British Columbia's pride and shame.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell can be both proud and ashamed of his government's investigation of recipients of disability benefits. The review was one of the most thorough and possibly the most expensive examination of a welfare program ever undertaken in Canada.

He can be proud of two things: his government proved conclusively that almost all of the people on the disability assistance rolls were legitimate, and that their eligibility was established by the staff of the Ministry of Human Resources in a proper manner. At the end of the investigation they found 460 questionable cases (less than 1% of the total).

Of the doubtful cases, some were ineligible because of technical or administrative problems that were rectified by having these cases re-apply and receive approval. Several hundred cases were found eligible for other social assistance programs to which they were transferred. At the end of the exercise, 40 persons were found to be improperly receiving welfare assistance. The Auditor General, Wayne Streliof, assured the people of British Columbia that the program was properly administered according to the rules of eligibility.

The shame comes in the rest of the Auditor General's report. He concludes that the review was badly conceived, costly, and failed to achieve the savings the government had anticipated. The auditor stated that the same results could have been achieved by less costly methods.

He pointed out that the assumptions behind the investigation were invalid. The government expected to remove 10,000 cases from the welfare rolls and believed that this action would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in savings. The Minister of Human Resources did not consult with advocacy groups nor seek the advice of experts on welfare administration either inside or outside the government. The government went ahead in full certainty that they knew what they were doing.

However, money is not the whole story. The process was intrusive and disturbing for this already vulnerable group of people. Many of them were unnerved by the search for illegitimate beneficiaries. The investigation appeared to be a blatant attempt to harass people into giving up their disability payments before they could even be proved to be ineligible. The complaints of those being investigated brought the Auditor General into the picture. He did not find this an admirable way to treat people.

However, the greatest shame lies in the attitude of the government of British Columbia towards its own people. They went at the costly investigation with two major assumptions. One, is that disability benefits are being paid to idlers, malingerers and scammers. The other assumption is that the people who administer this program are lazy, uncaring or incompetent public servants who are prepared to find almost anyone eligible. Neither of these cynical assumptions held up to scrutiny.

However, it is easy enough to rail against Premier Campbell and his government but they are hardly alone. The same cynical attitude is found among politicians and influential groups across Canada. Using stricter regulations and byzantine administrative procedures, they have chased needy people off the welfare rolls for more than a decade and they continue to rewrite the rules to find more people ineligible for aid. They hide their cynicism behind a meaningless expression--"the welfare trap." They have managed to liberate many from this "trap" only to ensnare them in the homelessness maze.

We expect the B.C. experience to cause politicians across the country to rethink the system of social assistance in a more positive and creative way, to remember that social assistance exists to help people in genuine need because of circumstances beyond their control. The system should be maintained and if anything, improved and it should be operated in a way that supports human dignity.

Demeaning investigations based on rumors and unfounded assumptions helps no one and heaps disrespect on everyone tainted with such ill-conceived attitudes. In the B.C., case it lessened the stature of everyone involved--the recipients of social assistance, those responsible for managing the program, and the politicians of whom we have the right to expect better. Respect and dignity must be restored for all.

--L.K.