Oh, Canada?

by Bev Suderman

Gloria Steinem once said, in the early years of Reagan's term, that you had to thank the guy because he "made your allies for you." I feel the same way about the Social Security Review process that Lloyd Axworthy's office is now undertaking. Suddenly CCLOW's office is exchanging information, documents, and strategies with anti-poverty organizations, unions, other social justice organizations, and, of course, other women's groups, with unprecedented speed and vigor.

Social security reform will have a dramatic effect on all aspects of our lives. Most of us have benefited in some way at some time from Canada's social programs, whether , through collecting seniors' pensions or family allowances. I have directly benefited from having the federal government guarantee my student loans (which I paid back in full) and from collecting unemployment insurance. These programs have enabled a better quality of life for Canadians, through security of things like health care, access to education, and a guaranteed minimum income in times of need.

The tone of the discussions as reported in the media, however, seems to blame the recipients of social programs for needing them. Accusations of worker abuse of the unemployment system come in a context of the "jobless" economic recovery. Concerns about .welfare fraud come at a time when the Canadian economy has been gripped by an on-going depression for more than ten years, and the "acceptable" rate of structural unemployment has risen to 12%. The Council of Canadians recently released a statistic which I find shocking: only 58% of the Canadian workforce has full time jobs. This means that the other 42% is marginally employed or unemployed, although not necessarily collecting unemployment insurance.

The direction of the social security review is also affected by the context in which it is occurring. The government argues that, the deficit and the debt are strangling the Canadian government (33% of the government's annual budget pays interest rates on Canada Savings Bonds, Treasury Bills, and other financial instruments through which it borrows money), and therefore the Canadian economy. What is not said is that the terms of the Canada-US Free Trade agreement and NAFTA require that the social security systems of the two countries be harmonized, to prevent "unfair competition." Harmonization apparently means lowering rather than raising the standards.

Another piece of the puzzle is that corporate taxes contribute only a fraction of government revenues, because the previous administration undertook tax reforms which reduced tax requirements on corporations and the rich, even though Canada has the highest concentration of billionaires in the world. Such tax reforms are in line with an ideology called monetarism, or the globalization of capital, which is gripping the governments of Europe and North America.

All of this requires us to consider what is the role of our government. Is it to ensure that the rich get richer and everybody else gets poorer? Or is it to ensure that in the community of Canada everybody has the security of knowing their basic needs will be met and their basic human rights respected?

I am writing in the province of Alberta, where our government is undertaking the most radical social experiment of the century: eliminating the provincial deficit in four years without , raising taxes. The impact of the cuts can definitely be characterized as a war on women, as Alison Taylor terms it in this issue, as well as on other disadvantaged groups, because women will be expected to pick up the slack of reduced medical care, reduced access to elementary education, reduced employment opportunities, and reduced access to welfare and social assistance. Is this the kind of Canada in which we want to live?

Speak up and speak out!

Bev Suderman recently made the transition from president to past-president of CCLOW, and is energetically involved in CCLOW's work on the social security review. Bev is also a student, and one of the marginally employed. For further information about how you can be involved with CCLOW's response to the social security review, contact the office at 416-699-1909 (ph) or 416-699-2145 (fax).