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Dedication
This site is dedicated to the memory of my
dear mother Muriel Berthiaume,
who passed away on January 27, 2005.
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Welcome
to Canadian Social Research Links!
My name is
Gilles Séguin.
I've been involved in the social program information field
since the fall of 1975, when I joined the Cost-Shared Programs Directorate of
the Department of National Health and Welfare to work in a shop called the Canada
Assistance Plan. My job there was to produce summaries of provincial/territorial
social assistance (welfare) programs based on the legislation and policy manuals
of each jurisdiction. Less than a year later, I was asked if I'd be interested
in taking on the responsibility of maintaining a similar report in a different
branch, for distribution to some 300 federal, provincial and territorial government
welfare administrators; I thought it might be fun for awhile, so I monitored
and chronicled welfare programs from the summer of 1976 ---
until 1994. That's when the welfare mandate was transferred and I moved, along
with the other welfare folks, to a new department called Human Resources Development
Canada. HRDC went through a few name changes over the years, but [for now at
least] the name is Human Resources and Skills
Development Canada.
[ For a more complete history of the name changes
of my former department, see http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/hrsdc.htm#general_info
]
---
Nineteen ninety-four
was the start of a tumultuous period that saw the rise and fall of the ill-fated
Lloyd Axworthy Social Security Reviewand the announcement, in the February 1995
federal budget, of a significant change in the way the feds would be contributing
to provincial/territorial social programs starting in April 1996.
(See the CAP/CHST Resources page of this site for more
on all that...)
Beginning in the summer of 1996, I spent a year on secondment
with the National Council of Welfare. During
that time, I did the research and wrote the provincial-territorial section of
a report entitled Another
Look at Welfare Reform (100+ pages of information on Canadian welfare
reforms in the nineties, published in the fall of 1997) and the 1995 welfare
incomes report. Check out the Council's Publications
List for two dozen online reports, mostly about poverty and welfare in Canada.
In the summer of 1997, I rejoined my old group in the Social
Policy Directorate of the Strategic Policy Branch in HRDC.
Here, until the
next website "restructuring", is where you can find the link to my old
group, the Social
Policy Directorate.
In November of 1997,
I launched Canadian Social Research Links, on my own time and on my own dime,
so that I could share my collection of web links with colleagues in the social
research community, whether in government, the non-governmental sector or academia.
I started the Canadian Social Research Newsletter as a
convenience within a few months after the site launch for folks who didn't have
the time to visit the site regularly, and it quickly took on a life of its own...
...to
the point where I decided the day job was taking up time that I preferred to devote
to maintaining my site and newsletter.
I left the federal civil service on
October 17, 2003 to do just that.
Even though I'm
no longer working with the federal government, I'd still like to draw your attention
to some excellent social program resources that you'll find on the website of
my old Directorate:
Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2007
Posted online July 15, 2010
Prepared by:
Federal-Provincial-Territorial Directors of Income Support
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"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. >
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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 Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (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. This is a snapshot of what welfare was like
in Canada before the Canada Health and Social Transfer in 1996...
[ More
info about the OECD study of welfare in 24 countries - includes
a country report on Canada - *also* recommended reading! ]
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Social Security Statistics, Canada and Provinces
1978-79 to 2002-03
.
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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...
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
Workers' Compensation tables and tables with info on Blind
Persons' Allowances, Disabled Persons' Allowances and Unemployed Assistance
Total Federal-Provincial Cost-Shared Payments.
Check
older editions of this report for those data.
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).
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
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.
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So happy I could just... |
Annie's Garden Pics |
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Polls and Surveys? (here's
why we shouldn't rely on them too much...) |
 Gilles'
CLOSETCAM Be sure to hit your Reload button often to get the most
recent ClosetCam shot! - Then visit the ClosetCam Archives... ----------------------------------------------------
During
March 2006, Gilles' CLOSETCAM page was viewed 79 times, and the CLOSETCAM
Archive page was viewed 72 times.! |
Personal
Photos (sorry, no nudes - go here
for the only nude on this site - and no, it AIN'T me.) NOTE:
I had some of the links to my photos on this page, but I've decided to keep the
personal photos (of me) together on a single page. Go here to see my Toque Tuesday
toque, my St. Christopher House T-shirt, my smoking cessation acupuncture photo,
my $32.50 fish, etc...
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Ode
to Traductors
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So why do I do this?
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If
you're curious about my web experience, see my Web Authoring
Tools page - I've included links to some of the web resources that I use.
Light on the techno-babble, mostly links and leftovers picked up during my trip
up the Internet learning curve...
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How
Stuff Works The Middle-Aged Guy's Secret Guide
to everything from air conditioners to Van de Graaff generators. A treasure trove
of links to information about everything under the sun - or just about. Makes
me feel like a kid again, taking Dad's electric razor apart... Everyone
should plan a visit to this site - I guarantee you'll find something to pique
your curiosity. | |
| Procrastination
Research Groups - Here's a link
to the real group at Carleton University in Ottawa (I found this while I was
procrastinating about something else) -Here's a
link to the Ottawa-Carleton Procrastination Group (I'm
the Chairperson, webmaster and only member - I haven't gotten around to asking
people to join...) |
Thinking
of moving to ROGERS@HOME? See my Rogers@Home
Adventure page (I don't update this page anymore;
I created it late in 1998 and I just saved it for "historical" purposes) | |
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Gilles' Culinary Pages!!
1. My Culinary Guru's Philosophy
2. My Favourite Recipes |
Links,
Musings and Silly Stuff My original home
page November 1997 | |
| it's,
its - WHATEVER. |
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| TIP:
How to Search for a Word or Expression on a Single Web
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Control ("Ctrl") key on your keyboard and type the letter F to open
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E-mail
- gilseg@rogers.com
Site launched November 13, 1997