Canadian Review of Social Policy (CRSP) / Revue canadienne de politique sociale (RCSP)

Nutter, Butch

Alberta

Barlow, Maude

International

McCrorie, Aaron J.

Hard Lessons: The Mine Mill Union in the Canadian Labour Movement, edited by Mercedes Steedmand, Peter Suschnigg and DIeter K. Buse

Editorial/Éditorial

Pulkingham, Jane

Issues and Debates Enjeux et &bats 
Social Policy in the Late 1990s and Beyond: 
What is to be done? 
Jane  Pulkingham 
Department of Sociology and Anthropology 
Simon l?raser University 
As the Social Security Review unfolds [July 19951, it is clear that, with 
the exception of a couple of programs (U1 and health care), the Federal 
government is getting out of the business of direct social program provision 
and financing. Social programs are once again to be the responsibility of 
the provinces. Further, given the magnitude of cuts outlined in the 1995 
budget, program restructuring and retrenchment will be extensive. Not 
only did this budget cement a back-to-the-future social policy scenario, it 
also brought new meaning to the notion of "social policy by stealth": the 
Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST, to be implemented through Bill 
C-76, the 1995 Budget Implementation Act) is a clever Machiavellian ploy 
intended to foster divisiveness among those vying for pieces of a smaller pie, 
and to leave the Federal government off the hook, both in terms of the size 
and the distribution of these resources. 
Unlike the reforms of the early post-Second World War years, or those 
pursued in the early 1970s, reform 1990s-style rests on an explicit rejection 
of the notion that increased market insecurity should be met with greater 
social security.l On the contrary, despite recognition of the increasing pre- 
cariousness of stable, full-time employment, the current strategy is intended 
to severely curtail entitlement and coverage in a range of social programs. 
In its backward gaze, the government has set its sights on the earlier 
part of this century, squarely rejecting policy mechanisms of the Keynesian 
welfare state. But the government is not alone in reaching back: many in 
the social policy community would also have us return to the Keynesian 
policies upon which the post-Second World War welfare state was based. 
These policies include full employment, economic growth produced by stim- 
ulating effective demand, and the two-track system of contributory and 
non-contributory benefits. While full employment was presumed to provide 
No. 37, 1996 5 1 
a living wage for those who worked, the two-track system of benefits was 
intended to provide income supports for those who could not do so. 
There are a number of problems with the uncritical application of Key- 
nesian policies, however. The boundaries of the Keynesian welfare state 
were constructed on the basis of exclusion and inclusioni2 in our scram- 
ble to preserve existing levels of protection and programs, we often lose 
sight of this fact. For example, the principle of full employment, touted 
by many as a consummate objective, is a problematic concept. To begin 
with, the post-war welfare state was constructed around a particular notion 
of full employment - white male full-time paid employment.3 Furthermore, 
the counterpart of full employment is the wage-labour imperatives4 Full em- 
ployment, pursued in conjunction with a supporting array of contributory 
benefits, is a component of a fordist industrial strategem that entrenched 
the dishonorable and illegitimate status of non-wage labour. The fordist in- 
dustrial deception was to provide workers (primarily "white workingmen") 
with the appearance of economic independence, exempting capital-labour 
relations from categorization as a dependency r e l a t i ~ n . ~  Importantly, the 
deception of wage labour's independence was in part consolidated through 
the two-track system of contributory and non-contributory means-tested 
programs. 
The reforms the Liberals are pursuing today can be seen to reinforce, 
rather than undermine, this deceit. This is achieved through the marshalling 
of new, and the entrenchment of old, categories of claimants based on their 
level of non-wage labour "dependence."6 While women, First Nations' peo- 
ples and people of colour were the principle victims of earlier attempts to 
exclude, restructuring today has a broader reach. The new rhetoric of "de- 
pendency," the central concern of the current round of social security reform, 
has ensured that many more will lose benefits or entitlement altogether. 
The current agenda is transforming a defining feature of the post-war 
welfare state in Canada: it is decoupling and reassembling the relatively 
privileged status of "first-track" compared to "second-track"  benefit^.^ Until 
relatively recently, contributory benefits, provided through programs like U1 
and C/QPP, have escaped the stigmatization associated with means-tested 
benefits. But the distinction between those who appear to "get back what 
they put in," and those who get "something for nothingn8 is being redrawn. 
The possible conversion of U1 into a two-tiered system, one of the likely 
outcomes of U1 reform, is extending the dependency discourse to a category 
of recipients, primarily white men, who were previously largely exempt. 
Meanwhile, the circumstances of those previously excluded is worsening. 
The honorable status of "first-track" programs is now under threat. It 
is tempting, then, to try and defend the integrity of the privileged status 
of contributory benefits. What else is there to hold onto? But should 
52 No. 37, 1996 
Issues and Debates/Enjeux et de'bats 
we not take the opportunity to challenge the taken-for-granted equation of 
wage labour with "independence" and its corollary, that independence is 
an unqualified good? Is it possible to recognize unpaid labour, promote 
interdependence and reject the consumption-oriented economic paradigm 
informing Keynesian policies? Can this be done while retaining the principle 
of full employment? If not, how can we articulate and pursue an alternative 
agenda for change without losing more ground? 
Unfortunately, the circumstances in which the present decoupling is 
taking place work against this kind of questioning. The transformation of 
a significant proportion of U1 claimants into "U1 dependents" is intended 
to fortify rather than unseat assumptions about the independence of wage 
labour. The new distinctions drawn between "frequent" and "occasional" 
claimants actually sharpen the "dependency/independence" dichotomy, in- 
tensifying the wage-labour obligation. In the struggle to preserve existing 
levels of protection, it is difficult to remind ourselves, let alone challenge the 
fact, that the status quo was achieved in part by entrenching the deliberately 
constructed distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving." 
The degradation of "first track" employment-based benefits has serious 
implications in the context of the ongoing restructuring of employment. 
Reflecting the general pattern of income polarization and declining middle, 
the creation of new social divisions is shrinking the pool of "deserving" and 
expanding the class of "undeserving." 
There are no easy policy prescriptions for these difficult times. But 
we cannot merely strive to reincarnate Keynesian policies. The requisite 
powers have been wrested from the hands of the federal government. And 
more importantly, these policies were seriously flawed to begin with. 
1. Jane Pulkingham, "Remaking the Social Divisions of Welfare: Gender, 'De- 
pendency,' and Social Security Reform in Canada." Paper presented at the 
30th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Associa- 
tion, University of Quebec at Montreal, June 7, 1995. 
2. Phi1 Squires, Anti-Social Policy: Welfare, Ideology and the Disciplinary State 
(New York: HarvesterIWheatsheaf, 1990). 
3. John Keane and John Owens, After f i l l  Employment (London: Hutchinson, 
1986), pp. 18-26. Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong, "Taking Women 
into Account: Redefining and intensifying employment in Canada," in Jane 
Jensen, et al. (eds.), Feminization of the Labour Force: Paradoxes and Promises 
(Oxford: Polity Press and Basil Blackwell, 1988), p. 68. 
4. Keane and Owens, p. 14. Kean and Owens refer to this as the "fetish of 
employment" (p. 14). 
5. Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon,"A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a 
Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State," Signs, 19,21 (1994), pp. 309-336. 
No. 37, 1996 53 
6. Pulkingham, p. 6. 
7. Ibid, p. 16. 
8. Fraser and Gordon, p. 322. 
Les enjeux de la &forme des services 
de santk et des services sociaux au Qukbec 
Claude Larivikre 
Universi t4  de Mon trkal 
Mis en place en 1971, dans la foulke des travaux de la Commission Caston- 
guay-Nepveu, le r6seau qu6b6cois des services de santh et des services sociaux 
a fait l'objet d'un rkexamen global par la Commission Rochon (1988). Crk6e 
par le Parti Quhb6cois, cette commission a vu sa composition et son mandat 
remaniks par le Parti Libkral. Son constat principal porta sur la rigiditk 
du systkme mis en place, notamment en raison du fait qu'il (cest pris en 
otage)) par des dispensateurs de soins et de services souvent plus prkoccupks 
d'intkrGts corporatistes et institutionnels que de concertation des efforts 
pour offrir aux clientbles les services requis. 
Le rapport a 6t6 assez froidement accueilli par la ministre Lavoie-Roux 
qui, plut6t que de s'attaquer B la tiiche, prkfkra formuler une sorte de tes- 
tament politique (1989) avant de quitter son poste. Son successeur au sein 
du gouvernement, le ministre C6t6, proposa un changement de paradigme 
en cherchmt, du moins dans son discours politique, B faire en sorte que 
la rkforme proposke ((place le citoyen usager au centre du systgme de ser- 
vices)). I1 d6posa finalement une lkgislation qui se caracthrisait avant tout 
par d'importants changements des structures (C6t6, 1991 et 1992). Trois 
ans plus tard, il est maintenant possible de mieux percevoir les enjeux en 
cause ainsi que certains aspects qui sont passb inaperqus & l'kpoque. 
Sept grandes zones d'enjeux apparaissent identifiables : l'impact de 
l'int6gration d'htablissements diffbrents, l'importance accord6e B la concer- 
tation, l'introduction de plans de dkveloppement des ressources humaines, la 
multiplication des structures de reprksentation professionnelle, la poursuite 
des compressions, la reconnaissance de l'importance des ressources commu- 
nautaires et la place des usagers dans cette rkforme gouvernementale. Nous 
aborderons chacune de celles-ci. 
No. 37, 1996 


English

Social Policy in the Late 1990s and Beyond: What is to be done?

Dixon, John

National Provident Funds in Asia: Something Old, Something Borrowed, Something New

Jones, Esyllt

as a convenient pretext for the province to cut the entitlements of destitute 
people. 
Workfare is an ill-thought-out idea. It puts people who are forced to  
accept it a t  risk of abuse by unscrupulous providers of work. It reduces 
the job market even further. Why hire someone for pay if workfare pro- 
vides you with free labour? It  is administratively expensive, requiring an 
entirely new level of bureaucracy even if workfare is contracted out to the 
private sector. Experiments in other jurisdictions have shown that workfare 
programs that did not exploit people proved hideously expensive and com- 
peted with low-paid jobs in the regular job market. Or they inflicted such 
suffering and degradation on people unable to find work that public outcry 
soon demanded that they be abandoned. But historical lessons are lost on 
a government driven by blind ideological fervour. 
Manitoba Esyllt Jones 
Manitoba Nurses' Union 
The  Privatization of Home Care in Manitoba 
In February 1996, the NDP Opposition in Manitoba leaked to the media a 
confidential report from the Treasury Board which proposed the privatiza- 
tion of Manitoba's renowned home care program. It  indicated that direct 
care provision will be contracted out to the private sector, beginning July 1. 
Although the government will still pay for "core" home care services, certain 
"non-core" services will not be entirely covered by Manitoba Health. Thus, 
the privatization is accompanied by user fees. 
The government's decision to privatize home care has been rumoured for 
some time, and since the Conservatives were re-elected last April, they have 
pushed forward on privatization initiatives in a number of areas, including 
selling off the Manitoba Telephone System. In this sense, public home care 
is another victim of an ideological perspective that does not support public 
ownership and investment. There is also a patronage element to the home 
care issue - the health minister has publicly admitted to a personal rela- 
tionship with the owner of the fastest-growing private home care company 
in the province. 
The debate over public versus private home care must also be consid- 
ered in the light of recent restructuring in health care, aimed at lowering 
government expenditures. After inflation, Manitoba's spending on hospital 
care is now lower than it was in 1988. Manitoba has seen over 600 hospital 
bed closures in the last four years, and is expecting many more. Lengths 
of stay, particularly for surgery, have been dramatically shortened. These 
96 No. 37, 1996 
Round Up/Tour d'f-lbrizon 
developments have resulted in at least 1500 jobs being deleted from the 
health care system. The current government, like governments in all Cana- 
dian provinces, continues to stress the reduction of institutional health care, 
particularly in acute care settings. Same-day surgery, early discharge, and 
a concerted effort to reduce long-stay hospital beds (most of which are filled 
by geriatric patients) continue to alter the way we view the role of hospi- 
tals. Once considered a place to be cared for, and to recover from illness, 
hospitals (and those who staff them) are to be a last resort in the case of 
severe illness. 
All of this has increased the demand for home care. Home care ex- 
penditures are a rapidly-growing line item in the province's health budget, 
rising from $44.5 million in 1988 to a predicted $79 million in the 1995196 
fiscal year. The Conservative government has attempted to limit home care 
expenditures, and has successfully reduced the home care caseload by over 
twelve hundred clients per year since they came to office. Their own fiscal 
pressure on institutions is the most important factor in the rising cost trend; 
shorter hospital stays mean people who are very seriously ill, the majority 
of them elderly, are being cared for in the home, with the assistance of 
the home care program. Naturally, patients' higher level of illness requires 
greater resources. 
If the government wishes to reap the rewards of reducing institutional 
spending, it must not allow home care spending to make up the difference. 
Hence, the attempt to define "core" services. These "core" services (as yet 
undefined) will probably mean fewer medical and homemaking services for 
frail and dependent elderly. This will likely lead to greater demand for 
nursing home beds, as remaining in the home becomes an option for fewer 
seniors. A markedly reduced quality of life for the ill and for their families 
will also result, particularly among those families who cannot afford private 
home care services. Analysis done by Evelyn Shapiro, professor of com- 
munity health sciences at the University of Manitoba, indicates that 80% 
of provincial home care clients are GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement) 
recipients, who cannot afford private home care. 
The Manitoba government's privatization will open a $80 million mar- 
ket to for-profit home care companies. And profit will come at  the expense 
of clients and health care providers. Wages and benefits for employees in 
the (unionized) public home care program are already modest. Employ- 
ees of private companies have no union representation (with the exception 
of the Victorian Order of Nurses). Nurses forced by privatization to work 
in the private sector will see their hourly wages decline by 40%. Other 
providers will experience similar or greater wage reductions. Non-unionized 
companies do not pay benefits, and they do not pay their employees for 
travel time between clients. Employees are without protection against 
No. 37, 1996 97 
unjust management practices. What will happen in cases of, for instance, 
sexual harassment and abuse, which are common problems for home health 
care workers? The government's privatization is a major blow to health 
care workers, and to their representative unions. It  is certainly a regressive 
step for Manitoba's health care system. 
Saskatchewan Ken Collier 
University of Regina 
The  Impact of the Federal CHST 
As euphemisms go, "retrenchment" serves in Saskatchewan as the govern- 
ment's description, while "slash and trash" are the words of choice from the 
opposition, legislative and otherwise. Saskatchewan trumpeted its "first 
balanced budget in over a decade" early in 1995, only to gasp in desper- 
a t i ~ n  by year's end that Paul Martin was chopping serious dollars out of 
t r ~  sfer payments and thus the province would have to cut social programs 
(more). The feds responded with reminders that Saskatchewan holds more 
than a billion dollars in shares in Uranium companies. Why cry poverty 
when you could sell these shares? Why flaunt the butterflies in the wallet 
when manufacturing, mining, wholesale and agricultural sectors are all up 
over 1995, and unemployment is down? 
The province responded by saying that, while tax and other revenues 
are up by $50 million, federal transfers will go down by $220 million, so the 
arithmetic is plain. In February, the Saskatchewan government announced 
that they would sell most of their shares in Cameco to bring down the 
provincial debt. Federal transfers go down because Saskatchewan is doing 
so well, said the feds. Repartee, parry and thrust. 
But the end result is cuts to social programs, emphasis on work-readiness, 
retraining, getting people off welfare and unemployment insurance- sorry, 
"employment" insurance. Particularly painful is the plan to savage rural 
government and services. 
Since the federal government is off-loading monetary and policy repon- 
sabilities to the provinces, while at the same time cutting transfers, the 
provinces look to local governments to take up some of the slack. Consoli- 
dation of the local level of government is now in the news. This may take 
the form of a return of proposals for a county system, first bruited about 
in the late 1950s. More than 600 rural municipalities would be replaced 
by a presumably smaller number of large counties. Those who hate the 
idea counter with proposals forcing municipalities to co-operate to main- 
tain roads, do bulk ordering for hospitals and schools, and establish larger 
98 No. 37, 1996 


Not a member yet