A recent study by researchers at U of T’s Faculty of Social Work found that Ontario’s welfare system prevents people from receiving help, by demoralizing and humiliating them. Dean Herd, Andrew Mitchell, and Ernie Lightman published “Rituals of Degradation: Administration as Policy in the Ontario Works Programme,” in this month’s issue of Social Policy & Administration.
“We’re studying people’s lives on Ontario Works, workfare, after the election of the Harris government,” said Lightman. A central part of the research project, which started in 2002, is a series of interviews with a panel of social assistance recipients.
Under Mike Harris, the Ontario government cut welfare rates by 22 per cent and changed the way people applied for and remained in the program. One change criticized in the report is the introduction of call centres as part of a new two-stage application process.
“[It] became much more problematic for certain groups-in particular people with English language difficulties [and] people with certain physical and mental health issues-to initially access the program,” said Herd.
“It wasn’t just that benefit levels were being cut,” Herd said. “A whole set of administrative and bureaucratic arrangements-think of them in terms of hoops and obstacles-were set in place.” The study says that welfare recipients from the panel were made to answer the same questions and produce many of the same documents (such as their children’s birth certificates and their divorce papers) up to every three months.
“The purpose of the whole application process was not to determine eligibility,” says Lightman, “but to deny it.”
The report also condemns the involvement of a private firm, Andersen Consulting, (now known as Accenture) in reforming the program.
Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government has criticized the previous administration’s changes to the welfare system. Deb Matthews, MPP of London North Centre, recently completed a review of the system which recommended, among other things, simplifying it and ending “punitive policies.” The government also announced that it will eliminate the call centre stage of the application process.
Lightman thinks that there is more to be done.
“They should be doing an increase in welfare rates,” he said, noting that though rates are now increasing with inflation, the 22 per cent cut has not been made up for.
Lightman said he doesn’t have any qualms about diving into the political implications of his research.
“Social work is supposed to be relevant to the world, and often it isn’t,” he says. “We have the capacity in this university to make a significant dent on poverty, or to talk about how to really address it, but we choose not to do that because we don’t get credit for it.”
