Quebec wants to make social assistance “more humane” and “less punitive”

Photo: Marie-France Coallier Archives Le Devoir The Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity will be more lenient with people who make honest mistakes in their claims, the forms being, by its own admission, quite complex.

Isabelle Porter in Quebec

Published at 10:58 Updated at 17:55

• Quebec

The Minister responsible for Social Solidarity and Community Action, Chantal Rouleau, tabled a bill on Wednesday to humanize the social assistance system by facilitating access to the program and taking greater account of the problems of beneficiaries.

“We are proposing to move from a punitive system to a more humane, simpler system that is more conducive to a return to work,” Minister Rouleau said at a press briefing.

With its thirty or so articles, Bill 71 includes a series of measures that will have to be the subject of consultations in parliamentary committee this fall. This is the first major reform of the system in 20 years, if we exclude the introduction in 2023 of the new basic income program targeting people with physical disabilities.

In Quebec, the basic social assistance benefit is $807 per month. Some people are entitled to additional allowances, for employment limitations, for example.

Less severe

The bill would notably change penalties imposed on young beneficiaries whose parents are financially well-off and who do not live with them. Bonuses will also be offered to people who return to school, but their amounts have not yet been revealed. In Quebec, no fewer than 40% of welfare recipients have not completed their secondary studies.

The bill also softens the claims imposed on recipients guilty of false declarations by limiting to 5 years, rather than 15, the period for which the Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity can impose penalties.

Read also

• Voices denounce a “dehumanization” of welfare services
• Work a little more when you are on welfare
• More than 597,000 temporary immigrants in Quebec

Quebec will also be more lenient with people who make honest mistakes in their claims, as the forms are — by the ministry’s own admission — quite complex. “We don’t want people to become poorer because they unintentionally made a mistake,” said Rouleau.

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

The bill also expands access to Objectif emploi to recipients who return to social assistance but were not able to access it the first time. Created in 2018, during the Liberal government of Philippe Couillard, the program was originally intended for young people and new applicants.

The Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity also acknowledges that beneficiaries sometimes have multiple psychosocial problems that make them unfit for employment. Professionals other than doctors (social workers, for example) will then be able to recognise the existence of such disabilities.

New pilot projects also aim to relax the programme criteria for certain groups who have difficulty accessing it, such as people seeking to leave prostitution, for example.

Finally, measures have been planned for couples who live together. From now on, each spouse will receive their own cheque, and the State will be more generous when one of them acts as a natural carer. However, Quebec has not granted the wishes of groups that have been demanding year after year that people not be financially penalized when they decide to live together.

“It is recognized that there are certain economies of scale when you live together as a couple,” said Ms. Rouleau. “A pound of butter, […] it will cost half for each person, whereas […] for a single person, the cost of living will be higher.”

No measures for asylum seekers

With these changes, the ministry hopes to bring 50,000 people back into the workforce. Quebec has 288,556 welfare recipients. If we exclude asylum seekers (55,592 people), their number has fallen by 40% in 20 years, according to the Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity.

In this context, one might be surprised by the absence of measures targeting asylum seekers. According to Chantal Rouleau, this was not necessary because these people do not remain on social assistance and only register for the program while waiting for Ottawa to grant them a work permit. Nevertheless, supporting these people costs the Quebec government $50 million per month, indicated the minister, who also hopes that the federal government will be more diligent in this matter.

The social assistance system costs the government $3.3 billion annually. Despite the additional resources and planned debt reductions, the department does not anticipate having to increase this budget and is counting on efficiency measures such as merging certain programs.

In the eyes of the Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté, this lack of financial impact proves that this bill will have little effect. “The minister says that it is at zero cost, so it is obvious that it will not change much in people’s lives,” argues her spokesperson, Serge Petitclerc. “Even if we improve eligibility for social assistance and recognize more severe constraints, that does not mean that people are less poor.”

The collective wants all social assistance recipients to have access to what is called “basic income,” a program reserved for people with permanent disabilities. The normal monthly basic income cheque is $1,273 per month.