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"Freelaw® is free, unlimited access to up-to-date electronic versions of all Government of Saskatchewan Public and Private Acts, Regulations, The Saskatchewan Gazette, Forms, Rules of Court and Historical legislation - all fully downloadable and searchable in Portable Document Format (PDF)"

Legislative Assembly
Assembly Publications - Hansard, Journals Papers, Bills
Members, including links to Liberal and NDP Caucus pages

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Executive Council

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Department of Social Services
(name changed Nov/07, formerly Community Resources)
- incl. links to : * Services for Children and Families /* Services for People with Disabilities * Services for Low-income People * About Saskatchewan * About Government * About Social Services * Archived News Releases * Common Questions * Ministry Overview * Forms & Publications * Legislation * Office of Disability Issues * Programs & Services * Saskatchewan Housing * much more...

After a Saskatchewan government reorganization in April 2006, a number of departments' mandates were changed, including the department responsible for welfare. The old Department of Social Services had changed its name to Community Resources and Employment back in 2003, and the 2006 shuffle saw the "Employment" segment (including the Provincial Training Allowance) moved over to Advanced Education and Employment.
Saskatchewan Community Resources is the name of the Department responsible for welfare in Saskatchewan.

Saskatchewan Community Resources
2006-2007 Annual Report (PDF file - 816K, 33 pages)

Social Services is the Department responsible for welfare in Saskatchewan.

Name of the welfare program
Social Assistance Program
Transitional Employment Allowance (TEA)

Legislation
Saskatchewan Assistance Act
NOTE: the links below take you to the front page for each reg - from that page, just click the "Open Document" button to open a PDF file with the regulation
- Saskatchewan Assistance Regulations ===> main welfare regulations
- Employment Supplement Regulations
- Benefit Adjustment Regulations
- Transitional Employment Allowance Regulations
- Rental Housing Supplement Regulations
- Disability Housing Supplement Regulations
- Saskatchewan Assistance Plan Supplementary Health Benefits Regulations

Policy Manual
Social Assistance Plan Policy Manual Online (PDF file - 468K, 148 pages - September 2007)
Social Assistance Handbook (PDF file - 468K, 24 pages)
Transitional Employment Allowance Policy Manual (PDF file - 176K, 37 pages)

Welfare statistics
No statistics available on the Community Resources website
- See Number of People on Welfare, March 1995 to March 2005 (PDF file - 133K, 1 page)
Source: National Council of Welfare

Welfare rates (benefits)
Current Social Assistance Rates (PDF file - 189K, 1 page)
See also section 25 of the Saskatchewan Assistance Regulations
Chapter 15 of the SAP Policy Manual Online (see link above) offers information on individual items of need and special needs, but no rate tables
Transitional Employment Allowance Rate Schedule (PDF file - 136K)

Latest search results on Google.ca for
"welfare, -child, -animal, Saskatchewan"
- Web search results
- News search results
- Blog search results

Related Links

2006-2007 Annual Report (PDF file - 816K, 33 pages)
Other income assistance programs:
--- Saskatchewan Income Plan (for seniors)
--- Food Security
--- Child Nutrition and Development Program
Saskatchewan Employment Supplement (SES)
- monthly payment that supplements the income earned by lower income parents from wages, self-employment and child/spousal maintenance payments
Provincial Training Allowance
Family Health Benefits - provides benefits for families eligible for the Saskatchewan Child Benefit and families eligible for the Saskatchewan Employment Supplement
Current Issues Surrounding Poverty and
Welfare Programming in Canada : Two Reviews (PDF file - 371K, 43 pages) - August 2003
- interesting comparison of recent welfare reforms in Saskatchewan, Canada, the U.S. and Britain
- includes a bonus ten-page article entitled Low Income Cut-Offs (LICO) and Poverty Measurement (LICO, Market Basket Measure, etc.)
TIP===> See the appendix to this report (pp 27-31) for a detailed comparison of the main features of the "old" Saskatchewan Assistance Plan (welfare) and the new Transitional Employment Allowance.
Source: Social Policy Research Unit (SPR) [ School of Social Work - University of Regina ]

For more information about welfare in other Canadian jurisdictions,
see the Canadian Social Research Links Key Provincial/Territorial Welfare Links page

Selected news releases:

Province Boosts Support for Vulnerable Children and Families
Foster families will be getting more financial support
August 31, 2007
Foster families will be getting more financial support, Community Resources Minister Kevin Yates announced today. The funding is part of an $18 million package to increase support for vulnerable children and families in the province.

Also from Community Resources:

Government provides support for
housing costs and launches information line
News Release
August 29, 2007
The provincial government is providing immediate help to address rising housing costs through increased shelter allowances. (...)
The changes include:
• increasing the shelter rate for most Social Assistance Program and Transitional Employment Allowance recipients by $5 to $75 per month;
• increasing the Saskatchewan Rental Housing Supplement by $6 to $21 per month. The supplement is available to lower-income families and people with disabilities, including those who are working in lower paying jobs; and
• increasing the Provincial Training Allowance by $20 to $35 per month. The allowance is available to people enrolled in adult basic education and quick skills programs.
[Backgrounder - small PDF file, one-page overview of Saskatchewan income supports for housing --- the Social Assistance Program, the Transitional Employment Allowance, the Provincial Training Allowance, and the Saskatchewan Rental Housing Supplement.]

Related Links:

Child poverty: setting new goals
November 24, 2004
CAROL GOAR
"Giving up is not an option. But clinging to a faded dream is not a solution.
So today, on the 15th anniversary of his parliamentary resolution to end child poverty by 2000, Ed Broadbent will set a new goal. He will challenge Canadians to reduce the child poverty rate to 5 per cent within 10 years. His new target lacks the tidy finality of the one he persuaded all MPs to endorse on Nov. 24, 1989, shortly before his retirement as leader of the New Democratic Party. It is less ambitious, less appealing.But Broadbent, who returned to active politics this year, believes it is realistic and achievable. He calls it 'a new agenda for a new time.'
The child poverty rate currently stands at 15 per cent. It was 15.2 per cent when Broadbent issued his clarion call 15 years ago."
Source:
The Toronto Star

Complete report:

One million too many: Implementing solutions to child poverty in Canada
2004 report card on child poverty in Canada [pdf, 12pp, 186KB]
November 24, 2004

Source:
Provincial Child Poverty Report Cards: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia
NOTE: click the link above to access current and historical poverty reports for all six provinces.

Source:
Campaign 2000

Current Issues Surrounding Poverty and Welfare Programming in Canada : Two Reviews (PDF file - 371K, 43 pages)
("Race to the Bottom: Welfare to Work Programming in Saskatchewan and its Similarities to Programming in the United States and Britain")
By Garson Hunter, Ph.D & Dionne Miazdyck, Research Assistant
August 2003
- interesting comparison of recent welfare reforms in Saskatchewan, Canada, the U.S. and Britain
- includes a bonus ten-page article entitled Low Income Cut-Offs (LICO) and Poverty Measurement (LICO, Market Basket Measure, etc.)
TIP===> the appendix to this report (pp 27-31) presents a detailed comparison of the main features of the Saskatchewan Assistance Plan (the old Saskatchewan welfare program) and the new Transitional Employment Allowance.

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Saskatchewan Welfare Reform Lacks a New Vision for Social Assistance
News Release
Fraser Institute
January 16, 2003
"Saskatchewan has failed to fundamentally reform welfare and must implement major changes to reduce caseloads, increase the employment and earnings of welfare recipients, and decrease provincial spending on social services, says a new study, Welfare in Saskatchewan: A Critical Evaluation, released today by The Fraser Institute."
NOTE: The news release contains the authors' seven recommendations for reforming the delivery of social services in Saskatchewan.
For the record, I agree with and support recommendation number six - and only recommendation number six (improvement of earnings exemption provisions).

Welfare in Saskatchewan: A Critical Evaluation
Chris Schafer and Jason Clemens
Fraser Institute\
November 2002
Executive Summary -
Complete report (PDF file - 298K, 50 pages)
Source : The Fraser Institute

Even though I disagree fundamentally with the Fraser Institute's view on the "success" of welfare reforms in Saskatchewan, I feel it's important to share this information about how one faction of Canadian society feels about welfare reforms and social programs in general.

The authors state that "[S]askatchewan politicians have chosen not to more fundamentally reform the welfare system, as other Canadian jurisdictions have", referring specifically to the deep welfare cuts in Alberta (1993), Ontario (1995) and BC (2002), provinces that they offer as models for Canadian welfare reform. Ironically, the National Council of Welfare (NCW) applauded the Saskatchewan government back in 1997 for exactly the same reason in Another Look at Welfare Reform : "Compared with some other provinces, Saskatchewan had done better for its welfare recipients by doing nothing." I wrote those words myself, in my role as as principal researcher for the NCW's welfare reform report, and I'm sure that even the harshest social critics of the government of Saskatchewan wouldn't argue that point about welfare in their province in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Another Look at Welfare Reform (Autumn 1997) (large file - 275K - 84 pages if printed)
- looks at welfare reforms in each Canadian jurisdiction in the 1990s
Source : National Council of Welfare

I suspect that the difference in perspective is that the NCW represents the interests of disadvantaged Canadians while the Fraser Institute speaks for the rich and the corporations
Read about both organizations:

National Council of Welfare ("...advises the Minister [of Human Resources Development Canada] on the needs and problems of low-income Canadians and on social and related programs and policies which affect their welfare...")
Funding for the NCW : the federal government.

About the Fraser Institute - "Founded in 1974 at a time when many Canadians believed that government should be the principal source of growth and development in the economy, the Institute has helped bring about a considerable shift in public opinion in recognition of the importance of market competition."
Funding for the Institute: "The majority of the Institute’s revenues are derived from the donations of its members, and from research foundations."
(from the Institute's 2001 annual report - PDF file - 860K, 32 pages)

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Service Canada Regional Information:
Saskatchewan
This page provides information on region-specific services for Individuals, Business and Organizations.
Services include: Jobs * Financial Benefits * Employment Insurance * Taxes * Training and Careers * Identification Cards * Travel and Passports * Health * Consumer Information * Canada and the World * Environment and Resources * Economy * Public Safety * Culture and Recreation * Science and Technology.
Source:
Service Canada
Human Resources and Social Development Canada

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Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy
The Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy (SIPP) is a non-profit, independent, non-partisan institute at the University of Regina committed to stimulating public policy debate and providing expertise, research and analysis on social, economic, fiscal, environmental, and administrative issues related to public policy.

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Saskatchewan Office - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
- Publications

Poor in Saskatchewan need more than Transitional Employment Allowance:
Province’s Building Independence Program forces the poor into “low wage” trap
Press Release
October 14, 2005
"Monday, October 17th has been declared International Day for the Eradication of Poverty by the United Nations. However, anti-poverty groups and researchers at the University of Regina say Saskatchewan has lost a significant opportunity to eradicate poverty. Rather than using larger than expected budget surpluses from oil and gas royalties to deal with poverty, the province has extensively reduced social assistance (welfare) benefits. 'The government claims there has been a 41% reduction in welfare caseloads in Saskatchewan since they introduced their Building Independence Program in 1997 and that they are making progress in dealing with poverty,' says Dr. Garson Hunter, co-author of a new research report on poverty in Saskatchewan released today by the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of Regina and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives."

Complete report:

Poor need more than T.E.A.: Saskatchewan’s Building Independence
Program forces people into “low wage” traps (PDF file - 239K, 4 pages)

Source:

Saskatchewan Office - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
--- Publications
[Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) - National Office]

Welfare to Work

Current Issues Surrounding Poverty and Welfare Programming in Canada: Two Reviews (PDF file - 338K, 49 pages)
June 2004
"...argues that Canada has followed the United States in welfare programming, and has blended the United States model with ideology borrowed from British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Third Way welfare approach to produce its own hybrid welfare programming model. The paper examines the local experimentation of welfare programming in the province of Saskatchewan, and makes comparisons between welfare programming for the vulnerable population of the poor in Saskatchewan to the welfare programming for the poor in the United States and Britain."

NOTE: recommended reading - detailed info on welfare reforms in Canada and more specifically in Saskatchewan, includes analysis of the National Child Benefit and Saskatchewan NCB programs!

Related Link:

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) - National Office
"The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is an independent, non-partisan research institute concerned with issues of social and economic justice. Founded in 1980, the CCPA is one of Canada’s leading progressive voices in public policy debates. By combining solid research with extensive outreach, we work to enrich democratic dialogue and ensure Canadians know there are workable solutions to the issues we face. "

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Community-University Institute for Social Research
[ University of Saskatchewan ]

"Off Welfare … Now What?": A Literature Review on the Impact of Provincial Welfare to
Work Training Programs in Saskatchewan (PDF file - 449K, 37 pages)
by Carmen Dyck
October 2004
Community-University Institute for Social Research
University of Saskatchewan
"This research project seeks to understand the effects of Saskatchewan's government job training programs, such as Jobs First, not only on poverty in Saskatchewan, but also on participants in these programs. The provincial government claims that job training programs have decreased the number of people living on social assistance, and while this may be true, it does not capture the realities of people who have been moved from assistance into job training programs or minimum wage full time jobs, neither of which provide an adequate sustainable income. This report gathers and evaluates the literature on welfare to work programs for both Saskatchewan and Canada. It seeks to understand the difficulty of living on assistance rates, regardless of whether they are called training benefits, transitional employment allowances, or supplementary employment benefits, as well as the reality of living on minimum wage, the differences for people in rural areas, and the disparities of these programs for women and men."

Source:
Publications ===>links to over three dozen reports in CUISR's three focused research modules:
1. Community Health Determinants and Health Policy
2. Community Economic Development, and
3. Quality of Life Indicators.
[ Community-University Institute for Social Research ]
- incl. links to : About CUISR - Research Modules - Research Series - Publications - Resource Library - Other Resources - Conferences & Seminars - Funding & Training - Employment - Search - Contact Us
[ University of Saskatchewan ]

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Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence
"The Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence is one of the Centres of Excellence for Women’s Health supported by the Women’s Health Bureau of Health Canada. The Centres are dedicated to improving the health status of Canadian women by supporting policy-oriented, and community-based research and analysis on the social determinants of women’s health."

Women and Social Assistance Policy in Saskatchewan and Manitoba
May 2005
By Josephine Savarese, Department of Justice Studies, University of Regina and
Bonnie Morton, Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry
"The Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence (PWHCE) Research Program on Poverty and Women's Health has supported several studies that examine the links between public policy, women's poverty and women's health. In 2003, PWHCE initiated three research projects designed to examine income assistance policies in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and their effects on women's health. Reports from two of these projects were published in 2004: Don't We Count As People: Saskatchewan Social Welfare Policy and Women's Health and Surviving on Hope is Not Enough: Women's Health, Poverty, Justice and Income Support in Manitoba. These two studies were based on several focus groups held in each province and were designed to bring forward the voices and perspectives of those most directly affected by income assistance policies. As Wharf and MacKenzie have noted, 'the knowledge and experience gap between those who make policy and those who must live with the consequences is enormous.' The research helps bridge that gap by providing an important critique of income assistance policies from the perspectives of women living on welfare. The women's descriptions of their experiences reveal the inadequacy of income assistance benefits and the harmful effects on their physical and emotional health."

Complete report (PDF file - 927K, 62 pages)
NOTE: the complete report includes both studies noted above.

Don't We Count as People? Saskatchewan Social Welfare Policy and Women's Health
By M. Kerr, D. Frost, D. Bignell and Equal Justice for All.
February 2004
"(...) This project was part of a larger initiative sponsored by the Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence to examine social assistance policies in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, their impact on women's health, and women's access to justice as recipients of social assistance. Seven focus groups were held with 43 women living on social assistance in five of the eleven administrative regions of Saskatchewan in April 2003. In focus group discussions, these women described the daily reality of their lives and the impact of social assistance policies on their physical and emotional health."
Executive Summary
Complete report (PDF file - 871K, 58 pages)

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SaskNetWork
The SaskNetWork web site is about helping the people of Saskatchewan connect to the resources they need in the areas of jobs, work, education and training, career planning, self-employment, labour market information, financial help and the workplace.

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WORKink Saskatchewan - "The Virtual Employment Resource Centre" (for people with disabilities)
Career and Employment Resources for Persons with Disabilities
- Links to a wide range of information for people with disabilities and those who support them.
Source:
Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work

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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 (275K+) 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

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List of issues to be taken up in connection with the consideration of the third periodic report of Canada : United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (June 10, 1998)
Saskatchewan Government Response to the U.N. List of Issues

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City of Regina

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Regina Leader-Post
Saskatoon Star-Phoenix
University of Regina
Saskatchewan News (comprehensive list of daily, weekly and regional newspapers in Saskatchewan)

Public Legal Education Association of Saskatchewan (PLEA)