Neglected step-child.

Ten years ago, the federal government ended the Canada Assistance Plan and introduced the Canada Health and Social Transfer which changed the federal role in welfare funding. The provincial governments responded by enacting highly restrictive welfare policies and programs. What have these measures achieved over a decade?

Clearly, fewer people are on the social assistance rolls today than they were then. Yet, more than 1.7 million Canadians still depend on social assistance, according to the National Council on Welfare. Most are children and women and it also includes people who are ill, disabled and unemployed. The effective benefits paid to the recipients are less than they were in 1995, after inflation is taken into account.

The story begins in 1995 with the finance minister of the time, Paul Martin who ended the Canada Assistance Plan, a program that required the federal government to share the actual costs of welfare. The complaint was that the CAP gave the provinces an unlimited draw on the federal treasury and the federal government was facing serious financial problems. The CAP was replaced by the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Termination of CAP played a major role in ending Canada's chronic budgetary deficit.

The CHST provides each province with an annual lump sum payment, determined by a complex formula that is unrelated to the actual cost of the program. It reduced the federal contribution to social programs and, as a result, the provinces were forced to pay a much larger share of welfare costs out of their own revenues. Threatened with dramatically rising costs, the provinces imposed highly restrictive eligibility requirements and reduced or froze welfare rates.

Later, the federal government created the National Child Benefit, a taxable payment for low income families. The NCB helps low-income families who are not on welfare. But the benefit to families on welfare was snatched away by most provincial governments that reduced social assistance payments by an equivalent amount.

So who cares about welfare? The 1.7 million people on welfare are not a matter of sympathetic interest. They cost the taxpayer. Where they appear in public discussion, it is usually to find more ways to cut them back or cut them off. Anecdotes of indolence, fraud and "welfare bums" abound in newspapers and ordinary conversation. In such an atmosphere, only the most daring politician will take a positive public stand on welfare policies. No large voluntary group advocates for welfare programs. Favorable discussions of welfare are not on the public agenda because they do not gain votes nor do they raise funds in a good cause. The National Council of Welfare states it clearly: "welfare has been the neglected stepchild of governments in Canada".

Even those of us who care about the concept of social solidarity give little attention to welfare policies and programs. How many conferences and panels are devoted to welfare policy? How many research papers on social assistance programs are funded and produced? For that matter, we ask ourselves: how many of these columns have we devoted to this subject in recent years? Not many, but we promise to remedy that shortcoming.

It is regrettable that conservative think-tanks dominate what little discussion there is on welfare and that they are the only ones producing new, albeit regressive, ideas on welfare. It's time for some one else to set the agenda.

Who can take the lead on the issue? We propose that social development minister Ken Dryden act to encourage discussion and bring social service ministers together to consider a new national social assistance plan; Such a new plan should take welfare out of the CHST and put the federal government back in as a contributor to the real cost of welfare. Of course, the plan should include mutually acceptable standards and accountability for the provincial governments.

Minister Dryden is the person who can take the lead. He has shown an admirable openness to new social ideas. Because of his personal status among Canadians, he is probably the one cabinet minister who could lead public discussion of welfare without damaging his political career.

Welfare is a program that affects the lives of vulnerable people and costs a great deal of money. It remains an important part of any income security system. It certainly deserves much more thought, planning and action by governments and by all those who advocate for a just society.