
Number of People on Welfare, March 1995 to March 2005 (PDF file - 133K, 1 page)
These statistics were collected by the National Council of Welfare and published in the Council's report on Welfare Incomes for 2005 after they were verified to be correct by each jurisdiction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2007
The report below is a more detailed breakdown of welfare statistics for each Canadian province and territory that was produced by the group where I worked. This is the best resource for caseload profile information for each jurisdiction, but you won't find any aggregated stats for all of Canada and you may not see (m)any more after this one for 2007. That's because the group where I worked until my retirement grew smaller and smaller as co-workers retired or left and weren't replaced. There is no more capacity in the federal government to produce this type of report (except for a "clerical" update of the numbers, i.e., without the program context), nor is there any interest in such a statistical system from a Conservative policy perspective.
Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2007
Posted online July 15, 2010
Prepared by:
Federal-Provincial-Territorial Directors of Income Support
"In recognition of the growing public demand for
comprehensive information on provincial and territorial social assistance programs
and caseloads, the Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2007 is the fourth
annual joint publication by federal, provincial and territorial governments.
The report provides a general overview of social assistance in Canada, as well
as a description of income support-related/social assistance programs in each
jurisdiction. This report does not include social assistance rates as this information
is currently available to the public on most provincial and territorial government
Web sites."
(Excerpt from Chapter
1 - Summary)
NOTE: Chapter Two of the report is a six-page descriptive overview of social assistance in Canada in 2006-2007, comprising a (very) brief history of federal social assistance since 1966 and general information about welfare eligibility and benefits. Other chapters of the report provide, for each province and territory, information on eligibility (including asset and income exemption levels) and benefits, as well as an impressive number of statistical tables, graphs and charts providing numbers of cases and beneficiaries (time series statistics going back as far as the mid-1990s, depending on the jurisdiction), profile information (age/education/sex of household head, cases by reason for assistance) and even (for most jurisdictions) the percentage of households reporting income.
Complete
report
in one PDF file - (751K, 129 pages)
Links to the three earlier editions of this report:
* Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2006
* Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2005
* Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2004
Source:
Social
Policy
[ Human Resources and Skills
Development Canada ]
< Begin social researcher's lament. >
It's great to see the 2007 edition of this report online, but the numbers in this report *are* over three years old --- none of the welfare ripple effects of the economic disaster of 2008 and 2009 are evident in the March 2007 stats in this report. This really isn't timely enough to help in the policy formulation process, nor is it timely enough to ensure accountability with respect to spending by federal, provincial and territorial governments on Canada's social assistance programs.
So why are timely welfare statistics important?
To tell, among other things, how many new welfare cases are "EI exhaustees"
(households whose Employment Insurance benefit period has expired) and how many
are there because they didn't qualify for EI in the first place. Welfare reporting
must be comprehensive AND reasonably current.
Perhaps it's time to farm out the production of welfare statistics and related
information to an objective, non-politicized third party...
< /End social researcher's lament. >
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related statistical reports
from Social Policy Directorate of HRSDC:
Social
Assistance in Canada, 1994
Over 40 pages of information on Canadian
social assistance programs as they operated in 1994. Much of the information in
this document is still as relevant today as it was back then - eligibility, benefits,
administrative rules, and more. Includes information about cost-sharing of welfare
costs under the Canada Assistance Plan. Question-and-answer format for quick reference.
This work was part of a larger study of social assistance in 24 countries released
by the OECD early in 1996. I was the author of this report, with a lot of input
from a number of colleagues in the Department at the time. If you want a snapshot
of what welfare was like in Canada before the Canada Health and Social Transfer
in 1996, this is a pretty decent one - and it's free.
|
Social Security Statistics, Canada and Provinces
This is a goldmine of statistical information (beneficiary data and expenditure data) on current and defunct Canadian federal social programs, and even some on provincial/territorial programs. This report offers
25 years of longitudinal data on costs and numbers of beneficiaries for most programs
- over 100 tables - covering a large number of programs --- here's a partial list: Preface (short blurb only) List
of Tables A
number of tables were removed from this edition of the Social Security Statistics
report, including some Workers' Compensation tables and tables with info on Blind
Persons' Allowances, Disabled Persons' Allowances and Unemployed Assistance Total
Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Payments. Many of the tables are historical and likely of little interest except to historians and CAP-o-philes --- they offer historical caseload and expenditure statistics on each of the CAP cost-sharing components (General Assistance - Homes for Special Care for Children and Adults - Child Welfare - Health Care - Other Welfare Services and Work Activity). Scroll down the list of tables to find a particular program, then click on its name to access the HTML version of the table (the HTML page includes links to the PDF and Excel versions of the table). You'll find many key stats
tables and some interesting analyses here - only a few of which appear below A few sample tables: Table
360 - Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Program Expenditures, 1978-79 to 1999-2000 Table
361: Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) - Number of Beneficiaries of General Assistance
(including dependants), as of March 31, 1979 to 1996 Table
362 : Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Expenditures for General Assistance,
by Province/Territory, 1978-79 to 1995-96 Table
434: Total Federal Payments under CAP, 1978-79 to 1999-2000 Table 438
NEW
- Table 526 --- Provincial and Territorial Children's Benefits and Earned
Income Supplements, Expenditures for Fiscal years 1978-79 to 2002-03 |
Historical
Statistics of Canada (2nd edition, 1983)
Jointly produced by the
Social Science Federation of Canada and Statistics Canada
Go to the home page
and browse the table of contents of this excellent historical resource. Tables
are arranged in sections with an introduction explaining the content of each section,
the principal sources of data for each table, and general explanatory notes regarding
the statistics. This online statistical collection complements and expands on
Human Resources Development Canada's Social Security Statistics, Canada and
Provinces report.
Source:
Statistics
Canada
Historical Statistics of Canada contains
links to over 1,000 statistical tables (downloadable in Excel format) on the social,
economic and institutional conditions of Canada from the start of the Confederation
in 1867 to the mid-1970s. It's worth downloading the free Excel
97/2000 Spreadsheet File Viewer from Microsoft if you don't have Excel software
on your machine.
For a complete list of topics covered, see the Alphabetical
Index - everything's there from Accidents and Fatalities to
Zinc Production.
Here's a sample section:
Section
C: Social Security - by T. Russell Robinson, Health and Welfare Canada
Contains seven pages of historical information on the evolution of Canadian social
programs, plus links to over 180 tables organized under the following headings:
Federal Income Security Programs - Federal and Provincial Income Insurance Programs
- Cost-shared Federal-Provincial Income Security Programs - Federal and Provincial
Social Service Programs - Provincial-Municipal Income Security Programs - Government
Expenditures on Social Security by Broad Program Areas. Unfortunately, the section
on the Canada Assistance Plan provides stats only from 1970 to 1975, but you'll
find other historical gems here, like federal transfers to the provinces and territories,
1947 to 1975, Unemployment insurance account, 1942 to 1976, Old Age Pensions recipients
for Canada and by province, March 1928 to 1951, and much more...
Great collection of historical Canadian social program stats!
BACK (to the list of topics at the top of this page)
| CAP, Rights and Workfare |
Some social advocates speak widely about rights under CAP that were lost with the CHST and rampant workfare in Canada. It is true that governments have gotten meaner and leaner. But there is some confusion between "rights under CAP" and conditions for federal-provincial-territorial cost-sharing of approved social programs.
Most of what is called workfare today in Canada is actually a combination of tighter welfare eligibility criteria, benefit cuts, a broadening of the definition of an "employable" person and more stringent enforcement of rules regarding reciprocity that existed even before CAP (and continue to exist today).
The Preamble to the Canada Assistance Plan
(1966) reads as follows:
"WHEREAS the Parliament
of Canada, recognizing that the provision of adequate assistance to and in respect
of persons in need and the prevention and removal of the causes of poverty and
dependence on public assistance are the concern of all Canadians, is desirous
of encouraging the further development and extension of assistance and welfare
services programs throughout Canada by sharing more fully with the provinces in
the cost thereof; (...) enacts (...) the Canada Assistance Plan."
The statute itself and its Regulations focus on the logistics (definitions, exclusions, formulae, etc.) of the federal-provincial/territorial cost-sharing agreement in the areas of social assistance and a number of welfare services.
| The CAP statute does not confer any rights to Canadian
citizens in need. This is because the CAP statute was a legislative mechanism that provided a framework for federal social transfers to provinces and territories. The CAP program itself was much more than the sum of its legislative parts, of course - it represented the federal government's commitment of financial support to the lower levels of government towards the improvement of social programs of last resort and the expansion of a number of social services across Canada starting in the mid- to late 60s. | The
Right to Welfare For a detailed analysis (~25 printed pages) of "the right to social assistance" with references to the Constitution Act, the Charter of Rights and the change from CAP to the CHST, see the Submission by the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues (CCPI) to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the occasion of the Review of the Third Report of Canada at the Committee's 19th Session (November - December, 1998) NOTE: The CCPI submission includes information on welfare
case law in a number of jurisdictions that you definitely won't find elsewhere
- dealing with the right to social assistance, adequacy of social assistance benefits,
provincial contravention of national "standards" under CAP, sections 7 and 15
of the Charter of Rights, etc. |
Conditions for Cost-Sharing under CAP
What social advocates often refer to as "rights" under CAP were in fact conditions set by the federal government for provinces and territories to qualify for 50% reimbursement of approved social expenditures. (The "cap on CAP" changed this financial relationship with the three richest provinces in 1990-91 - see the next section below.)
There were three such conditions, as well
as one administrative requirement, for a Canadian province or territory to qualify
for cost-sharing from the federal government. They were as follows.
- An applicant's eligibility for assistance had to be solely based
on a test that "takes into account the budgetary requirements (...) and the
income and resources available to [that] person to meet those requirements",
and no other condition (e.g. work-for-welfare could not be a condition of initial
eligibility),
- An appeal system had to be published
as part of the jurisdiction's social assistance legislation, and appeal
information conveyed to all applicants,
- No residency
requirement in Canada or in a particular province or territory could be imposed
as a condition of eligibility for social assistance applicants, and
- Program information and statistics had to be provided to federal
authorities for the administration of CAP (caseloads, expenditures, program changes,
etc.)
A common misconception of many social researchers and advocacy groups about CAP revolves around "the right to receive welfare without having to work for it..."
In fact, reciprocity was always an inherent aspect of CAP and the social assistance programs that it funded at 50%, at least for employable people.
The "right to welfare
without work" argument is correct only in the narrow sense, with respect to initial
eligibility. Any province or territory that wanted to qualify for 50% cost-sharing
under CAP had to agree to determine eligibility for assistance on the sole basis
of a test of financial need and no other condition. CAP prevented the provinces
and territories from saying to a welfare applicant: "If you want this welfare
cheque, you have to work X number of hours at this particular job."
Workfare or Work Activity Projects? There's a popular misconception about the legislative authority for the no-workfare rule under CAP. Section 15(3) of the Canada Assistance Plan is often cited as the source for this cost-sharing condition. ("Every agreement made pursuant to this section shall (a) provide that no person shall be denied assistance because he refuses or has refused to take part in a work activity project"). In fact, section 15 is under Part III of the CAP statute, entitled Work Activity Projects. Here's what the Appendix to the 1985 Nielsen report on CAP says about the work activity project component of CAP: "Part III made provision for sharing in the costs of work activity programs - sheltered work programs designed to increase a person's capacity to take advantage of employment-oriented programs, or to provide socially useful work for unemployable persons." Work activity projects never really played a mainstream role in SA - CAP spending in this area never reached $9 million/yr. even when total CAP spending almost topped the $8 billion/yr. mark, because Work Activity Projects was a very small segment of the caseload covered under CAP - unemployable persons in sheltered work programs. The legislative authority for the no-workfare rule is section 6(2). "An
agreement shall provide that the province In plain English: - in order to qualify for federal sharing under CAP, a province or territory had to provide financial aid or other assistance to any "person in need" - defined in section 2 of the CAP statute as "...a person who, by reason of inability to obtain employment, loss of the principal family provider, illness, disability, age or other cause of any kind acceptable to the provincial authority, is found to be unable, on the basis of a test established by the provincial authority that takes into account the budgetary requirements of that person and the income and resources available to that person to meet those requirements, to provide adequately for himself, or for himself and his dependants or any of them"] - for CAP purposes, the definition also included a child in need of protection and a deceased person (i.e., the federal authority would share 50% of the cost of approved child welfare services and the cost of funerals and burials of indigent people.) -
the province/territory had to provide assistance on the basis of any budget deficit
between the person's non-exempted financial resources and his needs (including
those of his dependants). Initial eligibility had to be based solely on the needs
test, and it could not include a mandatory undertaking on the part of the applicant
to work for his basic benefits. The principle of reciprocity was, however, encouraged
[and even enforced] by CAP. A province could say "now that you've qualified
on the basis of the needs test, you must, as a condition of *continuing* eligibility,
accept any reasonable offer of employment or opportunities to improve your employability."
Of course, the operative word there is "reasonable" --- since the demise
of CAP, that's become a moot point, because the more conservative provinces have
had successful caseload purges based on the American Work-First approach, and
'reasonable' now means "whatever gets you off the system"... |
However, all Canadian jurisdictions' social assistance legislation contained continuing eligibility criteria, conditions that clients had to respect to stay eligible for welfare. In the case of employable people, that included the obligation to accept any reasonable offer of work, training or academic upgrading that was offered by the government authority, or to be actively looking for work otherwise.
For at least the last 40 years, every Canadian jurisdiction's social assistance regulations have provided for the suspension, cancellation, reduction or refusal of benefits where an employable client refuses to participate in one of the measures listed above. These penalties vary from one jurisdiction to another, and they all remain in force into the 21st century.
Across Canada, sanctions apply to any employable person who is unwilling to participate in a formal (signed) "action plan" or other similar type of contract between that person and the provincial/territorial government. That plan or contract might include any or all of remedial education, training, job preparation and even job placement. Refusal to participate in any measure that is deemed to be in the person's best interests can result in refusal of assistance or lower benefits. This has always been the standard for welfare programs in Canada, except during periods of economic downturn when a provincial government might relax its reciprocity requirements. The rationale for this relaxation of the rules is pretty common-sense, to wit: there's no point in requiring employable welfare clients to submit a predetermined minimum number of job applications each month (to remain eligible for welfare) during a period when employers just aren't hiring because of a slowdown in the Canadian economy.
There is a fundamental difference between the reciprocity condition that was inherent in programs under CAP and workfare - it's the extent of compulsion. CAP supported provincial rules that required employable people on welfare to do something to help themselves. That could involve participating in an activity to improve their employability, like going back to school, participating in a training program or even working in a job placement or apprenticeship. It might also involve actively looking for a job. In the latter case, CAP even tolerated provincial rules requiring proof of job search efforts by clients. What CAP did not support was workfare in its traditional sense - the requirement to work for a specific number of hours in a designated job for basic welfare benefits.
Patricia
Evans' article in the 1995 book entitled Workfare: Does it Work? Is it Fair?
from the Institute for Research on Public Policy
provides a thorough analysis of work-for-welfare provisions in Canadian welfare
programs. It's based largely on a questionnaire completed by government welfare
administrators in each jurisdiction. This is an excellent source of information
on how sanctions were imposed in each province and territory under CAP cost-shared
programs when an employable applicant or recipient refused to participate in employability
measure and job search requirements.
The Canadian Welfare
Reforms page of this site includes A
few words about workfare, which examines the difference between formal
and de facto workfare.
BACK (to the list of topics at the top of this page)
| The "cap on CAP" |
In 1990, the federal government, in order to reduce the federal budget deficit, decided to cut expenditures and limit the growth of payments made to financially stronger provinces under the Canada Assistance Plan. In a nutshell, the federal government imposed a ceiling (or "cap") of 5% on expenditures under the Canada Assistance Plan to Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, the three Canadian provinces not receiving federal Equalization payments. In other words, the annual increase in the total CAP payment to each those three provinces could not increase more than 5% per year. The 1990 federal budget set the measure in place for a two-year period and the 1991 budget extended the period for a further three years, until the end of 1994-95. BC challenged the unilateral federal action in court.
The 1991
Supreme Court of Canada 'cap on CAP' Court decision is a detailed account
of the BC court challenge to the federal government's unilateral imposition
of an annual ceiling on federal contributions to provinces for social programs
under the Canada Assistance Plan. It contains the best information I've found
anywhere about the background, both the federal and BC positions, and the Supreme
Court ruling. In short, the Supreme Court rules in favour of the principle of
parliamentary sovereignty reflected in s. 42(1) of the federal Interpretation
Act, which states that "Every Act [including the Canada Assistance Plan...]
shall be construed as to reserve to Parliament the power of repealing or amending
it...".
| The 1994 Social Security Review |
In 1994, the federal government launched a national Social Security Review (SSR). A number of papers were released before the review wound down after the 1995 federal budget. If you go to a municipal or university library, you should be able to find a collection comprising a discussion paper and about five or six supplementary papers released in the months that followed. These supplementary papers offer a wealth of information on unemployment/employment insurance reform, employability in the 90s, families and children, persons with disabilities, and other topics. The main discussion paper and four of the supplementary papers appear below...
Improving
Social Security in Canada : A Discussion Paper
October 1994
(212K, 61 pages)
Improving Social Security in Canada is the
main document of the 1994 Social Security Review.
It deals with the following
issues : the need for reform, working: jobs in a new economy, learning: making
lifelong learning a way of life, and security: building
opportunity for people in need . The section entitled "Security:
Building opportunity for people in need" focuses on the federal government's
role in Canadian social security programs in 1994-95 and proposed reform options.
(Click on the title of the report, then scroll down the page to the table of contents
to find the Security section)
Here's what you'll find in the security section:
Introduction - What the federal government does now - The Canada Assistance Plan
(CAP) - The Child Tax Benefit - The need for CAP reform - The goals for reform
- Approaches to reform - Possible first steps - Longer-term approaches to reform
Improving Social Security in Canada
Reforming
the Canada Assistance Plan: A Supplementary Paper
1994
(121K, 46 pages)
Improving Social
Security in Canada
Guaranteed
Annual Income: A Supplementary Paper
1994
(117K, 37 pages)
PDF version
- 150K, 53 pages (much cleaner than HTML version...)
*For more GAI information, see the Canadian Social Research Links Guaranteed Annual Income page
Improving Social Security
in Canada
Persons With Disabilities: A Supplementary
Paper
1994
(178K, 87 pages)
NOTE: Unlike the preceding
SSR links which are pointing to HTML pages, this one points to a .TXT file (smaller
file size)
Social
Assistance in Canada, 1994
This is an unpublished
manuscript that I wrote when I was in the Social Policy Branch of Human Resources
Development Canada early in 1994 in the context of a study of social assistance
in the 24 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD). It's a detailed account of Canadian social assistance policies in place
before CAP was replaced by the CHST. The printed version of the full questionnaire
is over 40 pages.
BACK (to the list of topics at the top of this page)
| From the Canada Assistance Plan to the Canada Health and Social Transfer |
The February 1995 federal budget announced that federal payments to provinces and territories would be frozen at the previous year's level and that the Canada Assistance Plan would be replaced by a block grant the following April.
Budget
Speech (February 27, 1995) - The Honourable Paul Martin, P.C., M.P. (Minister
of Finance)
Towards a New System of Transfers to the Provinces - 1995 federal Budget Speech excerpt (from the link above) announcing the introduction, as of April 1996, of the Canada Social Transfer (later renamed Canada Health and Social Transfer)
The Canada Social Transfer: A New Transfer System - 1995 federal Budget Fact Sheets
Who
Gets What? The 1999 Federal Budget and the CHST
by
Finn Poschmann, William B.P. Robson,
and Daniel Schwanen,
C.D. Howe Institute
February 26, 1999
(PDF
file, 45K)
*includes historical information on social
programs and fed-prov financial arrangements from pre-CAP to the CHST
BACK (to the list of topics at the top of this page)
| Analyses/Critiques of CAP and the CHST |
The 1995 Budget and Block Funding
(PDF file - 178K, 35 pages)
Spring 1995
"This report describes welfare in Canada prior to the birth of the Canada
Assistance Plan and the huge advances that came about because of CAP. It analyzes
the 1995 budget proposals and the disastrous impact they would have on real
people with real needs. It outlines a better alternative for funding welfare
and social services."
["Bluntly put, the proposed Canada Health and Social Transfer is the worst
social policy initiative undertaken by the federal government in more than a
generation." Report, page 26]
Source:
National Council of Welfare (NCW)
NOTE: Search the NCW website for the link to this report; the site was relaunched
in summer 2010...
------------------------
The Restructuring
of the Canadian Welfare State: Ideology and Policy
Maureen Baker
June 1997
- includes information about the history of Canadian social programs
and the transition from CAP to CHST.
- the above link takes you to the abstract and a link to the 33-page
PDF file of the complete
report (117K)
------------------------
Canada
Assistance Plan - Chapter 15, 1989 Report of the Auditor General
of Canada
- Informative chapter (full text) of the report, concentrating
on the federal administration and delivery of the Canada Assistance Plan. Under
"Monitoring and Verification of Compliance", you will find plenty of information
about federal-provincial CAP cost-sharing conditions.
There is also an excellent section on CAP accountability and information
issues.
A few quotes to tempt you:
- "Difficulties exist as to the definition of adequacy [of
welfare rates]..."
- "There are inconsistencies relating to residency requirements..."
- "The legislated requirement to produce a CAP annual report
[for Parliament]..."
(Note: Under the CHST, there is no legislated requirement for
the federal government to report to Parliament on the effect of its social transfers
on "persons in need" in Canada.)
------------------------
Study
of Key Federal Social Programs - Chapter 6, 1994 Report
of the Auditor General of Canada*
- heaps of information on CAP, Unemployment Insurance
* The Auditor
General of Canada website has an extensive online library of reports
going back to 1982, many with sections on (or references to) the Canada Assistance
Plan. The two links above are from that list. Scroll down the home page until
you see the complete list of reports by year. You can browse the reports individually,
or just type "Canada Assistance Plan" in the search engine box for a list of
relevant reports (a lot faster).
------------------------
Women
and the Equality Deficit: The Impact of Restructuring Canada's Social Programs
(PDF)
March 1998
Shelagh Day and Gwen Brodsky
Funded by Status of Women Canada's Policy Research Fund
------------------------
Benefiting
Canada's Children: Perspectives on Gender and Social Responsibility
(PDF)
March 1998
Christa
Freiler and Judy Cerny
Child Povery Action Group
- 95-page report (+ appendices), explores the causes of poverty
in Canada and the challenges and constraints in addressing poverty and vulnerability
in a post-CHST world.
- includes an interesting review
of available information on the National Child Benefit (which was to be implemented
in July 1998) and provincial programs for children in place in early 1998.
Funded by Status of Women Canada's Policy Research Fund
------------------------
From
Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) To Canada Health And Social Transfer (CHST)
- from "Understanding How Income Security Works: Families and Households" [see
topics 7 to 10], Steve Hick (Carleton University, Ottawa)
See also Module 10 of Steve Hick's online Intro
to Social Work course for CAP and CHST info
------------------------
No
More! CAP-in-hand: Social Services in a Post-CAP Era
Report of the
1996 Social Services Restructuring Conference
National
Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE)
- *This
is an excellent analysis of the social services cuts in each Canadian province
and the changes going on around the introduction of the CHST
-
Special focus on social assistance reforms during the transition from CAP to the
CHST
------------------------
The Caledon Institute of Social Policy has an extensive list of online reports and studies about the Canada Assistance Plan and the Canada Health and Social Transfer. To find these quickly, just enter Canada Health and Social Transfer in the publications search box (the link is in the left-hand column on the Caledon home page)
Two sample files from Caledon:
How Finance
Re-Formed Social Policy (PDF file)
Ken Battle and Sherri Torjman
April 1995
"How Finance Re-Formed Social Policy analyzes the implications
of the 1995 federal Budget for social policy. It explores the likely impact of
the Canada Health and Social Transfer on welfare, social services and medicare
that will result from both the substantial loss of funds and the withdrawal of
the Canada Assistance Plan legislative base. Other Budget announcements regarding
the Human Resources Investment Fund, Unemployment Insurance and pensions are also
discussed. The paper places these announcements within the broader context of
the substantial changes to social programs that have been introduced over the
past 10 years by both the Tories and the Liberals, largely through budgetary measures.
The report concludes that the 1995 Budget represents a fundamental turning point
in Canadian social policy that will see a decline in the role and influence of
the federal government in welfare, social services and health care."
The
Dangers of Block Funding (PDF file)
Ken Battle and Sherri Torjman
February 1995
"The Dangers of Block Funding rings the alarm bell on rumours
that the federal government will replace the Canada Assistance Plans cost-shared
transfers to the provinces for welfare and social services with a mega-block
fund that would combine federal financial support to the provinces for health,
postsecondary education, welfare and social services."
| Another
Look at Welfare Reform (Autumn 1997) - an in-depth analysis by the National Council of Welfare of changes in Canadian welfare programs in the 1990s. The report focuses on the provincial and territorial reforms that preceded the repeal of the Canada Assistance Plan and those that followed the implementation of the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Complete report online- large file (300K+) but well worth the wait for detailed information on welfare reforms in the 1990s in each Canadian jurisdiction, as well as a national overview of the broad issues of welfare reform and the setting for welfare reform in Canada Source: National Council of Welfare |
| A
State of the Art Review of Income Security Reform in Canada Jane Pulkingham & Gordon Ternowetsky (1998) International Development Research Centre* (Click on the title of the report above to go directly to the table of contents. The entire report is online) - Includes an extensive, detailed
overview of income security reforms in Canada in the 1990s, specifically around
the Canada Health and Social Transfer, a review and typology of current research
in virtually every area of federal and provincial/territorial social programs
and a section on the impact of changes since the CHST and related social reforms.
Social
Policy Challenges in a Global Society Establishing
an Effective Social Policy Agenda with Constrained Resources Social
Policy Reform in Canada Under Regional Economic Integration by Albert
Berry *The
International Development Research Centre
website also includes many links to information on similar reforms in developing
countries |
BACK (to the list of topics at the top of this page)
| Post-CHST |
From Finance Canada NOTE: This is a key resource for anyone
who wants to know about federal transfers to provinces and territories for health,
post-secondary education, social assistance (welfare) and social services (including
early childhood development). Federal Transfers to Provinces and Territories
is a permanent and helpful feature of the Department's website; thanks, Finance
Canada folks! Federal
Transfers to Provinces and Territories Major
Federal Transfers to Provinces and Territories Canada
Health Transfer Canada
Social Transfer Territorial Formula FinancingTax Transfers --- Brief
History of the Health and Social Transfers Federal
Support for Children (and investments over time) Related link: A
Study of Federal Transfers to the Provinces and Territories |
NOTES:
1. For all links to info concerning federal contributions to provincial-territorial
health care costs and fiscal imbalance between the two levels of government, go
to the Canadian Social Research Links Medicare Debate in
Canada Links page
2. The content below is generally arranged in reverse
chronological order; the top link is the one most recently added to this page
(but not always the most recent in terms of dates)...
The
Canada Social Transfer
By James Gauthier and Shahrzad Mobasher
Fard
Social Affairs Division
Revised 23 July 2009
[
PDF version - 56K, 3 pages ]
The Canada Social Transfer (CST) is the
primary federal contribution in support of provincial programs related to post-secondary
education, social assistance and social services, and programs for children in
Canada. This short paper offers an overview of the Canada Social Transfer (CST)
that includes the amounts payable to provinces and territories in cash transfers
from 20042005 to 20132014, along with information on related tax point
transfers and associated equalization. It also includes information on the change
in the CST Formula since 2007-2008 and the impact of that change.
Source:
Library
of Parliament Research Publications
HINT: Click the link above to access
several hundred reports by this research group, all organized by category.
Related link:
Canada
Social Transfer
Updated to October 2009
(...) The CST is calculated
on an equal per capita cash basis to reflect the Governments commitment
to ensure that general-purpose transfers provide equal support for all Canadians.
Prior to that, the CST was calculated on an equal per capita basis combining the
value of both tax and cash transfers.
Source:
Federal
Transfers to Provinces and Territories
[ Department
of Finance Canada ]
-------------
RECENT
CANADIAN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REPORTS ABOUT
FEDERAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PROVINCIAL-TERRITORIAL
WELFARE COSTS TABLED IN PARLIAMENT:
NONE.
ZILCH.
NADA.
NYET.
In the old days (under the Canada Assistance Plan or "CAP" from 1966 to 1996), the federal government actually gave a shit about helping people in need AND about government accountability for program dollars. The federal Department of Health and Welfare was required by law to table, in the House of Commons, an annual report on the operation of provincial and territorial welfare programs and social services in Canada, in the same manner as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services presents annual reports on TANF and welfare dependence to Congress.
In April 1996, a block fund called the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) replaced CAP's 50-50 cost-sharing as the statutory mechanism for determining federal contributions to provincial/territorial welfare programs. [ See A History of the Health and Social Transfers] Neither the CHST nor its successor, the Canada Social Transfer (since April 2004), contains rules regarding the production of reports about welfare for tabling and discussion in the Parliament of Canada. In fact, the last national public report about welfare in Canada that was tabled and discussed in the House of Commons was the final CAP Annual Report for 1995-96. In my view, that's not much accountability for a program of this magnitude. The CST will cost the Canadian taxpayer almost $11 billion in 2009-10 in cash transfers alone, all without any debate or even discussion in the House of Commons.
Because the CST is a block fund, and because it covers post-secondary education, early learning and childcare as well as welfare and social services, it's no longer possible to calculate how much each province and territory receives annually from Ottawa specifically earmarked for welfare. That's why you won't see any Canadian equivalent to Indicators of Welfare Dependence: Annual Report to Congress in the near future. That, and the fact that there doesn't appear to be any political will by the ruling federal party to support provincial-territorial programs of last resort at this time.
NOTE: American and Canadian welfare systems should
NOT be compared without situating each within its social policy context. |
New from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada:
A
Study of Federal Transfers to the Provinces and Territories
December
2008
"(...) The federal government uses a number of mechanisms to transfer
funds to the provinces and territories for general areas of spending such as health
or for specific purposes such as improving infrastructure. In 200607, these
federal transfers amounted to approximately $50 billion, or just under 23 percent
of federal spending. Our study examined the three main mechanisms used by the
federal government to transfer funds to the provinces and territories. We also
looked at the nature and extent of conditions attached to these transfers."
News
Release:
Auditor
Generals study sheds light on how
the federal government transfers funds
to provinces and territories
(Chapter 1A Study of Federal
Transfers to the Provinces and Territories - December 2008 Report of the Auditor
General)
February 5, 2009
Auditor General Sheila Frasers Report, tabled
today in the House of Commons, contains a study [see the link immediately below]
of the three main mechanisms used by the federal government to transfer funds
to the provinces and territories. In 200607, these transfers amounted to
about $50 billion, just under 23 percent of federal spending. They are major sources
of funds for services provided to Canadians in areas such as health and post-secondary
education.
Source:
2008
December Report of the Auditor General of Canada (February 5, 2009)
[
Office of
the Auditor General of Canada ]
Dorothea
Crittenden: Canada's first woman deputy minister
reformed welfare and social
assistance
December
24, 2008
Obituary
By Gay Abbate
"(...) Dorothea Crittenden was a
trailblazer who devoted her life to helping build Ontario's welfare system. She
was also a key player in the creation of the Canada Assistance Plan, a federal-provincial
cost-sharing plan that guarantees all Canadians equal access to social assistance."
As
a rule, I don't include links to obituaries on my site or in my newsletter. In
this case, however, I've made an exception based on the valuable historical insights
that I've found in the obituary, and moreso in the paper below by John Stapleton,
and that I wanted to share with Canadian social historians --- more pieces of
the puzzle, as it were...
[...and no, I won't link to your Aunt Bertha's obituary.
Don't even ask.]
The above obituary
by Gay Abbate appeared in The Globe and Mail on December 23, and it's based in
part on information provided by Dr. Crittenden in the course of interviews with
John Stapleton in 1991.
The content of those interviews appears in the paper
below, which provides valuable historical information about Canadian social
policy from the Depression to the mid-1970's when she was Ontario's Deputy
Minister of Community and Social Services. Of particular interest to Canadian
social historians, I'm sure, will be sections like * What Ontario gave up for
CAP * Project 500 in the 1970s * the cap on CAP (I should note that the cap on
CAP was in the early 1990s and not the 1980s, as noted in the above obituary.
John's paper has the correct info on that.)
Coming
of Age in a Mans World:
The Life, Times and Wisdom of Dorothea Crittenden,
Canadas
First Female Deputy Minister (PDF - 355K, 22 pages)
January 2007
Source:
Open
Policy (John Stapleton's website)
New
from Queen's University School of Policy
Studies:
Social
Policy in Canada - Looking Back, Looking Ahead (PDF - 233K, 40 pages)
Peter
Hicks
November 2008
Abstract: This paper discusses recent policy
trends, the changing role of the various actors in the system, international comparisons
and a range of other social policy topics. The paper does this by examining the
authors thoughts on trends and future directions as they were set out in
a paper written in 1994. It then fast forwards to 2008 and examines what actually
happened in the intervening years, pointing out areas where earlier forecasts
were reasonably accurate and, where they were not, the reasons for this. The immediate
purpose of the paper is to examine the reasons why social policy analysts need
to look into the future, and to explore ways of managing the inevitably large
risks associated with such future-looking exercises. The underlying purpose, however,
is simply to introduce a range of important Canadian social policy topic to students
and others who are interested in social policy, but without much previous background
in the area.
Recommended reading!
- includes a senior federal government insider's view of the tumultuous
period of the mid-1990s, notably the Social Security Review of 1994. As an insider
myself during that decade (if only on the social program information side of the
Department where author Peter Hicks was an Assistant Deputy Minister), I found
this paper quite interesting and enlightening, notably in its retrospective look
at social policy in Canada in the mid-1990s and thirteen years later, in 2008.
Source:
School
of Policy Studies - Publications
[ Queen's
University School of Policy Studies
Also by the same author:
Establishing
an Effective Social Policy Agenda with Constrained Resources
by
Peter Hicks (1995)
Federal
Court denies retroactive Quebec claim for $394 million
under the Canada Assistance
Plan
June 6, 2008
From 1966-67 until 1996 when it was replaced by the
Health and Social Transfer, the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) was the statutory
framework for federal government contributions (50% of eligible expenditures)
towards the cost of social assistance (welfare) and social services in the provinces
and territories. From 1996 to 2000, the federal government settled all of its
outstanding accounts with each jurisdiction, except for Quebec, which filed a
court action for close to $400 million against the federal government. This amount
represented the total of federal cost-sharing that Quebec officials felt they
were entitled to receive under CAP but never did. CAP officials maintained all
along that the program did not allow for cost-sharing of services and initiatives
that were already receiving federal support under another program (such as Education)
or that were universal in nature.
Upon
review, the Court concluded (June 6, 2008) that Canada was not obliged under the
terms of CAP to share the cost of the specified expenses.
Source:
English
summary (PDF - 16K, 1 paragraph)
* The services for which Quebec was seeking cost-sharing were:
1.
Services provided to juvenile delinquents in Quebec between 1979 and 1984
---
a period during which juvenile delinquents were housed in the same institutions
as children in care of the Quebec government
2.
Social services provided in a school environment between 1973 and 1996
---
from the time Quebec transferred this budget item to the Ministère des
Affaires sociales in 1973 until the end of CAP
3.
Support services provided to people with disabilities living in a residential
establishment
--- from the time this type of establishment appeared in
the health and social services network until the end of CAP
T-2834-96
Decision
IN THE MATTER OF QUEBEC vs. CANADA (French only)
Summary
(PDF - 16K, 1 paragraph)
Annex
A Canada Assistance Plan Statute (PDF - 4.2MB, 17 pages)
Annex
B Canada Assistance Plan Regulations (PDF - 4.9MB, 16 pages)
NOTE:
Annexes A and B are enormous PDF files containing the Canada Assistance Plan (statute)
and Regulations in side-by-side French-English format.
If you just wish to
read the CAP statute and regulations in English in HTML format, see:
Canada
Assistance Plan
Canada
Assistance Plan Regulations
Source:
Federal
Court
The Federal Court's jurisdiction - its scope of authority to hear
and decide issues - extends across the federal landscape, and it includes claims
involving the Federal Crown.
[ About
Federal Court ]
2006-2007 Departmental
Performance Report:
Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC)
HTML
version
PDF
version (3.3MB, 214 pages)
This document reports on the performance
of Human Resources and Social Development Canada for the period from April 1,
2006 to March 31, 2007. It reports on the Department's achievements related to
the commitments set out in the 2006-2007 Report on Plans and Priorities. Section
I provides a departmental overview, including a brief description of the socio-economic
environment, and a summary of departmental performance. Section II includes detailed
performance results information by strategic outcome. The financial tables and
information concerning the specified purpose accounts are in Section III, and
Section IV provides more details on programs supporting activities and the consolidated
financial statements.
HRSDC:
Details on Transfer Payment Programs
- includes (among others) :
* Canada Study Grant / Canada Access Grant * Canada Student Loans Program * Canada
Education Savings Grant * Canada Learning Bond * Social
Development Partnerships Program * Guaranteed Income Supplement * Labour Market
Agreements for Persons with Disabilities * New Horizons for Seniors Program *
Old Age Security * Opportunities Fund for Persons with Disabilities * The Allowance
* EarlyLearning and Child Care * Universal Child Care Benefit * National Homelessness
Initiative * much more...
2006-2007
Departmental Performance Report:
Department of Finance Canada
HTML
version
PDF
version (726K, 182 pages)
"...provides an overview of the Department's
strategic outcome, a listing of its ongoing priorities, and the associated financial
resources for the 2006-07 fiscal year."
Department
of Finance Canada : Transfer Payment Programs
- the Department of Finance
Canada departmental performance report is where you'll find information on (among
other program areas) Fiscal Equalization (Part l, Federal-Provincial Fiscal
Arrangements Act), the Canada Health Transfer (Part V.1, Federal-Provincial
Fiscal Arrangements Act) and the Canada Social Transfer (Part V.1, Federal-Provincial
Fiscal Arrangements Act)
Related links:
Public
Accounts of Canada
The Public Accounts of Canada for 2007, which include
the Financial Statements of the Government of Canada (see Volume I, Section 2),
were tabled in the House of Commons on October 17, 2007.
Supplementary Estimates, 2007-2008 - HRSDC
Supplementary Estimates, 2007-2008 - Finance Canada
Other Reports of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
Source:
Treasury
Board of Canada Secretariat
Federal [social spending] Caps and Cuts, 1972-1995 |
Federal-Provincial
Transfers for Social Programs
in Canada: Their Status in May 2004
(PDF file - 450K, 20 pages)
IRPP Working Paper Series no. 2004-07
By Stephen
Laurent and François Vaillancourt
July 2004
- Good historical info,
recommended reading!
Source:
Institute
for Research on Public Policy
Transfers
to Provinces and Territories [2006] - A CBC News Interactive Feature (requires
Flash Player)
"Ottawa will give out $62 billion in payments to the provinces
and territories for health, social and equalization in 2006. Here's a look at
how the spoils are split."
- click "Continue" on the first page
of this CBC interactive feature to see a map of Canada that you can click to see,
for each Canadian jurisdiction, not only total federal transfer payments in 2006,
but also the breakdown of those payments into two streams: the Canada Health Transfer
(covering provincial/territorial health insurance programs) and the Canada Social
Transfer (covering approved costs of provincial/territorial post-secondary education
lumped in with social assistance [welfare] and social services).
Source:
CBC
News
NOTES:
1. Compare the numbers in this CBC presentation with those
of the federal Finance Department (in the box with the red border below). Can
YOU tell how much the federal government is contributing towards the cost of provincial/territorial
welfare programs?
I didn't think so. Accountability - easy to promise, tough
to deliver.
2. TO THE NICE FOLKS AT FINANCE CANADA:
If you really plan on Bringing
Accountability Back to Government, you could start by splitting the Canada
Social Transfer into two distinct components: one for post-secondary education
and one for social assistance and social services.
Canadas
New Government Launches National Web-Based Consultations on Fiscal Balance
News
Release
August 8, 2006
"The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance,
on behalf of Canadas new government, today launched online consultations
to give Canadians the opportunity to provide their views on restoring fiscal balance."
The Consultations page:
Online
Consultations on
Restoring Fiscal Balance in Canada
- The fiscal
balance consultation ended September 8, 2006.
Minister
of Finance Receives Expert Panel Reports
on Equalization and Territorial Formula
Financing
News Release
June 5, 2006
The Honourable Jim Flaherty,
Minister of Finance, announced today that he has received the final reports on
Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing from the Expert Panel mandated
by the Government of Canada to review these programs.
Equalization Report
HTML
PDF (1.9MB)
Equalization
Executive Summary
HTML
PDF
(338K)
Territorial Formula Financing
Report
HTML
PDF
(1.2MB)
Territorial Formula Financing
Executive Summary
HTML
PDF (335K)
Source:
Expert
Panel on Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing Website
- incl.
links to : Home - About the Panel - Consultations - Submissions - Research and
Analysis - Media - Contact Us - Links
[ Finance
Canada]
Related Links:
Google.ca
News Search Results:
"provincial premiers,
equalization"
Google.ca Web Search Results:
"provincial
premiers, equalization"
Source:
Google.ca
National
Standards and Social Programs:
What the Federal Government can do
September
1997
Political and Social Affairs Division
Excellent 44-page reference
document dealing with various aspects of the federal government's involvement
in provincial-territorial social programs
Historical Background:
-
includes a brief historical overview of social programs since WWI, with special
focus on the programs and standards as of the early seventies and developments
since then, as well as analysis of he EPF Arrangements of 1977, the Canada Health
Act, the Canada Health and Social Transfer, fiscal trends and a comparative analysis
of current standards with historical ones
The Jurisdictional Basis:
- incl. Education - Health - Income Support (Social Assistance, Social Insurance)
Intergovernmental Processes:
A. Major Mechanisms (Taxation: National
Standards through the Back Door, The Federal Spending Power: National Standards
C.O.D., Shared or Divided Policy Fields: National Standards by Gamesmanship, Charter
Rights and Affirmations: National Standards through Constitutional Politics, and
Intergovernmental Agreements: National Standards through Executive Federalism
B.
Alternatives to Unilateralism: The Orchestration of Standards ( National Standards
by Public Demand: The Power of Persuasion, National Standards and the "Information
Age", National Standards by Interprovincial Consensus
Two Practical
Considerations:
A. Political Will (Intergovernmental Pressures - Public
Opinion)
B. Money (The Provincial Capacity Argument - The Effectiveness of
Penalties - The "Political Loop" - A Concluding Note)
General
Observations and Conclusions
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix I:
Federal
[social spending] Caps and Cuts, 1972-1995
- a chronology of federal
policy and program changes during that period, including the Canada Assistance
Plan, Established Programs Funding (EPF), Equalization and much more...
| NOTE:
"Responding to the combined impact of fiscal, intergovernmental and other
pressures, the federal government has, since at least the mid-seventies, been
engaged in what has been widely portrayed as a retreat from the social policy
role established during the immediate post-war period." Appendix I presents milestones from 1972 to 1996. - This section of the report alone is worth the download - but you have to download the entire report to read it. It's a concise chronology of federal government caps and cuts in funding to provinces and territories under a number of social transfer programs, including Established Programs Funding, Equalization, the Canada Assistance Plan, the Canada Health Act, even includes projected cuts under the Canada Health and Social Transfer |
Appendix
II : Further Poll Results
Source:
Parliamentary
Library
Paul
Moist (CUPE President) tells the finance minister: quit starving the provinces
April
6, 2004
- outlines CUPE concerns about the federal/provincial equalization
program as well as the Canada Health Transfer and the Canada Social Transfer.
-
incl. sections on: Fiscal imbalance - the need to reform the Equalization formula
in a fundamental way - the Canada Health Transfer - the Canada Social Transfer.
Source:
Canadian
Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
Canada Post-Secondary
Education Act (CAUT)
"The Canadian Association of University Teachers
has long recognized that the health of Canada's universities and colleges depends
on the federal government playing a major role in funding post-secondary education.
The problem has been finding a suitable vehicle for doing so. The CAUT position
since 1985 has been to advocate passage of a Canada Post-Secondary Education Act,
analogous to the Canadian Health Act."
Source:
Canadian Association of University Teachers
(CAUT)
LETTER
TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA
Meeting of Premiers
and Territorial Leaders
Québec, Quebec
- February 3, 2000
(Regarding restoration of
health funding under the CHST in the 2000 federal budget.)
Federal Government Moves
to Implement its $23.4-Billion Commitment for Health and Social Funding
[This link is now dead.]
Press Release
Finance
Canada
October 04, 2000
The
$23.4-billion funding commitment will be provided as follows:
-
An additional $21.1 billion over five years through increased funding for the
Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) for health, post-secondary education
and social assistance and services. Of this increase, $2.2 billion is provided
to support early childhood development.
Comment:
Back
to the Future?*
The June 9, 2000 edition of the Toronto
Star includes a Canadian Press article about Paul Martin's appearance before the
House Finance Committee on June 8. The article focuses largely on the Finance
Minister's criticism of the Canadian Alliance Party's flat tax proposal. The federal
Finance Department's site offers a link to the Minister's speech, but there is
no mention of the flat tax in the speech; the Star references to the flat tax
are rather to oral evidence provided in reply to questions from Committee members.
You'll have to visit the website of the Standing Committee on Finance to see if
they posted the proceedings of Mr. Martin's appearance.
*An
article in the June 9 Ottawa Citizen, written by staff reporters, also mentions
the Finance Minister's critique of the Alliance flat tax proposal, but adds: "Mr.
Martin also hinted that the federal government may break up the federal Canada
Health and Social Transfer to the provinces into three separate packages to
ensure, for example, that funds for health care are used for health care. The
transfer system sends tax dollars to the provinces to pay for health, education
and welfare programs. "
In the Fall of 1997, the
National Council of Welfare released a report entitled Another Look at Welfare
Reform - a look back at Canadian welfare reforms in the nineties. Here's an
excerpt from the first of its 15 recommendations: "The federal, provincial
and territorial governments should agree to a new package of financial arrangements
for social programs with the following four features: (...) four new "cash-only"
deals to allow the federal government to defray the cost of medicare, post-secondary
education, welfare and social services (...)"
Commission
of Fiscal Imbalance (Government of Quebec)
"The Québec
government set up the Commission of Fiscal Imbalance on May 9, 2001, to
identify and analyze the basic causes of the fiscal imbalance between the federal
government and Québec and to invite and collect opinions and suggestions
from experts and stakeholders in Québec and elsewhere regarding the practical
consequences of this imbalance and concrete solutions to put forward to correct
it."
Bibliography
- over 40 links to information (much of which is in English) by a variety of authors
on CHST, CAP, Equalization, federal-provincial-territorial fiscal arrangements,
transfer payments and economic and social policy issues.
An International
Symposium on Fiscal imbalance that was to have been held in Québec
City on September 13 and 14, 2001 was cancelled due to the events of September
11. The Symposium page includes links to the program and to notes from over a
dozen presenters from 9 countries - some of which are extensive treatises of fiscal
federalism and fiscal equilibrium.
Commission
Publications - includes links to information on intergovernmental fiscal
arrangments in Germany, Australia, Belgium, Spain, United States and Switzerland
and three background papers, for example...
Federal
Transfer Programs to the Provinces Background Paper for public
consultation (PDF file - 208K, 49 pages) --- CHST-Equalization
Fiscal
Imbalances and the Financing of National Programs (PDF file - 23K,
5 pages)
Joe Ruggeri, July 2002
"This paper explores the state of
government finances in Canada. It focusses upon the growing fiscal imbalance,
commonly known as vertical fiscal imbalance (VFI), between the federal and provincial/territorial
levels of government."
Source : Caledon
Institute of Social Policy
NOTE:
For more links to the debate on health care funding and the fiscal imbalance
in Canada, go to the Canadian Social Research Links Medicare
Debate Links page and the Canadian Social Research Links Council
of the Federation page.
Recommended Reading on welfare reform in Quebec! The
Insertion Model or the Workfare Model? |
Since the implementation of the CHST - and especially since the launch in 1998 of the National Child Benefit and related provincial/territorial investments and reinvestments - the field of welfare in Canada has been getting fuzzier. Most welfare programs are still readily identifiable (see the Canadian Social Research Links Key Welfare Links page), but as time goes on, jurisdictions are moving children's benefits out of welfare and into other income-tested programs (see the bottom of the Key Welfare Links page for more detail on that...) and merging, for reasons of efficiency, programs that were not cost-shared as social assistance under CAP.
Pity
the poor social researcher who is attempting to track changes in the Canadian
welfare system since the nineties.
[See Welfare Statistics
on this page for detailed information on welfare caseloads and expenditures during
this tumultuous period.]
Hard
to dismantle a bad deal
May 5, 2004
Carole
Goar
"When governments bundle disparate bits and
pieces into one big package an omnibus bill, a multi-purpose program or
a block funding plan it's a good idea to be suspicious. There is usually
a hidden snare. Canada's premiers learned that, nine years
ago, when Paul Martin sold them a package deal that cost them dearly. It is still
doing residual damage."
Source:
The
Toronto Star
From the Canadian Council on Social Development:
The
Federal Finance Minister responds to the
Canadian Council on Social Development
June
14, 2007
Earlier this year CCSD wrote to the Prime Minister and his Finance
Minister about the importance of social development and the Canada Social Transfer
(CST). The letter emphasized the need for increased, predictable and stable funding
for social development as part of sound planning and effective investment in this
country. The Finance Minister's response has been posted on the Policy Initiatives
section of the CCSD website, along with other materials connected to work on the
CST.
Letter
from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (PDF file - 30K, 3 pages)
May, 2007
Letter
to the Prime Minister
April 3, 2007
NOTE:
On the Policy Initiatives page
of the CCSD website, you'll find related content, including:
* The Honourable
Roy Romanow on the importance of the CST (October, 2004)
* Federation of Canadian
Municipalities adopts a resolution on the CST (January 2005)
* What Kind of
Canada? A Call for a National Debate on the Canada Social Transfer (April, 2004)
The
New Social Architecture Series:
* The World We Have: Towards a New Social Architecture,
by Katherine Scott, CCSD
* Postponed Adulthood: Dealing with the New Economic
Inequality
* more...
What
Kind of Canada?
A Call for a National Debate on the Canada Social Transfer
April
8, 2004
"The CCSD is aware that the Canada Social Transfer, in and of
itself, will not resolve all Canada's social challenges. But it can, and should,
be a key instrument in our collective hands to help us address at least some of
these challenges. It is a useful starting point to get a healthy debate going.
A four-point agenda to renew the Canada Social Transfer is proposed:
1. The
Canada Social Transfer should be split into two parts: one for social programs
and the other for post-secondary education.
2. Funding for the Canada Social
Transfer should be restored to 1994-95 levels, and predictability and stability
of funding should be guaranteed.
3. Common principles and objectives for the
social transfer should be agreed to by all parties through a broad engagement
with Canadians.
4. A pan-Canadian body should be established to measure outcomes,
share innovation and foster citizen involvement."
The
New Canada Social Transfer:
Impetus for a Renewed Era of Innovative Social
Policy in Canada?
Notes for Remarks by The Honourable Roy J. Romanow,
P.C.
National Arts Centre
Ottawa, Ontario
October 14, 2004
"Since
April of this year, the CCSD has been working to draw more attention to issues
surrounding Canadas Social Transfer. We have been doing this with a multi-pronged
approach that includes community meetings across the country, discussions with
decision-makers and media interviews. On October 14, 2004, we continued this effort
with a luncheon address by the Honourable Roy Romanow. The event took place at
the National Arts Centre in Ottawa."
Women
and the CHST: A Profile of Women Receiving Social Assistance in 1994 (PDF)
March 1998
Katherine
Scott, Centre for International Statistics
Canadian
Council on Social Development
[Funded by Status
of Women Canada's Policy Research Fund]
Who
will speak for Canada's children?
Winter 1995
David Ross
Copps
recall foggy, but she's not totally wrong : she was likely thinking of
abandonment
of national standards in the demise of the Canada Assistance Plan, not the Canada
Health Act
October 29, 2004
By Vincent Calderhead and Martha
Jackman
"The Sheila Copps-Paul Martin Canada Health Act dispute is intriguing.
Copps says in a new book that Martin had intended in his 1995 budget to scrap
the Canada Health Act as a sop to the provinces, which faced a 40 per cent cut
to federal cash transfers. Martin denies this and those around him at the time
back him up. (...) But what she might have been thinking about in the '95 budget
was the Canada Assistance Plan. CAP was the federal legislation that, from the
mid-'60s until its repeal in the 1995 budget, required provinces to ensure that
their social assistance programs respected national standards."
Source:
The
Toronto Star
2005
Public Accounts of Canada Tabled
September 29, 2005
"The
Public Accounts of Canada for 2005, which include the Financial Statements of
the Government of Canada were tabled in the House of Commons on September 29,
2005. The three volumes can be obtained in print from the Government of Canada
Publications."
Click the link above to access the complete report in
individual PDF files:
* Volume I - Summary Report and Financial Statements
(PDF 2.0Mb)
* Volume II - Details of Expenses and Revenues (PDF 2.8Mb)
* Volume III - Additional Information and Analyses (PDF 3.7Mb)
Unpublished
detailed information relating to Sections 4, 5 and 7 of Volume III of the Public
Accounts of Canada 2005 are as follows:
* Section 4
(Professional and Special Services) (PDF 882kb)
* Section 5 (Acquisition of
Land, Buildings and Works) (PDF 348kb)
* Section
7 (Transfer Payments) (PDF file - 2.1MB, 251 pages)
Section 7
includes detailed info about:
- $31 Billion in 2004-2005
in Payments under the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), the Canada Health and Social
Transfer (CHST), the Health Reform Transfer (HRT) and other targeted federal transfers
in support of health
- $14.5 Billion in 2004-2005 in Payments under the Canada
Social Transfer (CST) in support of post-secondary education, social assistance
and social services, including early childhood development and early learning
and childcare
In 2004-2005, Finance Canada made payments of $45.7 billion through
the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer, the Health Reform Transfer,
and other targeted federal transfers in support of health and social services,
including both cash and tax transfers. The amount of these cash and tax transfers
in 2004-2005 is shown in the above table. In April 2004 the Canada Health and
Social Transfer (CHST) was split into the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and the
Canada Social Transfer (CST). The CHT is a block-fund transfer to provinces and
territories to provide financial support for the provision of health. The CST
is a block-fund transfer to provinces and territories in support of post-secondary
education, social assistance and social services, including early childhood development
and early learning and childcare. Both transfers are a combination of tax point
and cash transfers.
[Extract from Section 7, page 248]
Source:
Public
Works and Government Services Canada
Child
Poverty and the Canada Social Transfer: CCSD takes the Debate to the Prairies.
[October 6, 2005]
Source:
Canadian
Council on Social Development
BACK (to the list of topics at the top of this page)
See also:
Welfare
Reforms in Canada
Unofficial Social Union Links
Links
to Union Sites
Non-governmental Organizations
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