2025/03/20 by Alain Noël · 1 voice
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Employment and Welfare Studies #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Social Sciences and Governance
paper · doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197766859.013.0019
openalex publication_date 2025/03/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract This chapter takes a comparative look at social assistance in the Canadian provinces. It confirms that Canadian provinces stand near the bottom of the OECD for the adequacy of welfare incomes. The analysis shows as well that the number of persons receiving social assistance has declined significantly over the years. Provincial governments, however, did not use the fiscal slack created by a lower number of cases to improve the incomes of those who remained. The adequacy of welfare incomes hardly improved in the 2000s. Behind these outcomes, there is a politics of provincial social assistance. In part, it is a politics of neglect, inherited from the old poor relief tradition. More importantly, the politics of social assistance programs appears to be a component of the broader politics of the welfare state. As predicted by the power resources theory, the lasting presence in government of parties of the left and the strength of the trade unions in a province are associated with more adequate incomes, and right-wing governments with less adequate incomes.