Canada Assistance Plan - Canada Health and Social Transfer

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

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

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.

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."

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)

Key provisions in the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act
concerning social assistance residency
[Excerpts]

Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, Chapter F-8
(...)

PART V
CANADA HEALTH AND SOCIAL TRANSFER

s.13. (1) Subject to this Part, a Canada Health and Social Transfer established under paragraphs 14(a), (b) and (e) to (g) is to be provided to the provinces for the purposes of
(a) financing social programs in a manner that provides provincial flexibility;
(b) maintaining the national criteria and conditions in the Canada Health Act, including those respecting public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility, and the provisions relating to extra-billing and user charges;
(c) maintaining the national standard, set out in section 19, that no period of minimum residency be required or allowed with respect to social assistance; and
(d) promoting any shared principles and objectives that are developed, pursuant to subsection (3), with respect to the operation of social programs, other than a program for the purpose referred to in paragraph (b).

s.18. In sections 19 to 23,
"Minister" means the Minister of Human Resources Development;
" social assistance " means aid in any form to or in respect of a person in need.

s.19. (1) In order that a province may qualify for a full cash contribution under subsection 15(1) for a fiscal year, the laws of the province must not

(a) require or allow a period of residence in the province or Canada to be set as a condition of eligibility for social assistance or for the receipt or continued receipt thereof; or
(b) make or allow the amount, form or manner of social assistance to be contingent upon a period of such residence.

Exception

(2) The criteria in subsection (1) are not contravened by a requirement of a health insurance plan of a province of a minimum period of residence in the province or waiting period that does not contravene paragraph 11(1)(a) of the Canada Health Act.

PART V.1
CANADA HEALTH TRANSFER, CANADA SOCIAL TRANSFER AND HEALTH REFORM TRANSFER (sections 24-25.8)
[NOTE: Part V.1 was added to this statute by section 8 of Chapter 15, Ontario Statutes of 2003]
(...)
Canada Social Transfer

24.3 (1) Subject to this Part, a Canada Social Transfer in the amounts referred to in subsection 24.4(1) is to be provided to the provinces for the purposes of
(a) financing social programs in a manner that provides provincial flexibility;
(b) maintaining the national standard, set out in subsection 25.1(1), that no period of minimum residency be required or allowed with respect to social assistance; and
(c) promoting any shared principles and objectives that are developed under subsection (2) with respect to the operation of social programs.

(2) The Minister of Human Resources Development shall invite representatives of all the provinces to consult and work together to develop, through mutual consent, a set of shared principles and objectives for social programs that could underlie the Canada Social Transfer.

Definition of "social programs"

(3) In this section, "social programs" includes programs in respect of post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, including early childhood development, and early learning and child care services.

(...)

24.9 The following definitions apply in sections 25 to 25.5.

"Minister" means the Minister of Human Resources Development.

"social assistance" means aid in any form to or in respect of a person in need.

25.1 (1) In order that a province may qualify for a full cash contribution (...) for a fiscal year, the laws of the province must not
(a) require or allow a period of residence in the province or Canada to be set as a condition of eligibility for social assistance or for the receipt or continued receipt of social assistance; or
(b) make or allow the amount, form or manner of social assistance to be contingent on a period of such residence.

Exception

(2) The criteria in subsection (1) are not contravened by a requirement of a health insurance plan of a province of a minimum period of residence in the province or waiting period that does not contravene paragraph 11(1)(a) of the Canada Health Act.

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.

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

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...

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.

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.

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!

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.
Source : Charter Committee on Poverty Issues
See also: U.N. '98 Page - (links to 18 related documents)

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
(a) will provide financial aid or other assistance to or in respect of any person in the province who is a person in need described in paragraph (a) of the definition of "person in need" in section 2, in an amount or manner that takes into account the basic requirements of that person;
(b) will, in determining whether a person is a person described in paragraph (a) and the assistance to be provided to that person, take into account the budgetary requirements of that person and the income and resources available to that person to meet those requirements;
(...)"

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.

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
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.

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)

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

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...

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).

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.

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)

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 Plan’s 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

BACK to the list of topics
..

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.
- Recommended reading for anyone looking for information about the critical forces that have shaped income security programs in Canada and that continue to do so as we approach the new millennium.
- Topics covered include welfare reforms, the National Child Benefit and child poverty, unemployment/employment insurance reforms, pension reform and the retirement income system, labour market policies, the Social Union, income security reforms in the broader context of social security reform, etc.
*The International Development Research Centre website also includes many links to information on similar reforms in developing countries
"The International Development Research Centre is a public corporation created by the Canadian government to help communities in the developing world find solutions to social, economic, and environmental problems through research."
Complete reports online include the following:

Social Policy Challenges in a Global Society
by Keith Banting (1995)
- An extensive and excellent treatise on globalization, trade agreements, social need and reforms.

Establishing an Effective Social Policy Agenda with Constrained Resources
by Peter Hicks (1995)
- An excellent article written by a senior HRDC official at the time. It presents some interesting historical information about the evolution of Canadian social programs from the sixties to the early nineties.
- Social historians will be particularly interested in the author's analysis of the 1994 SSR discussion paper...

Social Policy Reform in Canada Under Regional Economic Integration by Albert Berry
- This article covers issues such as the harmonization and convergence of social programs, rationalization, privatization, cost-saving, competitiveness and social policy reform.

*The International Development Research Centre website also includes many links to information on similar reforms in developing countries
"The International Development Research Centre is a public corporation created by the Canadian government to help communities in the developing world find solutions to social, economic, and environmental problems through research."

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!
Near the bottom of each page, you'll find the date of the latest update to that page.

Federal Transfers to Provinces and Territories
This is the most comprehensive collection of federal government information you'll find online concerning federal transfers to the provinces and territories for health, post-secondary education, social assistance and social services (including early childhood development). From April 1996 until March 2004, federal government contributions for these program areas were combined in a single block transfer called the Canada Health and Social Transfer. In April 2004, the CHSt was split into (1) the Canada Health Transfer, to cover a portion of provincial-territorial health costs, and (2) the Canada Social Transfer, to cover the rest of the areas listed in the first sentence in this paragraph

Major Federal Transfers to Provinces and Territories
- transfers to each province and territory, covering the latest five-year period, for the four major transfer programs: the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer, Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing.
The following links are to brief descriptions of each of those transfers.

Canada Health Transfer
"the primary federal transfer to provinces and territories in support of health care"

Canada Social Transfer
"...a federal block 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"

Equalization Program

Associated Equalization

Territorial Formula FinancingTax Transfers

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Brief History of the Health and Social Transfers
- covers the period from the launch of the Canada Assistance Plan in 1966 until 2007

Federal Support for Children (and investments over time)
- incl. a brief description of, and payment information for, the Universal Child Care Plan (2006 and 2007), the Early Learning and Child Care Initiative (2005), the Early Learning and Child Care Framework Agreement (2003), Support for First Nations and Aboriginal Children (ongoing) and the Early Childhood Development Agreement (2000)

*Pre-CAP*	*CAP Legislation* CHST Legislation CST Legislation (incl. the social assistance residency question)	The "cap on CAP" (early 1990s - the beginning of the end for CAP)	*From CAP to the CHST*
*History of CAP*	*Welfare Statistics*	*1994 Social Security Review* (incl. full-text discussion paper, plus supplementary papers on CAP, guaranteed annual income, income security for children and people with disabilities)	*Analyses/Critiques of CAP and the CHST*
*A State of the Art Review of Income Security Reform in Canada* Pulkingham and Ternowetsky Online Report (Summer 1998)	*CAP, Rights and Workfare* Workfare or Work Activity Project?		*Another Look at Welfare Reform* (Fall 1997 - National Council of Welfare) [welfare reforms pre- and post-CHST]
	*post-CHST* (incl. *Federal Transfers to Provinces and Territories* from Finance Canada )		*The Right to Welfare*

°Canada Assistance Plan°
°Canada Health and Social Transfer°
°Canada Health Transfer°
°Canada Social Transfer°

°Régime d'Assistance publique du Canada°
°Transfert canadien sur les programmes de santé et les programmes sociaux°
°Transfert canadien en matière de santé°
°Transfert canadien en matière de programmes sociaux°

WELFARE IN CANADA 101

°Canada Assistance Plan°°Canada Health and Social Transfer°°Canada Health Transfer°°Canada Social Transfer°

°Régime d'Assistance publique du Canada°°Transfert canadien sur les programmes de santé et les programmes sociaux°°Transfert canadien en matière de santé°°Transfert canadien en matière de programmes sociaux°

WELFARE IN CANADA 101

°Canada Assistance Plan°
°Canada Health and Social Transfer°
°Canada Health Transfer°
°Canada Social Transfer°

°Régime d'Assistance publique du Canada°
°Transfert canadien sur les programmes de santé et les programmes sociaux°
°Transfert canadien en matière de santé°
°Transfert canadien en matière de programmes sociaux°