Pulkingham, Jane

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

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 

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

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