Welfare
Reforms in Canada | Réformes
de l'aide sociale au Canada |
Updated
January 21, 2009
Page révisée le 21 janvier 2009
[
Go to Canadian Social Research Links Home Page ]
Government
transfer payments to persons
On this one table, you'll find the latest
five years' worth of information on national expenditures (provincial stats available
for a small fee) in the area of transfers to persons, which includes (among other
programs):
* Family and youth allowances * Child tax
benefit or credit * Pensions - First and Second World Wars * War veterans' allowances
* Grants to aboriginal persons and organizations * Goods and services tax credit
* Employment insurance benefits * Old Age Security Fund payments * Provincial
Social assistance, income maintenance * Social assistance, other [bolding
added] * Workers compensation benefits * Canada and Quebec Pension Plans.
NOTE:
In case you're interested in province-level stats, click the "384-0009"
link under 'Source' at the bottom of the table. There you can obtain more specialized
CANSIM tables, including provincial tables, for a few dollars each. The "Find
information related to this table" link (which is also at the bottom of the
StatCan table) contains methodological notes and other related StatCan products,
many of which are free of charge.
Source:
Statistics
Canada
----------------------------------------------
When
'poorhouse' wasn't only an expression
A local museum preserves in harrowing detail the stories of a forgotten institution
January
3, 2009
By Tracey Tyler
"(...) Though more commonly associated with
Victorian England and novels by Charles Dickens, such as Oliver Twist, the poorhouse
was part of Canada's social fabric for more than 60 years and one of its earliest
legislated responses to poverty."
Source:
The
Toronto Star
----------------------------------------------
Dorothea
Crittenden: Canada's first woman deputy minister
reformed welfare and social
assistance
December
24, 2008
Obituary
By Gay Abbate
"(...) Dorothea Crittenden was a
trailblazer who devoted her life to helping build Ontario's welfare system. She
was also a key player in the creation of the Canada Assistance Plan, a federal-provincial
cost-sharing plan that guarantees all Canadians equal access to social assistance."
As
a rule, I don't include links to obituaries on my site or in my newsletter. In
this case, however, I've made an exception based on the valuable historical insights
that I've found in the obituary, and moreso in the paper below by John Stapleton,
and that I wanted to share with Canadian social historians --- more pieces of
the puzzle, as it were...
[...and no, I won't link to your Aunt Bertha's obituary.
Don't even ask.]
The above obituary
by Gay Abbate appeared in The Globe and Mail on December 23, and it's based in
part on information provided by Dr. Crittenden in the course of interviews with
John Stapleton in 1991.
The content of those interviews appears in the paper
below, which provides valuable historical information about Canadian social policy
from the Depression to the mid-1970's when she was Ontario's Deputy Minister of
Community and Social Services. Of particular interest to Canadian social historians,
I'm sure, will be sections like * What Ontario gave up for CAP * Project 500 in
the 1970s * the cap on CAP (I should note that the cap on CAP was in the early
1990s and not the 1980s, as noted in the above obituary. John's paper has the
correct info on that.)
Coming
of Age in a Man’s World:
The Life, Times and Wisdom of Dorothea Crittenden,
Canada’s
First Female Deputy Minister (PDF - 355K, 22 pages)
January 2007
Source:
Open
Policy (John Stapleton's website)
From
the website of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada:
Income
assistance (welfare / social assistance) for
Members of First Nations living
on reserve*: Income
Assistance Program - from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC)
INAC
has engaged in on-reserve income assistance activities since 1964, with the broad
objective of providing individuals and families with the means to meet basic needs
for food, clothing and shelter. (...) As a matter of policy, INAC follows the
terms and conditions of provincial and territorial general assistance [welfare]
programs. While INAC may directly deliver the income assistance program, the program
has been largely devolved. The Department's present involvement in income assistance
activities is primarily to provide funding to First Nations who in turn deliver
programs and services to community members. In 2006-2007, 534 First Nations administered
their own program (This figure does not include First Nations functioning under
self-government arrangements). ---
* First
Nations members living off-reserve must apply for welfare to the provincial athority
where they reside.
For more info on provincial/territorial welfare programs,
go to the Key Provincial/Territorial Welfare Links page:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/welfare.htm
--- Related
link: Income
Assistance Program - National Manual
NOTE : includes excellent information
on the history of social assistance to members of
Canada's First Nations along
with information on the federal-provincial-First Nations roles and responsibilites
in the area of income assistance.
Table of Contents:
* Introduction
* Definitions
* 1 - Backgrounder
* 2 - Program Components
* 3 - Funding
Arrangements
* 4 - Financial Administration
* 5 - Reporting and Compliance
* Annex A - Resource Information and Links
* Annex B - Resident On-reserve
Communities
* Annex C - Income Assistance on Site Compliance Review Process Social
Programs
In addition to income assistance, INAC supports "province-like
social programs" in First Nation communities including education, early childhood
development, housing, family violence prevention and help for persons with disabilities.
Click the link above for general information or click any link below for more
specific info. * Assisted
Living Program * Family
Violence Prevention Program * Justice
* Non-Insured
Health Benefits * Band
Moneys * Indian
Status * Wills
and Estates * National
Child Benefit Reinvestment Initiative * First
Nation Child and Family Services Program * Early
Childhood Development Source:
Indian
and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC)
|
-------------------------------------------
Table of contents
for this page: Scroll down the
page or use one of the links below to jump to a particular section further down
on the page.
|
NOTE:
This page offers links to information about welfare reforms in Canada from an
historical perspective and on a national scale.
It hasn't been updated very
often since September 2005, but it contains some historical nuggets...
For
links to information about provincial-territorial welfare reforms, go to the
home page of this site and select a jurisdiction in the left-hand column of
the page. See also:
Anti-poverty strategies
and poverty reduction campaigns:
--- Provincial and
territorial information
--- National/federal
& international information
|
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Poverty
in Canada
- incl. links to : * History of poverty in Canada * Measures
of poverty in Canada * Low income groups in Canada * Effects of poverty in Canada
* Assistance for poor people in Canada (Government transfers and intervention
- Non-governmental assistance) * more... Welfare
reform
Movements in many countries around the
world push for welfare reform. Sizeable and powerful reform movements exist in
the United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, and France among many others.
-
incl. the following : * United States * The Welfare System and reform in Great
Britain * The Welfare System and reform in France * References * External links
|
NOTE:
In my view, the following is a milestone historical document on social assistance
in Canada and elsewhere in the world.
It's a comprehensive overview of how
social assistance (welfare) operated in 24 countries (including Canada) in the
mid-1990s.
I highly recommend it for all welfare (and social policy) historians.
------------ Welfare
historians, rejoice!! This two-volume study from
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released in
the mid-1990s, is a critical and comparative overview of
how social assistance or welfare operated in the mid-1990s in 24 countries (including
Canada, with a special focus on Ontario). The chapter on Canada presents a factual
snapshot of how welfare was working in Canada just before the 50-50 federal cost-sharing
under the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) was replaced by a block fund, the Canada
Health and Social Transfer, in April of 1996. The
OECD study consisted of a two-stream approach: for each country involved in the
study, an "expert informant" (academic) and a "national government
official" received a questionnaire on social assistance programs. The questionnaires
were different from one another - federal government officials were asked to provide
factual responses to over 70 questions, while the academics' questionnaire focused
more on an in-depth critique of those same programs. Social Work Professor Patricia
Evans was the Canadian expert informant, and I completed
the submission on behalf of the Canadian government (see the link immediately
below). Social
Assistance in Canada, 1994 is the final submission of the Canadian
federal government in the context of the study.
It contains over 40 pages of
information on Canadian social assistance programs as they operated in 1994. The
final submission about welfare in Canada to the report team was posted to the
website of the Department that's now called Human
Resources and Skills Development Canada. I occasionally rant about shortcomings
of HRSDC's website, so it's only fitting that I give them credit for something
creditable, like leaving an historical document about welfare in Canada available
on their website. Well done, HRSDC! I should emphasize
that Social Assistance in Canada, 1994 is only ONE of the two source documents
used by the team responsible for drafting the final report for the OECD. The other
source was Professor Evans' submission, which was, as noted above, more of a critical
perspective. [ See Background
for more contextual information on the Canadian portion of the study. ]
Following the same methodology as for all participating countries, information
from both submissions - the expert informant's and the national government official's
- was woven together into one coherent text by one of the co-authors of the report.
The resulting Canada chapter (Chapter 5, pages 78-108) that appears in Volume
II of the report is quite balanced because of the two-stream approach; I recommend
it. NOTE: Social Assistance
in Canada, 1994 contains some info that the Canada chapter in the OECD report
doesn't include; I'd suggest reading both. --- *
NOTE: I mentioned "FREE" in the blurb above because the total
cost of the paper version of both volumes was close to $400 in Canada when it
was released in 1996.
On behalf of social researchers, a big THANKS to the
U.K. Dept. of Pensions and Work for making this available to the masses.
|
Different
eligibility tests used in Canadian financial assistance programs:
Here's
a quick overview of the various types of tests used in Canada to establish eligibility
for income maintenance and social assistance programs in Canada: Income
test:
- only the applicant's income (and not his/her assets) is considered
in determining eligibility for the program. Eligibility for many of Canada’s
income security programs is based on an income-test, including the Canada Child
Tax Benefit, the Guaranteed
Income Supplement [click for more info] and the Spouse’s Allowance under
the Old Age Security program, and the refundable Goods and Services Tax Credit. Needs
test (used only in provincial-territorial welfare programs):
- involves
determination of the applicant's assets, income and regularly-recurring needs
(all of which are defined and quantified in provincial welfare regulation). After
the assets of the household are examined and determined to be within the approved
exemption limits, the household's non-exempted income is compared with its needs,
and if there is a budget deficit, assistance may be granted. Provincial-territorial
social assistance (welfare) programs are all needs-tested.
(See the Canadian
Social Research Links Key
Provincial and Territorial Government Welfare Links page for relevant links). Means
test:
- in Canada, the "means test" was
(long ago) used to determine eligibility for some types of income assistance programs.
The means test involved establishing that the applicant's means, i.e., assets
and income, were less than the standards set for the program.
All eligible
applicants received the same benefit, which was a flat-rate amount.
Some of
the programs that were folded into the Canada Assistance Plan in 1966, such as
Blind Persons' Allowances and Disabled Persons' Allowances, used the means test
approach. Where a client's assets and income were below set thresholds, the person
received $75 per month. BUT...
In the international
jargon, a means test is the same* as Canada's needs test --- assets, income and
needs are all taken into consideration.
[*...except when an author uses
the expression in the generic sense, i.e., "tested according to the means
(or resources) of the applicant."]
|
For a detailed review of the framework
of Canadian welfare programs, see Social
Assistance in Canada, 1994 - click on "Manuscript (questions)". The information
is presented in question-and-answer format, and it's an important snapshot of
welfare in Canada in 1994 as well as a good general overview of social assistance
in the era of 50-50 cost sharing between the federal and provincial/territorial
governments. It's over 40 pages of information on eligibility, benefits,
administrative rules, caseloads, legislative framework, and more. It includes
information about cost-sharing of welfare costs between the federal and provincial/territorial
governments under the Canada Assistance Plan.
This work was part of a larger
study of social assistance in 24 countries released by the OECD early in 1996.
|
If you're not sure how welfare works in Canada, I highly
recommend the first chapter of Welfare
Incomes 2006 and 2007 (PDF - 17MB, 167 pages) entitled What
is Welfare? from the National Council of Welfare. That chapter
contains information on the administrative rules and financial eligibility
criteria (asset and income exemptions) and the estimated total income
of selected types of households receiving welfare in each province and
territory.
Welfare Incomes 2006 and 2007 also includes information on:
* Patterns and Trends * What is Welfare? * Adequacy of Welfare Incomes
* Welfare Incomes Over Time * Welfare Incomes and Child Benefits * Total
Welfare Incomes and Poverty Over Time * Concluding Thoughts * Appendices
* Fact Sheet: 2007 Provincial Welfare Rates Compared to the MBM.
Source:
National Council of
Welfare
__________________________
Another source of information on how welfare works
in Canada:
Social
Assistance in Canada: An Overview (6 pages)
*This is the second chapter of
Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2007
[Posted online July 2010]
Produced by the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Directors of Income Support
- includes a description of, and statistics related to, the welfare
system in each province and territory, information about federal-provincial-territorial
jurisdictional and funding issues, a bit of historical info on the Canada
Assistance Plan and the Canada health and Social Transfer, etc.
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 ]
|
Today
in Canada, welfare works much the same - on paper, at least - as it did in 1966,
when the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) was created as a vehicle for federal contributions
to provincial/territorial social assistance programs (and welfare services, and
child welfare, and other selected social programs). What's changed, some would
argue, is the size of the stick and the carrot that are both part of the system.
- Redesigning
the “Welfare Mix” for Families: Policy Challenges
Discussion
Paper by Jane Jenson, Director of the Family Network
Canadian Policy Research
Networks
February 2003
Executive
Summary (PDF file - 168K, 7 pages)
Complete
report (PDF file - 654K, 82 pages) --- click "Download" under
the graphic of the title page
Impressive, extensive collection of information
on Canadian, American and European welfare (social assistance) programs and recent
initiatives to improve labour market attachment as a means of reducing welfare
dependency.
Includes some excellent info on the following topics (to mention
but a few):
Defining the Welfare Mix - Current Challenges (An Ageing Society-
Economic Marginalization and Social Exclusion - Changing Families - Child Poverty)
- Redesigning the Welfare Mix: What is Being Done Elsewhere --- The European Union
(An Employment-Centred Strategy for Achieving a Better Welfare Mix) - The United
States (Welfare Mix of Hidden Expenditures and Dramatic Reforms) - The Adequacy
of Social Assistance Benefits in Canada - Canada’s Strategies for Increasing
Labour Force Attachment - Work and Family (Child Benefits and Other Supports for
Families)
- also includes info about the Self-Sufficiency Project (Final Results),
a table showing Adequacy of Welfare Benefits by Province and Location of Residence
(Lone Parent, One Child Families and Couples with Two Children) - Comparison of
Selected Countries’ Programs to Foster Labour Force Participation, Aid Transition
from Social Assistance to Work, and Ensure Adequate Income - Rankings of Provinces
by Amount of Social Benefit and “Poverty Gap” - Comparison of Provinces’
Programs to Foster Labour Force Participation, Aid Transition from Social Assistance
to Work, and Ensure Adequate Income.
Source : Canadian
Policy Research Networks
|
Lies, damn lies, and statistics... "The
United States [...] has one of the highest rates of expenditure on social assistance
as a percentage of GDP. (...) At 3.7 percent of GDP, social assistance spending
in the United States was well above Canada’s 2.5 percent." [during
the mid 1990s]
(I found this on page 20 of the full report; it's a quote from
a 1996 OECD study of social assistance in 22 countries)
.....................
OK,
I'm not Don Cherry, and this isn't Coach's Corner, but Kids, you've gotta learn
to watch out for sucker punches like this. Quoting stats out of context is very
misleading, and it's a tactic that's sometimes used in the conservative/liberal
debate that plays out in the daily media. I'm not
an economist, so my expression tends to glaze over when I read observations like
these - but I know that they're the memorable bits that some people retain after
reading a report like this. Never mind the fact that the author goes on to say
that "by the mid-1990s, both Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit each
cost more than Aid to Families with Dependent Children..." The
hidden nugget in the previous paragraph is the inclusion of Medicaid (health coverage
for low-income households and individuals) in the equation. Because the U.S. has
no universal health care, Medicaid costs substantially more than non-insured health
services for people with low income in Canada, where the entire population enjoys
basic Medicare coverage. (Medicare in the U.S. is primarily for older people and
younger people with disabilities). The last time I checked, there were some 44
million Americans without any health care coverage whatsoever. This
commentary is not intended to criticize this report by Jane Jenson, which I highly
recommend --- it's to show the importance of interpreting information in context...
...and
to reiterate that American and Canadian welfare systems are not comparable without
the compulsory warning flags about the American emphasis on rapid labour entry
of welfare clients (with less emphasis on skills development or long-term education),
the different rules for clients in both countries who want welfare and for states/provinces
that want federal contributions for their welfare programs, the different clienteles,
the different transition-to-work measures and supports, etc. |
|
Since the mid-1990s, when the Canada Health and Social Transfer
replaced the Canada Assistance Plan, a number of jurisdictions have "taken
children's benefits out of the welfare system" by means of a provincial/territorial
benefit that's paid to parents on behalf of children in all low-income families.
Go to the Key Provincial and Territorial Welfare Links
page of this site and click on "welfare rates" for more information
on welfare rates for families with children.
Another
Look at Welfare Reform (released by the National
Council of Welfare in the fall of 1997) is a 125-page chronicle of welfare
reforms in Canada, both at the federal level and in each Canadian province and
territory, throughout the 1990s (up to the fall of 1997).
------------------------------------------------------------------
New
from the Social Research and Demonstration
Corporation:
Learning
What Works — Volume 5, Number 1 (PDF file - 1.7MB, 15 pages)
Spring
2005
Newsletter
Table of Contents:
- Asset-Building Strategies for the
Poor: Is Policy Ahead of Research?
- Whither Welfare? (Excellent overview
of recent welfare reforms in Canada and the U.S.!)
- One-on-One Help for
Addressing the Employment Needs of Long-Term Unemployed IA Clients
- Why Experience-Rate
the EI Program?
- School Readiness: Evidence From the Manitoba 2004 EDI Parent
Survey
- Bulletin Board
------------------------------------------------------------------
Welfare
Incomes, 2006 and 2007
A personal note about
the Welfare Income series:
For about 25 of my 30 years as a welfare program
information specialist with the federal government, I supported the work of the
Council on the subject of welfare program information and welfare rates, and I
think that their collection of historical, cross-Canada information on Canadian
welfare programs is second to none.
Welfare Incomes, 2006 and 2007
December 2008
PDF
version (16.6MB, 157 pages)
Table of contents: * Message from the Chairperson * Patterns and Trends
* What is Welfare? * Adequacy of Welfare Incomes * Welfare Incomes Over
Time * Welfare Incomes and Child Benefits * Total Welfare Incomes and
Poverty Over Time * Concluding Thoughts * Appendices * Fact Sheet: 2007
Provincial Welfare Rates Compared to the MBM
NOTE : the HTML version of the report also includes links to earlier
editions of this report back to 1999
News Release:
Poverty line is being cracked, but not
broken.
Cross-Canada action needed
as economy worsens, National Council of Welfare says
News Release
Toronto,
December 10 – While incomes for most Canadians on welfare were stuck far
below the poverty line, some cracked that line in 2007, the newest report by the
National Council of Welfare says. But tough economic times mean it will be tough
to really break through, unless comprehensive, nationwide action is taken, says
the advisory body to the federal government. Welfare
Incomes, 2006 and 2007 looked at the circumstances of Canadians on welfare
in all provinces and territories. The study by the National Council of Welfare
found that in the case of the lone parent with a pre-school age child living in
Quebec, welfare income for 2007 reached 100 per cent of the Market Basket Measure
(MBM), a poverty line measurement that takes into account the cost of meeting
basic needs in different parts of Canada. Related
link: Welfare
recipients poorer than Canadians imagine: report
December
09, 2008
OTTAWA - Amid fears a souring economy will throw more Canadians onto
provincial welfare rolls, a federal advisory body is issuing a bleak report that
says most people living on social assistance are so impoverished that adequate
housing, jobs and recreational activities are beyond their reach. With the exception
of some residents of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, the country's 1.7 million
welfare recipients subsist on incomes far below what most Canadians can imagine
living on, the National Council of Welfare says in a massive report being released
Wednesday which documents welfare incomes in 2006 and 2007.
Source:
Canada.com
Welfare Incomes 2006* fact sheets
on adequacy of welfare incomes
For the past 20 years, the National Council
of Welfare has been producing the Welfare
Incomes series, which are annual estimates of the incomes
of individuals and families on welfare in each Canadian jurisdiction.
In addition to an extensively-annotated table of welfare benefit levels
for single clients (able-bodied and disabled) and families (one adult
+ one child and two adults + two children), the report includes information
on prevailing welfare asset and income exemption levels in each province/territory,
comparisons of welfare incomes over time and comparisons of current welfare
incomes with various benchmarks.
The
fact sheets which were recently posted to the Council's website include several
variations and permutations of income measures used in Canada, such as Statistics
Canada's before- and after-tax low income cut-offs, before- and after-tax average
incomes and before- and after-tax median incomes. For the first time, the 2006
edition of Welfare Incomes includes a comparison of welfare incomes and
the Market Basket Measure (see related links below).
[* NOTE : According to
the Council's website, "The NCW plans to publish a 2006/2007 combined
issue of Welfare Incomes at the end of 2008. In the meantime, all usual data will
be available on our Web site."] Source:
Welfare Income series - includes archives back to 1999
[ Council Research & Publications ]
[ National
Council of Welfare ]
The National Council of Welfare (NCW) is an arm's
length advisory body to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development
on matters of concern to low-income Canadians.
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
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 - 24K, 2 pages)
Press release
August 24, 2006
"In Alberta, the income in real dollars of a single person on welfare
has decreased by almost 50 percent since 1986. Since 1992 in Ontario,
the welfare income of a lone parent with one child has decreased by almost
$6,600 and a couple with two children has lost just over $8,700. The National
Council of Welfare’s report, Welfare Incomes 2005, paints a dismal
picture, and one that is getting worse. When adjusted for inflation, many
2005 welfare incomes were lower than they were in 1986. Most welfare incomes
peaked in 1994 or earlier...."
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) Google.ca
Web Search : "welfare incomes report,
canada"
Google.ca News Search : "welfare
incomes report, canada"
Source:
Google.ca Related
links: NDP
launches campaign to end poverty in Canada
Thu 1 Jun 2006
"OTTAWA
- The NDP today launched a national "End Poverty in Canada" campaign
vowing to engage Canadians and their politicians in deciding what the fairest
way forward is for all Canadians. "Our social safety net has become an incoherent,
inefficient mess that must be repaired," said NDP Social Policy Critic Tony
Martin (Sault Ste. Marie).
Source:
New Democratic
Party of Canada ************************
Bouquets
to CBC Radio, who covered
the release of this welfare incomes report right across the country starting at
six a.m. in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. You
can find links to CBC radio coverage of this story, in the form of written articles
or an audio file as in the example below, adapted for each region's audience,
with local reaction for each jurisdiction in Canada, by doing a Google.ca
search using the search terms "welfare incomes, 2006, Ontario".
Remember to remove the quotation marks from your search terms and replace
Ontario with the name of your province or territory, and be sure to try both the
Web Search and the News Search buttons in Google.ca Here's
a sampling of coverage concerning the release of this report from St. John's,
Newfoundland and Labrador:
CBC
Radio - St. John's Morning Show (7-minute Real Audio file - requires speakers
and RealPlayer)
Newfoundland
and Labrador
Thursday, August 24
NOTE - if you're behind a corporate firewall
in your government office or university, this audio stream probably won't work,
for security reasons. Welfare
payments called 'morally disgraceful' - August 24 article from the
CBC Newfoundland and Labrador ----- Brickbats
to the Citizen
in my home town of Ottawa, who didn't even mention the release of the welfare
incomes report. I'm not sure what people in the media call it (scoop? oversight?
stoopid editorial board decision to take a pass on the story?), but the Citizen
editorial board richly deserves the egg that's on their collective faces for having
missed the boat on a report that's as significant as this one. Judging by the
significant media coverage and public feedback in forums and letters to the editor
- elsewhere in Canada - since the release, "this story's got legs" ---
it'll be in the public consciousness for awhile longer.
No thanks to the Citizen,
though...
************************ More
editorializing: If you've read the Top
Ten Reasons I Created This Site, you already know (#8) that I think there's
too much of a slant from organizations like the Fraser Institute and Prime Minister
Steve's earlier gig, the National
Citizens' Coalition, in the mainstream media, and not enough from progressive
non-governmental organizations like the Canadian Council on Social Development
and Campaign 2000. Another such organization that's
actually part of government in an arm's-length kind of way is the National
Council of Welfare. The Council came to life in the late sixties via an integral
part of the statute that defined the activities of the Department of National
Health and Welfare. After a few departmental restructuring initiatives and name
changes over the years, the Council is currently the government advisory body
to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development in matters pertaining
to social development, i.e., well-being in Canada. I
have the highest regard for the Council as an advisory body, because it advocates
on behalf of people, not corporations. The excellent reports produced by the Council's
secretariat - especially the time series like Welfare Incomes and Poverty Profiles
- offer up to twenty years' worth of cross-Canada information for use by both
federal and provincial-territorial policy-makers to support their work. The reports
are also for use by the social advocacy sector, to keep governments' feet to the
fire --- fits right in with the concept of Accountability
as one of the New Canadian Government's five priorities, doesn't it? For
about 25 of my 30 years as a welfare program information specialist with the federal
government, I supported the work of the Council on the subject of welfare program
information and welfare rates, and I think that their collection of historical,
cross-Canada information on Canadian welfare programs is second to none. I spent
a year on secondment with the Council secretariat starting in the summer of 1996,
and I updated the numbers in Welfare Incomes 1995 as part of my work there. Now,
ten years later, we find that after inflation, welfare incomes in '96 were more
generous than they were in 2005 by several thousand dollars a year. And that includes
thousands of families with kids... For links
to Canadian welfare program information, go to the Key Provincial/Territorial
Welfare Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/welfare.htm |
Historical Welfare Reforms
Welfare reforms have
been around as long as welfare programs themselves. Canada's
Unique Social History (from Steven Hick of Carleton University in Ottawa)
is an invaluable online resource for anyone interested in the evolution of social
programs in the world and in Canada. It comprises eight modules, each filled with
links to more information and Internet resources. Module 3, The
Rise of Income Security, covers Canadian welfare reforms from pre-Confederation
days to the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Module 2, The
Rise of Capitalism and Social Welfare, offers historical information on
welfare and welfare reforms back to the Middle Ages.
Also
from Steve Hick :
Social
Work Glossary (Click on Glossary link in the left
column - 600+ terms)
Other
Canadian Sites
The Evolution
of the Canada Assistance Plan is an appendix to the 1985 Nielsen Task
Force report on CAP. It was written by an official of the federal Department of
Health and Welfare (the "home" of CAP) at the time, it includes a gold mine of
historical information on Canadian social programs of last resort in the twentieth
century.
The 1967-68 Annual
Report of the Canada Assistance Plan also offers some historical perspectives
on welfare programs going back to the Old Age Pensions Act of 1927.
Ministry
of Community and Social Services:
Supporting Ontario's communities since 1930 (retrieved
from the Internet Archive)
The
year 2005 is the 75th anniversary of the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social
Services.
Click on the link above and then, on the next page, scroll down
to "Stories from our Past" for links to six short historical
bits about welfare and social services in Ontario in the last century and even
before.
Origins of the welfare department (1930) - breaking 650 lbs. of rocks
to qualify for welfare in 1915 - houses of refuge - the Mothers' Allowance Act
(1920) - the first foray into the field of day care in the mid-40s - the Soldier's
Aid Commission (est. 1915).
| A Notable International Site: An
Introduction to Social Policy : Social welfare, the welfare state and the social
services
Scotland
Excellent intro to welfare - enormous site
with a wealth of information organized under the following headings :
Social Policy - Welfare and society - Social need - The welfare state - Social
administration - The politics of welfare - The social services - British social
policy - Social services in the UK - Social Policy on the Web - Reading
|
Canadian Welfare Reforms
in the Nineties
Welfare
to Work Study
King's College (University of Western Ontario)
Caroline A. Gorlick, Ph.D/Associate Professor, King's College, is the principal
investigator of this research project and Guy Brethour is the research
associate/coordinator.
"The National Welfare to Work Study funded by
Social Development Partnerships (Human Resources Development Canada) has 3 main
objectives:
- to produce an inventory of the different types of welfare to
work programs emerging across the country
- to analyze the dynamic relationship
between program design, community resources and individual/family capacities
- to assess the impact of the linkage between program design, community resources
and individual/family capacities on program success.
The first objective
has been completed with the collection of comprehensive information on all provinces/territories'
welfare to work programs. Both the National Inventory on Welfare to Work in Canada
and an accompanying discussion paper entitled National Welfare to Work Programs:
from new mandates to exiting bureaucracies to individual and program accountability
was published and disseminated by the Canadian Council on Social Development in
the fall of 1998. The other objectives were addressed in Phase 2 of the study
which included data collection in six Canadian communities. All the communities
had experiences with welfare to work program implementation. Phase 2 also involved
updating the original National Inventory on Welfare to Work in Canada. The final
report will be disseminated in the winter of 2002."
Welfare
to Work Phase 2 Update - reports for every province and territory are
now available on the site. They contain detailed information about welfare-to-work
programs and services --- eligibility, supports, funding, assessment and review,
planned program changes and much more - all revised to reflect what was happening
at the end of 2001 across Canada.
- .........................................................................................
Welfare-toWork:
The Next Generation
A National Forum
(followup to the Welfare to
Work Study)
November 16 – 18, 2003
UPDATE - February 2, 2004
Profiles,
Papers and Presentations (abstracts / Powerpoint presentations / complete
papers)
- links to 40+ papers and presentations from the Welfare to Work Forum
are now available for download - includes keynote speeches, transcripts of sessions,
powerpoint presentations and more.
Source:
Community
Services Council of Newfoundland and Labrador
Key Federal Government Departments and Reports
The Department
of Finance is currently the lead federal Department with respect to social
assistance in Canada. It is responsible for the administration of the Canada Health
and Social Transfer, the federal transfer (block fund) to provinces and territories
covering health, post-secondary education and welfare. The Department has its
own social policy shop in the Federal-Provincial Relations
and Social Policy Branch . A key document for researchers
is Federal Transfers
to Provinces and Territories, which provides a detailed summary of
how the federal government contributes to the cost of provincial and territorial
welfare programs (among others)
- *See also A
Brief History of the Health and Social Transfers - from the launch
of the Canada Assistance Plan in 1966 to 2007, a helpful chronology of the evolution
of federal contributions to the provincial/territorial level of government from
1966 to date.
|
Human
Resources Development Canada (HRDC) had a broad mandate
that included areas such as employment insurance, human resources investment (Canada
Student Loans, Canada Education Savings Grant), Income Security Programs (Old
Age Security and the Canada Pension Plan), and labour.
On
December 12, 2003, when Paul Martin took office as Prime Minister of Canada, Human
Resources Development Canada was split into two departments --- Social
Development Canada (SDC)
and Human Resources and Skills
Development Canada (HRSDC). Until 1993-94,
the Department of National Health and Welfare (NHW) was responsible for
the administration of the Canada Assistance Plan or CAP. CAP was the federal
statute that enabled federal contributions to the provinces and territories towards
the cost of social assistance - or welfare - and social services (as well as other
approved social programs and services).
------
The Canadian Social Research
Links Canada Assistance Plan and Canada Health and Social
Transfer Resources Page has over 100 links to information about CAP and
the CHST --- and, since April 2004, about the Canada
Health Transfer and the Canada Social Transfer .
-----
This
mandate was transferred to HRDC in 1993 along with the rest of the "welfare side"
of Health and Welfare Canada when the federal government created HRDC as a "super-ministry"
to deal with income support and labour market programming in a more integrated
manner. Social Development Canada* works with
provincial and territorial government departments responsible for social assistance
to eliminate duplication and overlap between programs and with working groups
under the auspices of the Social Union initiative; Human Resources and Skills
Development Canada is involved in activities under federal-provincial-territorial
labour market agreements. Check out the official Social
Union website for more information on the National Child Benefit (including
the NCB progress reports and NCB reinvestment reports, or visit my Unofficial
Social Union Page for links to related material that's not on the official
site. You might also want to check out my Provincial/Territorial
Social Union Pages to see what provinces and territories are doing in
the area of NCB reinvestments. ****** November
2008 Update:
After playing around with the mandate and the name of the
department for a few years, the Harper Government has settled (for now, at least)
on the name Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.
For more
on the name changes, see:
http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/hrsdc.htm#general_info
|
Health
Canada - like HRDC - monitors provincial and territorial health insurance
("Medicare") programs to ensure compliance with federal standards.
Read the Canada Health
Act Overview to see how Medicare works in Canada, including funding by
the federal government under the Canada Health and Social Transfer.
See the
Canada Health Act
Annual Reports for detailed information on the administration of the CHA,
federal contributions and payments and each of the provincial and territorial
health insurance plans under the CHA.
See also
the Commission
on the Future of Health Care in Canada (the Romanow Commission)
|
Indian
and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) pays for social assistance for Aboriginal
people on reserve. The Department's website includes a lot of information about
the federal government's relationship with its Native people. See the INAC
site map for links to everything on one page, including the Final Report
of the 1996 Royal Commission
on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) and the Federal
Government's Response to RCAP. See also "First
Nations NCB Reinvestments" - part of The
National Child Benefit Progress Report: 1999
|
The Canada
Revenue Agency (formerly Revenue Canada) is responsible for the delivery
of the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB), which is the name of the federal benefit
paid under the National Child Benefit initiative, and of some provincial and territorial
financial benefits that are also under the NCB. The
Canada Revenue Agency's Family
Benefits Page includes a wealth of information about the Canada Child
Tax Benefit and the National Child Benefit. It also includes information concerning
related provincial and territorial programs administered by Revenue Canada:
Alberta Family Employment Tax Credit - BC Family Bonus
- New Brunswick Child Tax Benefit - Newfoundland and Labrador Child Benefit -
Northwest Territories Child Benefit - Nova Scotia Child Benefit - Nunavut Child
Benefit - Saskatchewan Child Benefit - Yukon Child Benefit Revenue
Canada is involved only in the distribution of benefits, not the related policy-making.
|
| Note: these are not the only
federal departments involved in Canadian social policy, but rather the main federal
players in the area of social assistance policy. |
Key
Provincial/Territorial Government Departments and Reports
Provincial
and territorial welfare departments play the most important role in the design,
administration and delivery social assistance programs, although the role of Finance
departments cannot be understated. You'll find
links to welfare information for each province and territory on the Key
Welfare Links page of this site. On that page there are further links to each
jurisdiction, e.g., Saskatchewan Links - where you can
find some welfare reform info and documents specific to that jurisdiction.
The federal Department of Finance has a Public
Finance Hotlinks Page that includes links to Finance departments in all
Canadian jurisdictions as well as nine other countries (scroll down past the "General"
and "Canada" sections) |
National
Reforms
Although provincial and territorial welfare programs have been
in constant evolution as long as they have been around, the 1990s have produced
so much profound change in the way programs are funded and delivered, that some
academics have called this round of reforms a "paradigm shift", a reaffirmation
of the old principles of self-sufficiency that preceded the progressive social
reforms started after the Second World War.
The
cap on CAP
The unofficial launch of the welfare reforms in Canada
in this decade was the 1990 federal Expenditure Control Plan, which included a
shift in federal funding in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Dubbed the
"cap on CAP", this measure is often
cited as "the beginning of the end" for CAP. A section in Another Look at
Welfare Reform (see box below) entitled The Setting for Welfare Reform
deals with the cap on CAP and other events that framed Canadian welfare reforms
in the 1990s.
The 1994 Social
Security Review was another national milestone in Canadian welfare reform,
if only because of the number of informative reports that were produced and released
during its short lifespan. The Review was launched by Lloyd Axworthy (Minister
of Human Resources and Development) in January 1994, and a number of consultation
papers were released in the fall and winter of 1994-95. By then, however, federal-provincial
relations were strained as a result of federal cuts in the 1994 federal Budget
(tabled less than a month after the announcement of the Review). Following the
tabling of the 1995 Budget - announcing the Canadian Social Transfer (later renamed
the Health and Social Transfer) and its cuts coming into effect in April
1996, the Social Security Review fizzled into obscurity.
From
the Canada Assistance Plan to the Canada Health and Social Transfer is
a series of links to information about CAP and its successor the CHST, from the
1995 federal Budget to 1999 Budget papers on transfers to the provinces and territories.
These links focus on the federal dimension of the transition.
Women
and the CHST: A Profile of Women Receiving Social Assistance in 1994
March 1998
Katherine
Scott, Centre for International Statistics
Canadian
Council on Social Development
Funded by Status
of Women Canada's Policy Research Fund
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dramatic
Decline in Welfare Dependency in Canada,
Several Factors Responsible: C.D.
Howe Institute (PDF - 40K, 3 pages)
Communiqué
June 19,
2008
Canada has experienced a dramatic decline in welfare dependency since
the early 1990s, according to new study by the C.D. Howe Institute, which notes
that Canada’s Social Assistance (SA) dependency rate fell by approximately
half from the early 1990s to 2005, taking the country’s rising population
into account. In The Welfare Enigma: Explaining the Dramatic Decline in Canadians’Use
of Social Assistance, 1993-2005, authors Ross Finnie and Ian Irvine provide a
nationwide analysis of the factors responsible for the truly remarkable decline,
and draw implications for policymakers.
Complete
study:
The
Welfare Enigma: Explaining the Dramatic
Decline in Canadians’ Use of
Social Assistance, 1993–2005 (PDF - 548K, 32 pages)
Commentary
June
2008
"(...) Keeping people off welfare in the first instance, rather than
attempting to get them off once on, is likely the most effective means of affecting
caseloads and reducing longer-run welfare dependency."
Source:
C.D.
Howe Institute
The C.D. Howe Institute is Canada’s leading independent,
nonpartisan, nonprofit economic policy research institution. Its individual and
corporate members are drawn from business, universities and the professions.
Related
links:
Jobs,
government cutbacks cut Canadian welfare rolls in half: report
OTTAWA
— More available jobs, with a kick from stingy government policies, has contributed
to a dramatic decrease in the number of Canadians receiving welfare cheques, says
a new study by the C.D. Howe Institute.
Source:
Google
News
Solving
the welfare enigma
By Ross Finnie and Ian Irvine
Source:
National
Post
COMMENT:
It appears that
every eleven years or so, the C.D. Howe Institute, minions of the business, university
and professional elite, trot out another earth-shattering study about how reducing
access to welfare results in fewer people on welfare. Well, Whoop-De-Doo. That's
about as informative an observation as "It's better to be rich and healthy
than poor and sick."
Here's the
earlier C.D. Howe study:
Alberta
welfare reforms
a model for other provinces, says C.D. Howe Institute study
(PDF file - 668K, 38 pages)
April 1997
Kenneth J. Boessenkool, Prime Minister
Steve's occasional confidant and advisor, produced this study praising the 1993-1996
Alberta welfare reforms, for other provinces to emulate.
See the Alberta section of Another Look
at Welfare Reform (1997) from the National Council of Welfare for a
different perspective on Alberta's welfare reforms.
The
National Child Benefit - part of the federal-provincial-territorial Social
Union
The
National Child Benefit Progress Report: 2003 (PDF file - 3.3MB, 86 pages)
March
2005
Report
finds government supports increasing for low income families
News
Release
April 6, 2005
"OTTAWA—The National Child Benefit (NCB)
Progress Report: 2003 released today by Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers
Responsible for Social Services1 confirms that government investments for low-income
families with children continue to increase. Federal support to low-income families
in 2002-2003 had risen from $5.6 billion in 2001-2002 to $5.7 billion in 2002-2003.
It is projected to reach $6.4 billion in 2004-2005. The report further shows that
provincial and territorial governments and First Nations have increased their
expenditures for low-income children and families through the National Child Benefit
initiative to $764.2 million in 2002-2003. This funding supports programs and
services, including child benefits and earned income supplements, child/day care
initiatives, early childhood services and children-at-risk services, youth initiatives,
and supplementary health benefits." Source:
National
Child Benefit website |
National Child
Benefit Misconception The popular misconception:
"The
federal government should take measures to make sure that provinces don't claw
back the federal increase in the Canada Child Tax Benefit from families' social
assistance benefits." The Fact: The
clawback is actually part of the NCB design, by agreement of the governments of
all provinces and territories (except Quebec) and the federal government.
Read
the excerpt below from the Second Report on Social Policy Renewal: Progress
Report to Premiers - No. 2 (PDF file - 72K, 18 pages)
July 1997
Excerpt
(page 8)
"Federal/provincial/territorial governments have agreed on
a joint NCB approach that involves three simultaneous steps.
First,
the federal government will increase its benefits for low-income families with
children through an increase in the Canada Child Tax Benefit.
Second,
provinces and territories will make corresponding decreases in their social assistance
payments for families with children while ensuring these families receive at least
the same level of income support from governments.
Third, provinces
and territories will reinvest these newly-available funds in complementary programs
targeted at benefits and services for low income families with children." News
Release:
Social
Policy Renewal
August 8, 1997
From
the 38th Annual Premiers' Conference
St. Andrews-by-the-Sea,
New Brunswick See also: "Building
a Better Future for Canadian Children" - click on "Social
Assistance Adjustments"
National Child Benefit Booklet
September
1997
"As the federal benefit increases, provinces and territories will
decrease benefits for social assistance recipients. This decrease will not exceed
the amount of the federal increase - the total benefit available to social assistance
families will remain at least the same" |
Provincial/Territorial
Social Union Pages - links to a large collection of information on NCB
reinvestments
The Unofficial
Social Union page - links to everything you wanted to know about the Social
Union --- and more.
Family
Benefits Page (Revenue Canada) - explains the Canada Child Tax Benefit
(federal benefit) and provincial reinvestments under the NCB.
----------------------------------------------------------
Where
do we go from here?
Alliance
tackles welfare reform - Ontario/Canada
Oct. 25,
2004
By Carol Goar
Toronto City Summit Alliance teams up with St.
Christopher House to help improve income support for working age adults
"They
are launching — and paying for — a non-governmental review of the safety
nets that are failing millions of low-income adults. They intend to build public
support for a modern, sustainable income security system. (...) Using its contacts
in the senior echelons of business, academe and public life, it hopes to mount
a powerful campaign to fix what is wrong."
Source:
The
Toronto Star
Related Links:
Toronto
City Summit Alliance
St.
Christopher House
- Modernize
Income Security for Working Age Adults
- Income
Security for Working-age Adults in Ontario
-----
Social
Policy in the 21st Century
August 2004 Issue
Policy
Options
To read any article, click the above link and (on the next page) select
the article you wish to read by clicking on its link; all files are in PDF format.
Back
to the future - the rear-view mirror provides glimpses of what lies ahead for
income security in the 21st century by Havi Echenberg
New century,
new risks: the Marsh Report and the post-war welfare state in Canada by
Antonia Maioni
'In the national interest': a social policy agenda for
a new century - restore cooperative federalism, modernize medicare, put children
first by Tom Kent
Social policy and the knowledge economy: new
century, new paradigm by Thomas J. Courchene
Relative poverty
- it can't be erased, but it must be addressed, at home and abroad by
Hugh Segal
Choix politiques et solidarité sociale à l'heure
de la mondialisation by Keith G. Banting
Health care markets
and the health care guarantee: baking a better loaf, or baking enough bread?
by Paul Jacobson
The 'other' health system: reflections on the dark
side of the moon of health and health care in Canada by Hugh Scott
L'école
à l'aube du XXIe siècle : retour vers le future by Louis
LeVasseur and Maurice Tardif
Universities in the new millennium: heading
toward a new culture by Brian Flemming
Access to degrees in
the knowledge economy by Dave Marshall
Time for plain talk about
social policy by William Watson
Back
Issues of Policy Options (back to 1997, full text of hundreds of articles)
Source:
Institute
for Research on Public Policy
Provincial/Territorial
Reforms
Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2006
August 2009 (Third edition)
Posted online April 9, 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: 2006 is the third 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 2005-2006, 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 two earlier editions of this report:
* Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2004
* Social
Assistance Statistical Report: 2005
Source:
Social
Policy
[ Human Resources and Skills
Development Canada ]
< Begin social researcher's lament. >
While it is reassuring to read in the report summary that Federal-Provincial-Territorial
Directors of Income Support recognize "the growing public demand for comprehensive
information on provincial and territorial social assistance programs and caseloads",
I wish they'd also recognize that there's also a need for reasonably *timely*
data about those same programs and caseloads. This report is dated August 2009,
but it wasn't posted to the HRSDC website until April 9, 2010. The latest data
in the report are for March 2006, now four years out of date. Thus, since March
2006, there is NO national picture of the number of households receiving welfare
in Canada.
So what?
So now researchers can't tell, among other things, how many new welfare cases
are "EI exhaustees" (families whose Employment Insurance benefit period
has expired) and how many are there because they didn't qualify for EI in the
first place.
That is unaccountable and unacceptable.
Welfare reporting must be comprehensive AND reasonably current.
Perhaps it's time to farm out the production of welfare statistics and related
information to an objective, non-politicized third party...
< /End social researcher's lament. >
---------------------------------------------------------------
Related historical reports from Social Policy
Directorate of HRSDC:
Social
Assistance in Canada, 1994
Over 40 pages of information on Canadian
social assistance programs as they operated in 1994. Much of the information in
this document is still as relevant today as it was back then - eligibility, benefits,
administrative rules, and more. Includes information about cost-sharing of welfare
costs under the Canada Assistance Plan. Question-and-answer format for quick reference.
This work was part of a larger study of social assistance in 24 countries released
by the OECD early in 1996. I was the author of this report, with a lot of input
from a number of colleagues in the Department at the time. If you want a snapshot
of what welfare was like in Canada before the Canada Health and Social Transfer
in 1996, this is a pretty decent one - and it's free.
Social
Security Statistics, Canada and Provinces - 1978-79 to 2002-03
[
Appendix A - methodological notes ]
- the SA Statistical report for 2004 contains no expenditure data.
---
Related Links from the National
Council of Welfare:
Profiles of Welfare: Myths and Realities (Spring
1998)
- large statistical
collection covering twenty years of data, examining variables like family types,
reasons for assistance, age, education, duration of spells on assistance, housing
and more.
NOTE: number-crunchers who specialize in welfare statistics can compare
this report with the 2004 report above for some interesting observations --- but
be careful about data incompatibilities between the two reports...
Number
of People on Welfare, March 1995 to March 2005 (PDF file - 133K, 1 page)
*********************************************
Two
Tier Income Assistance (welfare)
Legislation
in effect today creates single income assistance system - Manitoba
June
01, 2004
"Legislation creating a single system of income assistance in
Manitoba and ensuring services are more consistent and effective becomes effective
today, Family Services and Housing Minister Christine Melnick has announced. The
Employment and Income Assistance Amendment Act makes the province responsible
for administering all provincial income assistance in rural and northern Manitoba.
The change to the single system was requested by the Association of Manitoba Municipalities
(AMM) after the province began delivering all provincial income assistance in
Winnipeg in 1999."
Source:
Department
of Family Services and Housing
Municipal
Assistance Program
"Prior to June 1, 2004, non-disabled single
people, childless couples and two-parent families with children received assistance
from their local municipality under the municipal assistance program."
Source:
Manitoba
Department of Family Services and Housing
More
about two-tier income assistance in Canada
Until
the federal government implemented the Canada
Assistance Plan (CAP) as a vehicle for federal contributions to provincial-territorial
welfare and social programs in the mid-1960s, two-tier social assistance was the
norm in Canada. Two tiers meant that provincial governments provided assistance
to anyone deemed "unemployable"(and their dependants), while municipalities
were responsible for providing financial assistance of last resort to employable
people in financial need (and their dependants) who were residing within their
jurisdiction. The advent of CAP helped provinces and territories to consolidate
their old categorical assistance programs for blindness, disability, unemployment
and single parenthood into one needs-tested program. Moreover, within the first
ten years of CAP, most Canadian jurisdictions had streamlined their two welfare
systems into one, with the higher authority taking over the responsibility for
providing financial assistance to anyone in financial need in the province/territory,
regardless of the cause of that need. Differential treatment of "worthy and
unworthy"clients (i.e., short-term employable vs long-term unemployable)
has persisted in the form of tougher eligibility rules and lower benefit levels
for employables even after systems were merged or unified. Three Canadian jurisdictions
did not unify their two-tier systems along with the rest by the mid-1970s : Nova
Scotia, Ontario and Manitoba. As of June 1, unification of income assistance is
officially complete in Manitoba, the culmination of a process that started with
the implementation of the Municipal Assistance Regulations in 1993. Nova Scotia
also unified over a period of several years, starting with a pilot project in
the Cape Breton region in 1995 and ending with the implementation of the Employment
Support and Income Assistance Regulations in April 2001. In Ontario, despite the
rhetoric of the former Conservative Government (which had promised in the 1995
election campaign to eliminate the two-tier welfare system), income assistance
is still a two-tier affair --- the province still delivers the assistance program
for people with disabilities, the Ontario Disability Supports Program (ODSP),
and municipalities are still responsible for the delivery and part of the cost
of Ontario Works (welfare for people with no disabilities); municipalities must
also pay part of the cost of ODSP. [see the Guide to Welfare
in Ontario for more info.]
[ Related links
- go to the Manitoba page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/mbkmrk.htm
]
*********************************************
Recommended
Reading on welfare reform in Quebec! The
Insertion Model or the Workfare Model?
The Transformation of Social Assistance
within Quebec and Canada
September 2002
Sylvie Morel, Université
Laval
"This research project involves a comparative analysis of changes
in social assistance policies in Canada, particularly in Quebec"
Complete
Report (PDF - 2.4MB, 190 pages)
"...we conclude, based
on the cases of Quebec and Ontario, that Canada is currently evolving towards
workfare, but encompasses several variants."
Source:
[Status
of Women Canada] |
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.
- 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 |
Surveying
US and Canadian Welfare Reform (PDF file - 838K, 68 pages)
August
2001
-incl links to :
Executive
Summary
Introduction
1. Historical development of welfare in the United
States
2. PRWORA—the end of welfare as Americans knew it
3. American
states—experimentation and innovation
4. The results of PRWORA and state
welfare reforms
5. Welfare in Canada
6. Provincial welfare reforms
7. Recommendations for Canada
Glossary
References
Source : Fraser
Institute
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. |
Spouse-in-the-house
: The Falkiner Case (Ontario)
The Falkiner case revolves around the
issue of single parents and welfare.
On this Canadian Social Research Links
page, you'll find background info, the official Court record of the May 13 (2002)
decision and several related links. The June 2002 issue of the Fraser Forum (Fraser
Institute) contains an article about the potential impact of the Court decision
on welfare reforms elsewhere in Canada. On the Spouse-in-the-house page, you'll
find a link to the issue that contains this article as well as a counterpoint
commentary on the article by Vincent Calderhead, staff lawyer with Nova Scotia
Legal Aid in Halifax and respected authority on matters relating to human rights
and the Canadian Charter.
Ontario
Municipal Government and Non-Governmental Organization Links Page - for
critiques of welfare reforms in that province by Ontario NGOs.
Non-Governmental
Organizations Links - critiques of social program reforms from a number
of Canadian NGOs.
A
few words about workfare
Most of what is called
workfare today in Canada is actually a combination of tighter eligibility criteria,
benefit cuts, a broadening of the definition of "employable" and more stringent
enforcement of rules regarding reciprocity for employable people that existed
even before CAP - and that continue to exist today.
There
are two types of workfare in Canada today - formal and de facto.
[Of course, one could argue that the two types of workfare in Canada are
the punitive approach and the human services approach, as does Sherrie Torjman
of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in her online paper entitled Workfare:
A Poor Law (PDF file - February 1996). But that's a whole other web page...]
Source : Caledon Institute of SocialPolicy
"Formal" or institutionalized workfare
contains three essential elements, summed up as follows:
- work for
a specific minimum number of work units (measured in hours or output) in
a job that is designated or approved by the welfare authority, to qualify
for the basic welfare benefit. In 2001,
the only Canadian jurisdiction where formal workfare exists for all employable
people is Ontario, under one component of the Ontario Works program. In many other
jurisdictions, there's a
"learnfare/earnfare/trainfare"policy that's described in more detail
on the CAP Resources Page of this site. All applicants
under the Ontario Works program in Ontario (single people, couples with and without
children, sole support parents, and people aged 60 to 64 years) must agree to
participate in one of the program's three active parts: employment supports
(job-search services, referral to basic education and job-specific skills training),
employment placement (referral to a job placement or self-employment
development agencies) or community participation (unpaid community
service activity). The community participation stream
is the one most readily identified with the notion of "workfare". In this stream,
welfare recipients can be required to work from 17 to 70 hours per month in a
not-for-profit or public sector workplace approved under the program in order
to receive their basic welfare benefit. Further
reading for detailed Ontario Works information The
Ontario
Works page of the Ministry
of Community and Social Services website includes the complete collection
of Ontario
Works Policy Directives. This is the Ontario Works Policy Manual - everything
you might want to know about the program. The
Ministry of Community and Social Services Business Plan includes a section entitled
Annual Report On Key Achievements where you can find a description of welfare
reforms since 1995 - including Ontario Works - and plans for further reforms.
Recommended Reading from the - analysis of Ontario
Works is available from the (Toronto) Workfare Watch Project website.
FIVE
YEARS LATER: Welfare Rate Cuts Anniversary Report (November 2000)
-
includes the following sections : The real value of welfare benefits - Evictions
- Ontario versus the other provinces - Poverty and Health - Rent costs - Poverty
Index - Food - Harming Women - Food bank use - Welfare Cuts and Policy Changes
See the r Ontario
Non-Governmental Organization Links page for additional perspectives on
many issues around workfare in Ontario.
|
| "De facto" workfare occurs where the welfare
authority does not impose a mandatory "work-for-your-basic-welfare-cheque" policy
for all employable people receiving welfare. Rather, governments enforce job-search
requirements for employable people more stringently, and they pay monthly supplements
to people who are engaged in some approved activity whose goal is to help the
person break free from welfare. The job-search rule is often seen as workfare,
but it was always a part of CAP and provincial/territorial welfare programs.
Some jurisdictions pay monthly supplementary benefits
to people on welfare who are participating in an approved employability program
or job search activity to help them cover work- or training-related costs. Ernie
Lightman argued in an article in the C.D.
Howe Institute's 1995 book on workfare Helping the Poor: A Qualified
Case for "Workfare" that the gap between the basic and supplemented benefit
levels is often an offer that people in need can't refuse. Quebec's
welfare rules in 2000 for employable people best illustrate the tiered benefit
structure that can result from these supplements and the application of the reciprocity
principle. The Quebec welfare rate was about $120 less a month for a single employable
person who was not participating in an employability measure (schooling, training
or job integration) than for one who was. (The difference was about $200 for a
two-adult household.) This "non-participating" category included not only
those who decline such measures, but also those for whom no appropriate measures
were available. A non-participant was still required to satisfy job-search requirements,
notably by not refusing a job (or abandoning one without just cause) under penalty
(stipulated in Regulation) of a reduction in monthly welfare benefits of $100
or $150 (depending on the situation of the household) for a year. A second refusal
within the year would result in monthly benefit cuts up to $300 ($150 for a lone-parent
family).
*Check the (English) Employment
Assistance page on the website of the Ministère de l'Emploi, de la
Solidarité sociale et de la Famille for current welfare rules.
|
See CAP, Rights and Workfare
on the CAP Resources page for more on job search requirements VS workfare.
The Right to Welfare
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)
- incl. 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. 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.
The case law information
was prepared by Vincent Calderhead, Solicitor for the Charter Committee
on Poverty Issues, in November, 1998.
Source :
Charter Committee on Poverty Issues
See also: U.N.
'98 Page - (links to 18 related documents)
Have
Canadian Welfare Reforms Succeeded?
That depends
on whether you're asking the Finance Department and Fraser Institute types, who
interpret caseload reductions as a significant measure of success, or the social
advocacy groups, who focus more on the human condition, income adequacy, wealth
inequality and social justice.. Since the mid-1990s:
Welfare
dependency has dropped significantly (see below) since the major reforms of
the mid-1990s, from a high of 3.1 million Canadians (including children) in March
of 1994 to just1.7 million in March of 2003
Welfare spending is down
- partly because of program reforms and partly because of economic recovery, but
it's difficult to say exactly by how much in some jurisdictions. In fact, it's
very difficult to do any longitudinal research on welfare spending since the early
1990s with the imposition of the cap on CAP. Number
of People on Welfare, March 1995 to March 2005 (PDF file - 133K, 1 page)
Source:
National Council of Welfare Related
Links - "the other side of the coin":
National
2003
Report Card on Child Poverty in Canada (PDF file - 183K, 12 pages)
"Despite
consecutive years of economic growth more than one million children, or almost
one child in six, still live in poverty in Canada."
Provincial
child poverty report cards : incl. BC - MB - NS - ON - SK
Source:
Campaign
2000 Ontario
Struggling
to Survive: Ontario Works Recipients Talk About Life on Welfare (PDF
file - 135K, 30 pages)
October 2003
Rhetoric
and Retrenchment: ‘Common Sense’ Welfare Reform in Ontario
(PDF file - 50K, 7 pages)
January 2003
Source:
Social
Assistance in the New Economy (University of Toronto) Alberta
Benchmarks
in Alberta's Public Welfare Services:
History Rooted in Benevolence, Harshness,
Punitiveness and Stinginess (983K, 53 pages)
February
2003 |
Welfare
Reform Tracking Issues (U.S.)
[NOTE: this site is not about Canadian welfare
reforms, but rather U.S. research on welfare leavers - relevant for Canadian welfare
reform research.]
"State tracking studies provide information concerning
critical questions about what is happening to the large number of families leaving
welfare. While these studies do not provide the basis for any general conclusions
about the success of reforms, they provide us with the first set of data regarding
the effects of welfare reform. They illustrate both the positive results of welfare
reform-more ex-recipients are working; and the remaining questions-How do we move
recipients who are not working into jobs so they can establish stable support
systems for their families?"
Tracking
Recipients after They Leave Welfare (August 1999 article)
Summaries
of individual states studies - links to summaries for 21 states
Source
: National Conference of State Legislatures
Welfare
Leavers
Social
Assistance Use: Trends in incidence, entry and exit rates
August
2004
by R. Sceviour and R. Finnie
"This paper explores the dynamics
of Social Assistance use over this period [1995-2000] to calculate annual incidence
and entry and exit rates at both the national and provincial level, broken down
by family type. These breakdowns, available for the first time ever, are revealing
as policy varied by province and family type and not all provinces shared equally
in the recession or the expansion that followed it. The paper does not attempt
to apportion the movements in SA participation rates between those related to
the economy and changes in the administration of welfare. The focus is on the
empirical record of SA entry, exit, and annual participation rates.
Source:
Feature
Articles [NOTE: check out dozens of links to past feature articles here!]
Canadian
Economic Observer
[ Statistics Canada
] Followup article: November
17, 2004
Social
Assistance by Province, 1993-2003
Feature
Article in the November 2004 issue of The Canadian Economic Observer
"Social
assistance rates fell in every province between 1993 and 2003, but nowhere was
the decline more dramatic than in Alberta and Ontario, according to a new report."
Complete
article (PDF file - 67K, 7 pages)
"A recent
article [see above] looked at the drop in people receiving social assistance in
the 1990s, with particular emphasis on entry and exit rates by family type. This
paper extends the results by province to 2003. One of the trade-offs of more timely
data is the loss of detail on whether the changes originate through entry or exit
and the type of family affected. The gain, however, is a comparison of which provinces
have experienced the largest changes in social assistance among their population,
and which had the highest and lowest rates of welfare use in 2003." Source:
Feature
Articles [Dozens of links to past feature articles!]
Canadian
Economic Observer
[ Statistics
Canada ] |
Life
after welfare : 1994
to 1999
March 2003
"Family incomes rose for the majority
of people who stopped receiving welfare benefits during the 1990s. However, for
about one out of every three individuals, family income declined significantly,
according to a first-ever national study of the economic outcome for people who
left welfare rolls."
The link above takes you to a summary of the report.
Complete
report:
Life
After Welfare: The Economic Well Being
of Welfare Leavers in Canada during
the 1990s (PDF file - 332K, 32 pages)
Source:
The Daily
[Statistics Canada]
Related
Links:
After
Welfare - Contrasting Studies (British Columbia)
"Statistics
Canada has released a study on people who leave welfare that contrasts with the
story spun by BC's Minister of Human Resources, Murray Coell. "Life After
Welfare: The Economic Well Being of Welfare Leavers in Canada during the 1990s"
by Marc Frenette and Garnett Picot provides some fascinating contrasts with Coell's
characterization of the 90s and
with what are passing as welfare exit surveys
in his ministry."
Source : Strategic
Thoughts
Reports
on Welfare Leavers and Diversion in the U.S.
-over 100 links to Cross-State
Summaries and National Reports as well as state and county reports.
Source:
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
(ASPE)
[U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services]
See also:
The Canada Assistance Plan/Canada
Health and Social Transfer Resources Page
Canadian
Union Links - including a selection of relevant reports
|
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