Do We Know Where We Are Going? The New Social Policy in Canada

A new paradigm has come to dominate social policy in Canada.1 As in many western nations, the understandings that underpinned the postwar welfare state have given way to new ideas about the social problems facing us in a global era and the appropriate responses to them. At its heart, this new paradigm represents a different conception of the sources of security in an insecure world. The fundamental purpose of the postwar social contract was security. The touchstone for the builders of the welfare state was the Depression of the 1930s, with its mass dislocation and widespread economic insecurity, and their aim was to protect citizens from what they saw as the universal risks associated with a market economy. A rapidly growing education system would expand equality of opportunity, and comprehensive health insurance would spread the benefits of health care to the population as a whole. And a full range of income transfer programs – unemployment insurance, workers ’ compensation, disability benefits, old age pensions, survivors ’ benefits, children’s allowances and social assistance – would protect citizens from the economic risks associated with life in a market economy. Fast forward to today. In contemporary policy circles, security no longer means protection from market disruptions. Such security as is available in the contemporary 1 This commentary summarizes a much longer and more fully documented analysis