We say we can't afford to keep so many people on social assistance, and yet we are making it increasingly difficult for people to get off social assistance. By dismantling the programs that help the poor, we are sealing off all the escape routes, burning all the bridges out of welfare. Without these programs, without this fundamental investment in people, welfare recipients will remain welfare recipients because they will have no other choice. I know women who are trying to escape welfare, and are doing so in the face of social spending cuts and the terrible insecurity those cuts represent. Improving the lives of poor Canadians is hardly considered a worthwhile objective these days, given the prevailing mood of the country.
People are more concerned obsessed, even with the bottom line.
So let s look at it. Helping me to get off welfare was cheaper than keeping me on it. It's as simple as that. Even bottom-liners would have to agree, that investment paid off. Susan Scruton is a research associate with the Centre for International Statistics at the CCSD and is the Council's network administrator.