Social Welfare in Canada Revisited: Facing Up to the Future

This book, under the title Social Welfare in Canada has been a standard text in the field of Canadian social welfare for twenty years. In this completely revised and updated third edition, Armitage examines the legacy of the welfare state in Canada and also explores an uncertain future for social welfare. Many changes in the Canadian political and economic climate threaten the social safety net that has been developed since World War II: the deficit burdens of federal and provincial governments; the real possibility of Quebec's succession from Canada; conservative and even reactionary government retrenchment in the social policy field as a means to cut deficits and to remain economically competitive in the face of globalization and North American free trade.

Armitage writes that "the liberal vision remains capable of guiding a collective response to the economic and social policy changes of the twenty-first century" and emphasizes that "both sets of challenges have to be dealt with together". The foremost underlying theme here is a renewed conviction that Canadian society must become more just, more tolerant, and more humane, despite political and economic pressures to the contrary. While programs such as Unemployment Insurance, Workers' Compensation, and retirement benefits, which were designed for conditions 50 years ago, must be thoroughly reappraised, the "situation of single mothers and their children and the growing number of children in poverty comprise the central challenge for social policy. Social policy needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up, and the 'bottom' means the standard of living that is afforded to those who are worst off".