The Impact of Social Assistance Programs

           There is a stigma attached to the importance of social welfare programs. Neoconservative journalist Margaret Wente believes that without the availability of such programs, Canadian residents would face more severe issues of poverty, hunger, violence and crime (Wente, 2012).  After the shooting that broke out on Danzig Street in Toronto that killed two, the Canadian population desperately called for the need to generate more social assistance programs within the “troubled” areas of Ontario (Howlett & Mills, 2012). 

However, Wente proposes the existence of various numbers of social assistance programs already present within the city of Toronto.  These programs include free summer camp, programs to find jobs for young adults with criminal records, and funding the less fortunate for community college (Wente, 2012).  Among greater city “priority” areas, the Canadian government had already invested over 120 million dollars to improve social assistance programs, most apparently within Toronto (Wente, 2012).  As a Neoconservatist, Wente suggests the majority of government funded social assistance programs within these areas are not beneficial towards the population because many Canadians within greater city regions continue to live among poverty, and violent, crime infested areas (Wente, 2012).  Wente proposes that the government has refused to take time to investigate the effects such social assistance programs have provided for these issues.  Because of the lack of such basic statistics, Wente believes it almost impossible to understand whether these social programs that spend billions of dollars to help the poor and susceptible indeed provide beneficial to such communities or not (Wente, 2012).  Wente’s ideas drift towards a neoconservative ideological view.  This is because such ideology calls for the dismantling of the social welfare state, as Wente wants to reduce the amount of social assistance programs available that aid the public by investigating and terminating those that don’t seem beneficial or useful to troubled communities (Wente, 2012).

             Being of the Liberal party, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty applies a liberal ideological analysis towards the recent outbreak of gun violence (Howlet & Mills, 2012).  Although Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford pushes to hire more police officers to patrol the area, McGuinty criticizes Ford for voicing his refusal for the development of more youth related social programs (Howlett & Mills, 2012).  He also proposed sending police into higher priority areas to make arrests and seize guns (Howlett & Mills, 2012).  Ford’s ideas illustrate a neo-conservative analysis with emphasis on importance of strict punishment (Hicks, 2004).  Neoconservatives also carry the belief that the political government may need to resort to authoritarian rule to protect the political order (Hicks, 2004).  Ford believes it unnecessary to provide more social programs, as he does not believe “hug-a-thug” programs would prevent the reoccurrence of gun violence (Howlett & Mills, 2012).  This again provides us a key component of the neoconservative ideology.  Such ideology believes the existence of social programs should cease, as it rejects all Liberal efforts to make equality of opportunity a reality (Drury, 1997).  However, McGuinty’s statement reflects the efforts of liberal ideology.  Although such ideology blames the unfortunate, it believes the importance to reform social programs in order to balance severe cases of need (Bracken, 2004).  McGuinty also noted that all three levels of the government, police and those working with young people must work together to solve the problem (Howlett & Mills, 2012).  This again distributes ideas from the liberal ideology because it believes that power is shared between private individuals, pressure groups and the state (Bracken, 2004).  All three groups working together would ensure that no group rose high enough to dominate (Bracken, 2004).  

             From a Neo-conservatist view, it is evident the belief that government structures are not equipped in investigating a more beneficial approach to social assistance spending, as they believe the welfare state unnecessary (Drury, 1997).  This becomes palpable when identifying the underlying ideologies behind the similar ideas of Margaret Wente and Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford.  “We’ve organized ourselves in such a way that mostly we have no idea what we’re doing,” says an inside representative of the Canadian House of Commons (Howlett & Mills, 2012).  However, a cut to any program may provide a negative reaction amongst the disadvantaged population of Canada (Wente, 2012).  We cannot expect a Neo-conservatist government to spend time and funding studying the impacts of social welfare programs within Canada, when such type of government offers no interest in doing so.  Perhaps our government structure might want to look towards a more liberal, or social democratic ideological view.  As stated before, although the liberal ideology blames the unfortunate, it also tends to support the importance of social welfare within the system (Bracken, 2004).  Our government should actively work towards promoting realistic solutions to persistent social problems.  But for now, our country still suffers. 

-    Kara

References:

Wente, M.  (2012, October 13).  “The awful truth about social programs.”  The Globe and Mail.  Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/margaret-wente-the-awful-truth-about-social-programs/article4610262/.

Howlett, K. & Mills, C.  (2012, July 20).  “McGuinty calls for cops and social programs in wake of shootings.”  The Globe and Mail.  Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/mcguinty-calls-for-cops-and-social-programs-in-wake-of-shootings/article4432066/.

Drury, S.  (1997, May 17).  “Demise of the Tory Tradition:  Conservatives have forgotten their debt to the poor.”  University of Regina, Faculty of the Arts.  Retrieved from http://phil.uregina.ca/CRC/herald_demise.html.

Bracken, D.  (2004).  “Elements of Ideology Liberalism.”  Social Welfare Policy Analysis.  Retrieved from http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~bracken/lib.html.