by Christopher Clark

Many Canadians may not have noticed, but on April 1, 1996, the way that health, post-secondary education, social assistance and social services are funded changed dramatically. That was the day that the new Canada Health and Social Transfer formally replaced the Canada Assistance Plan and Established Programs Financing as the vehicle for federal funding in major areas of social policy. It is still too early to tell what the full impact of this change will be, but we can be sure of one thing social policy will be developed increasingly at the provincial and even the local level.

In the case of health care, the federal role will, at least on the surface, appear unchanged. The federal government will continue to enforce the principles of the Canada Health Act, although it will do so with fewer dollars with which to threaten renegade provinces. The showdown with Alberta in the spring of 1996 over charging user fees at health clinics shows that, at least for the time being, the multi-billion dollar transfer provides the federal government with enough clout to continue enforcing national standards where standards still exist.

This brings us to the real change in social policy, which is in the handling of welfare and social services. Four of five standards previously outlined under the Canada Assistance Plan were dropped under the CHST. The federal government no longer requires that provinces provide financial assistance to everyone in need, nor must they even consider the question of need. These changes have opened the door to workfare schemes. In several provinces, work and /or training is compulsory for certain social assistance recipients. Local municipalities and community groups are expected to play a large role in determining the nature of the work to be required of recipients, and assisting in their placement. Under the CAP, these provinces could not have made it mandatory for anyone to have to work in order to receive their welfare benefits.

Although it is not yet clear what direction many of the other provinces will take in implementing their own versions of social re-engineering under the CHST, a trend is emerging. Everywhere, municipalities are bracing themselves for cuts in transfers from their provincial governments, as the provinces pass on the cuts in the federal transfers. At the same time, they are being asked to take on an increasingly important role in implementing and even designing social policy. This suggests that we may see even wider variations in social welfare programs in the future, not only among provinces, but also among municipalities within each province.

This may explain the overwhelming interest in the CCSD's recent publication, A Statistical Profile of Urban Poverty, which highlighted the varying rates of poverty in 25 of Canada's largest urban centres. The most striking finding for the authors of the study, CCSD researchers Clarence Lochhead and Richard Shillington, was the degree of variation in the poverty rates across Canadian cities. Journalists across Canada repeatedly asked the same question "Why is that?". The authors pointed to a combination of economic factors that vary between communities, including the level of unemployment and the quality of jobs, and demographic factors such as differences in family structure. In short, their response was that the problem of poverty looks different in each community.

In order to effectively combat poverty then, each community must tailor their strategy to match their own needs. If there is any silver lining to the CHST cloud, it is that local communities will increasingly have the autonomy to address issues such as poverty according to their own local realities. The big question is whether municipalities will be given the means along with the responsibility to deal with these issues. The early signals, exemplified by cuts in transfer payments and reduced levels of provincial programming designed to combat poverty, have not been reassuring.

Christopher Clark is a policy analyst at the CCSD.

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