Social Policy

Canadians don't have to accept the destruction of our health care, education, or income security. Instead of destroying the sinews of our economy and our society, we can renew and rebuild them.

Federal Transfers

We favour reforming federal transfers - stabilizing them, strengthening them, and ensuring they continue to reflect Canadian values.

Most Canadian social programs, including medicare, post-secondary education and social assistance, are provincially-administered.

Canadians are well-served by the arrangement. "People programs" are best managed as close to the people as possible.

Not only are New Democrats committed to managing social programs close to the communities they serve - our party has made the most creative use of the arrangement. The best example of many: the CCF/NDP pioneered medicare after winning power provincially in Saskatchewan.

We are also firmly committed to a common Canadian framework - one that provides all citizens with comparable services; and one that permits citizens equal access to services wherever they move within Canada. We are opposed to the "social dumping" that occurs when some provinces seek an economic advantage over others by providing fewer social services to attract investment.

We believe the federal government has a critical and continuing role to play in enabling and maintaining that common framework. Federal transfers enable provinces to offer comparable services to citizens. The terms and conditions of transfers can ensure all Canadians are guaranteed fundamental rights of citizenship - including access to universal public medicare; education; and income security.

Federal transfers have been repeatedly reformed and restructured in the past twenty years. The most recent "reform" proposals from the Chretien government would combine federal transfers into a single block transfer from the federal to provincial governments, called the "Canada Social Transfer." This reform would provide a single, smaller payment to provinces to cover the federal share of social spending.

This reform, like all of its predecessors, is a purely fiscally-driven exercise, designed to reduce federal investment in social programs - balancing the budget, through offloading, on the backs of the poor.

Key Points:

  • We favour an adequate, stable, simpler and less cumbersome federal transfer system - governed by a clear, enforceable and enforced Canadian social charter. Article 40 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides a good starting outline for such a charter: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of her/himself and her/his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care; and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond her/his control."
  • Federal transfers for social programs should be stabilized at a level sufficient to ensure a healthy and effective public health care system; to maintain a high-quality and accessible post- secondary education system; and to provide for adequate social assistance.
  • We favour reducing federal transfers for social assistance - by reducing the need for that spending, by working towards full employment.

Income Security

Recurring recessions, rapid turnover between jobs, and the growth of precarious employment are creating an economy of insiders and outsiders: those with stable, well-paid, full time employment with a full package of benefits, and a marginalized or peripheral workforce with few benefits, uncertain hours, and an unstable future.

This new economy of insiders and outsiders is creating growing disparities in market incomes. Between 1973 and 1991, the richest 10% of families increased their share of market incomes by 14% - while the poorest 10% saw their share decline by 47%. Families at the top took 26% of market incomes in 1991. The poorest took less than 1%.

Add in public income support programs (family allowances, unemployment insurance and social assistance), and the poorest families lost only 9% of their income.

Two inescapable conclusions: income security programs have prevented complete destitution for many Canadian citizens over the past twenty years; income support programs have borne the brunt of economic change.

Income support should be integrated with labour force policy, as it is in other social democratic jurisdictions such as Sweden - to build workforce skills, and to promote training, retraining and adaptability to the reality of changing jobs and job requirements.

Key Points:
  • Canadian income support programs play a critical role in our economy; have saved us from a return to depression-style poverty; and should have no further cutbacks not related to rising employment and lower need.
  • Every Canadian should have the right to income security during periods of unemployment. We favour returning unemployment insurance to the role its name describes. Premiums should pay for income support during transitions from job to job - and not be diverted into training and economic development investments that are properly paid for out of general revenues. UI coverage should be extended to include all workers - including contract workers, part-time workers, professionals and others not presently covered.
  • Every Canadian should have the right to income security in old age. We favour coordinated action by both federal and provincial governments to address the looming crisis in unfunded pension liabilities; to improve the portability of private and public pensions in an increasingly dynamic economy; to reform excessive tax subsidies for the pension plans of the wealthy; and to ensure pension funds build economic security for pensioners, by promoting economic growth in Canada.
  • Every Canadian should have the right to the necessities of life. We favour, as part of a Canadian social charter, an absolute and outright ban on workfare and other mandatory distortions of social assistance.

Medicare

In 1962, the CCF government in Saskatchewan took on the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the medical establishment, the commercial media, and a large majority of the business community in one of the greatest political battles in Canadian history - and introduced medicare.

Our party pioneered medicare; we've fought for it tooth and nail ever since; and we remain its best friends today.

That means standing against Tories, Liberals and Reformers and their attempts to implement the "creeping americanization" of our system.

User-fee clinics outside of medicare and other forms of privatization as proposed by the Right all lead to the same thing: the diversion of precious health dollars to inefficient additional layers of private-sector administration; the diversion of still more precious health care dollars to shareholders; and the withholding of health care services from people who can't afford them.

That's not our way.

We stand for strengthening and improving health care - promoting health measures, in Tommy Douglas' phrase, that help people keep well, rather than just patch them up after they get sick.

Full employment and widely-shared prosperity is the key missing element of Canada's health care system. The benefits that flow from full employment - better nutrition, education, housing, etc. - will lead to much greater improvements in the health status of Canadians than any level of investment in hospitals and medical equipment.

In many provinces we have over-invested in hospitals, expensive equipment, and inappropriate care. Partially as a result, our system is more expensive than Japanese and European health care systems, that do a better job at helping citizens stay healthier longer than Canadians do.

An important part of the answer is transferring resources to community- based home care that puts the emphasis on general preventive measures: nurse practitioners, mobile clinics and screening services, and other forms of care that reach out into the community and help people stay well.

Another part of the answer is working towards new and better models for community-based primary care such as health maintenance organizations and community clinics with integrated teams of health care providers and therapists. New models can more appropriately distribute responsibility among health care workers, put more resources into general health measures, and help introduce new systems of remuneration that improve on the current fee for service system.

Investing less in medical bricks and mortar through these types of reforms can free up resources for new services, like denticare and pharmacare.

Canada should be looking toward a more efficient and more accountable health care system that is more reflective of "best medical practice" services and treatment.

Key Points:

  • We founded Canadian public medicare; we've fought.for it ever
  • since; and we are committed to preserving and strengthening it.
  • We are unalterably opposed to the Americanization of our health care system. Health care should be available to those who need it, not just to those who can afford it. Precious health dollars should not be diverted to inefficient American-style private sector administration and to profit-taking.
  • We favour strengthening and improving health care. Among other measures, we favour continued progress towards community-based care.

Life-Long Learning

Our goal is sustainable full employment, a high-skill, high-wage, value-added economy, and prosperity that is widely shared. A comprehensive Canadian approach to life-long learning is fundamental to achieving those goals.

A better approach to early childhood education is part of the challenge. In over 60% of Canadian families both parents work. Yet Canada remains, like the U.S., one of the very few industrialized societies which does not offer a comprehensive system of social support for children and their families.

Canada needs to build universal child care, to support children's early social and educational development, and to assist parents.

Among many other benefits, a better approach to early childhood education - and to education in general - is one of the best ways available to help economically disadvantaged citizens break out of poverty. We need to move away from an education system where choices are based on socio-economic status rather than aptitudes and abilities.

Canada needs to ensure high standards of education and training to young people in both the old fundamentals (literacy and numeracy) and the new workplace fundamentals such as computer literacy and ongoing learning skills.

Canada needs to ensure that education is accessible. In the past, primary and secondary education were considered sufficient. That is no longer the case. We therefore need to work towards widening access to post-secondary education - increasingly the new minimum standard in today's economy.

Canada needs to improve school-to-work transitions, including the broadening of apprenticeship programs, co-op programs, and better opportunities for young people to pursue educational and training options beyond high school.

Canada needs to do a much better job at improving workplace and workforce training. We need a strong, committed partnership o f governments, employers, unions, and educators, focused on working towards continuous training and development in the economy.

And Canada needs to do a much better job of integrating interactive information and communications technology into education and training, and broadening access to these technologies. They can play a key role in promoting life-long learning.

Key Points:

  • Life-long learning is a precondition of a full employment economy, and is fundamental to allowing individuals to fully participate in society.
  • Canada needs to ensure high standards o f education and training of young people in both the old fundamentals and the new workplace fundamentals, such as computer literacy and on-going learning skills.
  • We need to work towards widening access to post-secondary education, increasingly the new minimum standard in today's economy.

Summary of Basic Commitments

Federal Council and the Federal Executive should endeavour to report to tht 1997 federal convention with a programme proposal that include commitments to: 

  • International solidarity

  • An internationalist strategy on trade

  • Global action on the environment

 

  • Sustainable full employment

  • An active federal job creation strategy

  • Fair taxes

  • Action on deficits and debt through full employment

  • Progressive labour law

 

  • A Canadian social charter, to govern a better transfer regime

  • Defense and renewal of medicare

  • Defense and renewal of income support

  • A comprehensive approach to life-long learning

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