Guide to Welfare in Ontario

L'aide sociale en Ontario : un guide

War on Poverty - from The Toronto Star
- series of articles and editorials about the plight of Canada's needy and possible reforms to the social programs that assist them.
50+ links to articles by various Star writers and columnists!
NOTE: this link takes you to another page of the Canadian Social Research Links website. It's more complete than the content of the War on Poverty link above because it contains articles and columns that weren't included in the War on Poverty series for some strange reason...

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The 2007 Ontario provincial election and referendum took place on October 10.
For links to more info, see the Provincial-Territorial Political Parties and Elections in Canada page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/politics_prov_terr.htm

 Program Name

City of Toronto - Social Services Division
Working under the Ontario Works Act, staff in 14 community-based offices deliver the Ontario Works program by providing short-term financial support to clients and assisting them as they work toward their goal of finding paid employment.
[NOTE : This is Ontario Works as applied by the City of Toronto]

Ministry Responsible

Results-based Plan Briefing Book 2006-07 (PDF file - 288K, 21 pages)
Ministry of Community and Social Services

Recent changes in provincial-municipal relations in Ontario : a new era or missed opportunity? (PDF file - 50K, 22 pages)
April 2003
By David Siegel, Department of Political Science - Brock University
- analysis of the change in provincial-municipal relations and responsibilities in Ontario since the Mike Harris Common Sense Revolution
Source :
Municipal-Federal-Provincial Relations : New Structures / New Connections - Conference
May 9 - 10, 2003
Kingston, Ontario
Institute of Intergovernmental Relations
School of Policy Studies

Living the Vision (PDF file - 683K, 31 pages)
September 2002
- overview of how Toronto Social Services delivers social assistance programs and services to the city's residents.
Source: Social Services [City of Toronto]

Local Services Realignment : A User's Guide
November 1999
- detailed information about the shift in responsibilities for delivering and paying for services between the Government of Ontario and municipalities throughout the province.
Source : Ministry of Municipal Affairs

Related Links:
Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO)
Ontario Municipal Social Services Association (OMSSA)

Quarterly Statistical Reports - Caseloads and Beneficiaries

- five years of statistics on ODSP and OW caseloads (i.e., number of households) and beneficiaries (i.e., number of individual recipients)
- includes breakdowns by family type (singles / couples / sole support parents)

Ontario Disability Support Program Quarterly Statistical Report
Ontario Works Quarterly Statistical Report
.

Social Security Statistics, Canada and Provinces
1978-79 to 2002-03

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:
- Child Tax Benefit, Family Allowances, the Child Tax Credit, Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement/Spouse's Allowance ("The Allowance"), Federal Training and Employment Programs, Federal Goods and Services Tax Credit, the Canada/Quebec Pension Plans, War Veterans' and Civilian War Allowances, Veterans' and Civilians' Disability Pensions, Unemployment/Employment Insurance, the Canada Assistance Plan, Workers' Compensation, Youth Allowances, Social Assistance and Social Services for Registered Indians --- and more...
Source:
Social Policy Directorate
[ Policy and Strategic Direction Branch ]
[ Social Development Canada ]

Preface (short blurb only)

List of Tables
[Read the Introductory notes at the top of the page and in Appendix A of this report for all methodological notes.]
"...Tables in this report have been organized into two parts. Part I presents three Overview Tables which illustrate the trends in social security expenditures by all levels of government for Canada. Part II comprises Component Tables which provide data on beneficiaries and expenditures for individual programs."

A number of tables were removed from this edition of the Social Security Statistics report, including some tables with info on Blind Persons' Allowances, Disabled Persons' Allowances and Unemployed Assistance.
Check older editions of this report for those data.

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
- includes links to over two dozen tables (Tables 352-911) with info on federal contributions under the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) and the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) to the cost of provincial and territorial welfare programs.
NOTE: for more info about CAP, the CHST and the Canada Social Transfer (CST, which replaced the CHST in April 2004), see the Canada Assistance Plan / Canada Health and Social Transfer / Canada Social Transfer Resources page of this site.

A few sample tables:

Table 360 - Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Program Expenditures, 1978-79 to 2002-03
NOTE: Table 360 traces the evolution/devolution of transfers under the Canada Assistance Plan (in dollars) from 1976 to 1999. No new claims were paid out under CAP after the Canada Health and Social Transfer came into effect in April 1996; amounts shown as CAP expenditures for the fiscal years after 1995-96 are final settlements with each jurisdiction for all outstanding commitments by the federal government.

Table 361: Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) - Number of Beneficiaries of General Assistance (including dependants), as of March 31, 1979 to 1996
- This is a key table for research on welfare programs - welfare dependency statistics by jurisdiction over the years. These are the final, definitive numbers.

Table 362 : Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Expenditures for General Assistance, by Province/Territory, 1978-79 to 1995-96
- this table should be of special interest for welfare historians and number-crunchers - it shows exactly when Canadian government spending on welfare (by the federal and provincial/territorial governments) started looking a little fuzzier. When the feds imposed the cap on CAP (max. 5% annual increase in total CAP payments) in Ontario, Alberta and BC in the early 1990s, those three provinces stopped reporting how much of their CAP dollars were going to welfare (vs. other CAP components covered under the same federal contribution). Table 362 shows that as of 1991-92, the federal contribution to those three provinces for General Assistance appears as "n/a" - so it's been impossible to produce a national figure since then. Unless, of course, one wanders over into the minefield of provincial government welfare statistics, where welfare programs (and related expenditures) have undergone a major transformation. If you *do* want to check out welfare stats for each Canadian jurisdiction, your best starting point is the Key Welfare Links Page of this website - http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/welfare.htm - which includes links to welfare stats in each province and territory where they're available.

Table 434
Total Federal Payments under CAP, 1978-79 to 1999-2000
[The note under table 360 also applies to this table. ]

Table 435
Number of Beneficiaries (including dependants) of Provincial and Municipal Social Assistance, as of March 31, 1997 to 2003

Table 438
Provincial and Municipal Social Assistance Program Expenditures, 1980-81 to 2002-03

Table 526
Provincial and Territorial Children's Benefits and Earned Income Supplements, Expenditures for Fiscal years 1978-79 to 2002-03

Ontario Disability Support Program Act

Ontario Works Act

Other regulations under the same statute:

- Regulations
[Not always the latest version]

Ontario Regulation 222/98
(Ontario Disability Support Program General Regulation )

Other regulations under the same statute:

- Administration and Cost-sharing
- Assistance for Children with severe Disabilities
- Employment Supports
- Prescribed Policy Statements

Ontario Regulation 134/98
(Ontario Works General Regulation)

Other regulations under the same statute:

- Administration and Cost-sharing
- Designation of Geographic Areas and Delivery Agents
- Prescribed Policy Statements
- Proposed Geographic Areas

ODSP Income Support Policy Directives - the ODSP Income Support policy manual.

ODSP - Employment Support Directives

See part V of the Ontario Disability Support Program Regulation

 Calculating Assistance (PDF)
(from the Ontario Works Policy Directives manual- see above)
- See also s.41 of the Ontario Works Regulation

Basic Needs and Shelter Policy
(from the Toronto Social Services Policy Manual - see above)

Ontario Non-Governmental Organizations and Municipalities - This Canadian Social Research Links page includes links to a few municipal governments' websites, but what you'll find there are mainly sites of social groups and networks - from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty to Workfare Watch. You'll also find a number of links to reports and studies on welfare and welfare reforms in Ontario produced by these groups or, in some cases, by municipal governments.

Ontario Government Links - On this Canadian Social Research Links page, you'll find links to the main Ontario government ministries and agencies in the field of social programs, and links to some annual reports, budgets and suchlike.

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.
- incl. a chapter on Ontario
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

Also from the National Council of Welfare:

Welfare Incomes 2005 (PDF file - 1.4MB, 116 pages)
August 2006
"Welfare Incomes 2005 estimates total welfare incomes for four types of households in each province and territory, for a total of 52 scenarios. The four household types we use are a single employable person, a single person with a disability, a lone-parent with a 2-year-old child, and a two-parent family with two children aged 10 and 15. The National Council of Welfare has published similar estimates since 1986."

Staggering losses in welfare incomes (PDF file - 524K, 2 pages)
Press release
August 24, 2006

FACT SHEETS from Welfare Incomes 2005
# Welfare Incomes by Province and Territory, Peak Year and 2005
# Welfare Incomes by Household Type: Losses, Peak Year to 2005
# Welfare Incomes Over Time: 1986 to 2005 by Province and Territory
# Welfare Incomes 2005 by Province and Territory and Type of Household
# Welfare Incomes 2005 by Type of Household and Province/Territory (graph)
# Adequacy of 2005 Welfare Incomes by Province
# The Clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement
# Changes in Welfare Incomes for Families with Children, 1997 to 2005 (graph)
# Methodology Used for Welfare Incomes
# Number of People on Welfare, March 1995 to March 2005 (PDF file - 133K, 1 page)

Council Publications - includes links to earlier editions of Welfare Incomes, along with other reports produced by the National Council of Welfare, on welfare and other related topics