Speaking out for Albertans
Social workers campaign for the poor ignored by Klein

Jim Selby, AFL Staff

In July, 2002, the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW) launched a province-wide campaign to increase income support rates in Alberta. It was a major campaign intended to move government policy, and included television and newspaper ads, billboards, distribution of comprehensive information packages and direct contact with MLAs.

According to ACSW President Jake Kuiken, social workers have professional and ethical obligations to advocate for marginalized Albertans. Although the objective of the campaign was to get an immediate 20 percent increase in incomes assistance rates, Kuiken says that the ultimate goal is to secure a "living income" for Albertans in need.

"A living income is an income that covers the real cost of basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, transportation, full health and dental care, utilities, recreation for children and other personal household and family expenses that enable meaningful participation in Alberta society," says Kuiken.

The social workers’ campaign is an attempt to force the Klein government to end the mistreatment of the province’s poorest citizens, those persons who have been forced to rely upon social welfare.

The situation for Albertans on income support is grim.

The situation for Albertans on income support is grim. These 50,000 adults and 25,000 children are being forced to subsist on incomes that make even the meanest accommodations and most meager diets unaffordable.

Who depends upon income support in Alberta? Persons with disabilities make up the largest component – with 28,000 depending upon income support to survive. Then there are the single mothers and their 25,000 children. Finally, there are workers down on their luck - who either have never qualified for Employment Insurance or who have exhausted their benefits.

If you can judge a society by how it deals with its poorest citizens, then Alberta under Ralph Klein does not measure up very well. When Klein engineered the massive public spending cutbacks in 1993, he forcibly took 5 per cent from the incomes of all health care and education employees, and from all provincial employees. He took 20 per cent from social welfare recipients!

Since that time, the nurses and teachers and hospital and school board employees and provincial workers have all recouped the 5 percent they lost. And, they have at least partly made up for the 20 percent increase in the cost of living since 1993. They have accomplished that feat through the strength of their unions in collective bargaining.

For the poorest and most needy Albertans, there has been no such relief. Social welfare recipients have no union or collective voice – and the social justice advocates like food banks and churches who have spoken out on their behalf have been ignored by government.

The ‘bottom line’ that conservatives are so fixated with is clear – single mothers, children in need, the unemployed and Albertans with disabilities are expected to survive on incomes that are 40 per cent lower than they were in 1992.

Alberta’s social welfare rates are now the lowest in Canada. This means that even the poorest Maritime Provinces take better care of their citizens than oil-rich Alberta does.

In Alberta, a single mother with two children under the age of eleven must feed, clothe, house, transport and provide all other care for herself and her children for $1,021 each month. How does that meet the needs of a mother and family? According to Kuiken, it doesn’t.

"Here’s the real-life of a single mother with a number of health issues," said Kuiken. "This mother has two children under eleven years of age. Her monthly Supports for Independence (SFI) payment amounts to $1,021 and out of that she has to pay $800 a month in rent. She has $221 left to pay for food, clothing, utilities, telephone and other items of personal need for her and her two children. To make sure that she and her children have enough food, she has taken up fishing."

"She has $221 left to pay for food, clothing, utilities, telephone and other items of personal need for her and her two children."

A single severely handicapped person gets just $850 per month.

It’s not as if the government is unaware of the problem. A five member MLA Low Income Review Committee recommended an increase in rates because "current benefit levels do not meet the needs of many Albertans who rely on income support." The government’s own hand-picked Mazankowski Committee on Health Care urged the government to "ensure that appropriate financial assistance is available to support children living in poverty and low income homes."

The government has chosen to ignore its own committees when it comes to helping the poor. In fact, when the federal government raised its National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS) by $6 per month for a single parent with two children, instead of allowing Alberta’s families to keep the increase, the Alberta government reduced its contribution to welfare rates by $6 in June, 2002. Federal money intended for the poor instead found its way into Provincial Treasury accounts.

Federal money intended for the poor instead found its way into Provincial Treasury accounts.

The following week, the Alberta College of Social Workers began their public campaign for social justice. The College is the regulatory body for the practice of social work in Alberta and also the professional association representing the interests of social workers. It currently has 4500 members.

One of the objectives of the College is "to advocate for policies, programs and services that promote the profession and protect the best interests of the public". It under the aegis of this goal that the College is conducting its campaign.

Has the campaign worked?

In the bluntest terms, the social workers campaign has not been a success. The Klein government, which has hundreds of millions to spend on tax breaks for the corporate sector, has not come up with the $151 million per year needed to provide the 20 per cent increase in welfare rates sought by the College. By way of contrast, Kuiken points to the government’s Farm Income Assistance Program. This drought relief program was universal and without means or needs testing. Farmers received aid whether or not they had suffered losses – in fact, farmers in irrigation districts received some of the $324 million from the program.

In terms of public opinion, though, the campaign can take some credit for the strong popular support for raising social welfare rates and for indexing the rates to inflation in the future.

65% of Albertans believe the amount of income support provided to those in need is not enough.

A poll taken one month after the ACSW campaign started indicated that 65% of Albertans believe the amount of income support provided to those in need is not enough. 88% believe it either very or somewhat important to increase rates. And, 90% believe rates should be indexed to inflation.

Perhaps most importantly, the College has not given up on their campaign. They are currently starting another round of billboard messages and another round of lobbying MLAs and other government officials.

What would really be helpful is if more voices were raised o the issue. The fact that there aren’t is an area of concern for Kuiken. "There are very few lobbyists working on behalf of welfare or social service clients generally," he notes. "Numerous agencies and social workers express an outright reluctance or unwillingness to go on record as supporting increases in welfare benefits. In many cases they report a fear of retribution."

Support from individual unions and from the labour movement in Alberta could make an important difference in this issue.