By Philippe Gohier August 25, 2006
A new report suggests welfare recipients are crying all the way to the bank. The National Council on Welfare, an organization the Star’s Thomas Walkom describes as an ”advisory board to the Federal government,” released a daming document yesterday claiming that welfare payments have been in steadily declining in all Canadian provinces since 1994. According to the Globe, “The plight of the poor is the worst it has been in twenty years in provinces such as Alberta and New Brunswick, which are cited as among the stingiest jurisdictions.” In fact, taking inflation into account, Alberta’s welfare payments have effectively been cut in half since 1986, reports The National; whereas recipients twenty years ago received approximately $10,000 a year, they now receive $5,050. And this in the only Canadian province to have run thirteen straight budget surpluses.
La Presse puts the sad situation into perspective, noting that welfare recipients in New Brunswick are expected to survive with less than $10 a day. Comparatively, welfare recipients in Alberta get about $14 a da and those in Quebec get a whopping $19. So much for the “myth of the welfare bum that takes it easy smoking cigarettes and drinking beer on the balcony all day,” writes La Presse. Faced with a steady economic boom and politically conservative winds blowing strongly through most Canadian provinces, the plight of Canada’s welfare recipients has been virtually ignored by both the media and politicians. The Globe’s breakdown of annual welfare payments in the provinces and territories provides a rare glimpse at the grim economic reality of welfare in Canada. But perhaps most worrisome is the council’s suggestion that the welfare system has become so complicated that it is now “incomprehensible to most people,” including would-be beneficiaries. Mediascout hopes to see the Big Seven delve deeper into daily life of Canada’s struggling underclass, so that politicians, in Thomas Walkom’s words, are no longer able to “either ignore welfare recipients or subtly (not so subtly in the case of [Mike] Harris) demonize them as undeserving.”
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