Le texte ci-dessous donne une idée du coût social énorme des coupes à blanc déjà annoncées par le gouvernement Charest dans l'aide sociale. Le gouvernement de la Colombie-Britannique entend limiter dans le temps l'admissibilité aux prestations, une catastrophe qui va jeter à la rue une foule de gens que des maladies chroniques condamnent à l'inactivité physique.

Martin Dufresne

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Welfare clock heightens anxiety

B.C. to become the first province to enforce time limit for 'employables'

Richard Watts, Victoria Times Colonist

Monday, September 22, 2003

Barry Turner is on social assistance. He's in pain. And he is terrified his life will get worse.

Turner, 54, has osteoarthritis in both hips that makes it agony to stand or sit in one place for even a few hours. He has a doctor's note backing him up. Nevertheless, Turner has been denied a disability pension that would pay him $786 a month.

Instead Turner is classified as "employable," and lives on social assistance.

He takes home only $437 a month because the government pays his bill from B.C. Hydro directly and takes it off his $510 cheque.

He lives in Sooke, where rents are cheaper than Victoria. He shares with a roommate, splitting the $540 rent and buying food with what's left.

His one vice is tobacco but economy forces him to roll his own cigarettes.

Come April 1, however, he stands to lose even that when B.C. becomes the first province in Canada to remove people from welfare because they have used up a maximum allowed time: two years out of five.

"I don't know what I will do," said Turner. "I guess I'll end up on the streets."

He is just one example of what a new study by a University of Victoria historian calls "increased levels of stress, hunger and homelessness" caused by B.C. Liberal government cuts to social services.

The cuts are part of a new philosophy the government says is getting people off the welfare rolls and back to work, making them self-sufficient and saving the taxpayers money.

But the report predicts the cuts' effects will get worse after April 1.

That's when the first batch of people will reach the end of the two-year time limit for what the Ministry of Human Resources now calls "temporary" assistance, welfare money going to people judged to be employable.

"Much worse looms," writes UVic historian Lynne Marks, a specialist in the history of social welfare in a report card prepared for an organization called the Friends of Women and Children in B.C. and released last month.

"As of April 1, 2004, the current situation of increased hunger, homelessness and desperation will increase dramatically." wrote Marks in her report.

Quoting from surveys and interviews with people who work with the poor, Marks said the B.C. cuts have people rooting through garbage for food, or turning to crime or substance abuse.

In an interview, Marks said she finds it amazing to see B.C., a one-time pioneer of state support for poor people becoming the first in Canada to deny people money for basic survival.

She said welfare policy in every other province in Canada holds to the principle that nobody should go without food or shelter. But B.C., with its welfare reforms, is the first to import an American ideal that states money for food and shelter should only go to those deemed to deserve it. "I'm afraid to say B.C. is now leading the way in being heartless," Marks said.

She took issue with government claims the cuts and changes are working. In her report she noted government surveys of welfare recipients who have left the system are unreliable since many people couldn't be found or reached. Often their telephone numbers were discontinued.

However, Murray Coell, minister of human resources, defended the surveys, or tracking of clients as he called it. Coell said the tracking numbers show people leaving the system and not coming back and that's a good sign.

"The fact they are not coming back on social assistance tells us they are still self-sufficient," Coell said. "If they needed income assistance they would be able to come back and go on income assistance."

Coell agreed that under his government B.C. is the first in Canada to bring in time-limited welfare. But it's part of what he called a cultural shift. People who genuinely need assistance can get it, he said, but for those who can work, the best social safety net is a job. "That was the fundamental shift we made almost two years ago, from a culture of entitlement to a culture of self-sufficiency," he said.

Details supplied by his ministry show the number of people on welfare is dropping. Last July, about 117,500, people were receiving benefits and that's down 40,300 people from June 1, 2001, when the Liberals came to power.

Also down is spending. The ministry's total yearly budget sits at about $1.4 billion. Back in July 2001 it was about $1.8 billion with much of the savings coming from a reduced welfare roll.

According to those who work with poor people, things are getting worse but the problems are hidden.

As an income assistance advocate with the Together Against Poverty Society, Alix Hotsenpiller, goes to bat for people trying to gain access to social benefits. Hotsenpiller said her workload is sky-rocketing. In fact, one of Hotsenpiller's clients is Barry Turner, the man with osteoarthritis in both hips. She is helping him prepare an appeal of the decision that denied him disability benefits.

Hotsenpiller said Turner is lucky to have managed to get in to see her at all. Her office has a backlog of 98 unreturned messages. Her desk is littered with pink phone-call slips.

Furthermore, Hotsenpiller said Turner also stands apart from many people on social assistance. He was not intimidated or frightened by the huge number of forms (23 pages to get disability benefits.) Nor did he just give up when the form letter denying him a disability
pension arrived.

She said from her point of view things have got worse for poor people in B.C. with the changes and cuts. Her experience tells her things will get even more desperate after April. "People will be more on the margins of society and the question becomes how to survive," said Hotsenpiller. "Either you don't survive or you find some way to survive."

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