The national children's agenda: A neoliberal wolf in lamb's clothing

Studies in Political Economy

Volumn , Issue 80, 2007, Pages 151-173

  McKeen, Wendy ^a  

^a YORK UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 38349075184     PISSN: 07078552     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/19187033.2007.11675088     Document Type: Article

References (76)

1. Jane Jenson and Denis Saint-Martin, "New Routes to Social Cohesion? Citizenship and the Social Investment State," Canadian Journal of Sociology 28/1 (2003), pp. 77-99;
2. Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Denis Saint-Martin, "Re-thinking Retrenchment: Ideas, Actors and the Politics of 'Investing in Children' in Britain and Canada." Paper prepared for the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco (August-September 2001).
3. See Adam Tickell and Jamie Peck, "Making Global Rules - Globalization or Neoliberalism?" in Jamie Peck and Henry Wai-chung Yeung, (eds.), Remaking the Global Economy - Economic- Geographical Perspectives (London: Sage, 2003), pp. 163-181;
4. Bob Jessup, "Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Governance: A State-Theoretical Perspective," Antipode 34/3 (2002), p. 452.
5. Tickell and Peck, "Making Global Rules."
6. CAP was a cost-sharing agreement between the federal and provincial governments that provided guaranteed funding for social services. It was eliminated and replaced with the block funding program, the Canada Health and Social Transfer in 1995, which provided a much reduced level of funding (and has since been replaced with the Canada Social Transfer).
7. Wendy McKeen and Ann Porter, "Politics and Transformation: Welfare State Restructuring in Canada," in Wallace Clement and Leah Vosko, (eds.), Changing Canada: Political Economy as Transformation (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003), pp. 109-134.
8. Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Jane Jenson, "Shifting Representations of Citizenship: Canadian Politics of 'Women' and 'Children,'" Social Politics 11/2 (2004), pp. 154-180.
9. Canada, Ministerial Council on Social Policy Renewal, National Children's Agenda "Backgrounder" (1999), (accessed 25 February 2004).
10. Wendy McKeen, Money in Their Own Name: The Feminist Voice in Poverty Debate in Canada, 1970-1995 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004);
11. Karen Murray, "Do Not Disturb: 'Vulnerable Populations' in Federal Government Policy Discourses and Practices," Canadian Journal of Urban Research 13/1 (2004), pp. 50-69.
12. Deena White, "The Children's Agenda: How New Is It, and How Is It New?" draft paper (2003), p. 21.
13. Canada, Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers Responsible for Social Services, Evaluation of the National Child Benefit Initiative: Synthesis Report (February 2005), pp. 9, 10, http://www.nationalchild benefit.ca/ncb/SP-AH215/english/page00.shtml.
14. Wendy McKeen, "Diminishing the Concept of Social Policy: The Shifting Conceptual Ground of Social Policy Debate in Canada," Critical Social Policy 26/4 (2006), pp. 865-887.
15. Ibid.
16. See, for example, the testimony of Margaret Biggs, Department of Human Resources Development Canada, file #8 (11 May 1999), p. 29
17. in Canada, Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk, Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, Minutes of Proceedings, 36th Parliament, 1st Session, 22 September 1997-18 September 1999, .
18. Susan Prentice, "Manitobds Childcare Regime: Social Liberalism in Flux," Canadian Journal of Sociology 29/2 (2004), p. 193.
19. Lynell Anderson, BC's Annual Reporting on Early Childhood Development (ECD): Analysis of Impacts on Child Care (Vancouver: Child Care Advocacy Forum, 2004).
20. White, "The Children's Agenda," p. 34.
21. Leah Vosko, "Crisis Tendencies in Social Reproduction: The Case of Ontario's Early Years Plan," in Kate Bezanson and Meg Luxton, (eds.), Social Reproduction: Feminist Political Economy Challenges Neoliberalism (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006), pp. 145-172.
22. See, for example, Canada, Federal/Provincial/Territorial Early Childhood Development Agreement, The Well-Being of Canada's Young Children: Government of Canada Report 2003 (Ottawa: Human Resources Development Canada and Health Canada, 2003).
23. The goals of the NCB Initiative are "to help prevent and reduce the depth of child poverty; to promote attachment to the workforce by ensuring that families will always be better-off as a result of working; and to reduce overlap and duplication through closer harmonization of program objectives and benefits and through simplified administration" (Canada, Evaluation of the National Child Benefit Initiative, p. 7).
24. Armine Yalnizyan, Canada's Commitment to Equality: A Gender Analysis of the Last Ten Federal Budgets (1995-2004), Prepared for the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), (2005), p. 80, . Provincial governments have used some of the savings from the "offset" under the NCB (that is, the ability to deduct the NCB supplement from social assistance recipients) to provide supplemental amounts in child benefits (see Canada, Evaluation of the National Child Benefit Initiative).
25. See, for example, Canada, Evaluation of the National Child Benefit Initiative.
26. Peter Graefe, "State Restructuring, Social Assistance, and Canadian Intergovernmental Relations: Same Scales, New Tune," Studies in Political Economy 78 (2006), pp. 93-117;
27. Gerald Boychuk, "Social Assistance and Canadian Federalism," in Francois Rocher and Miriam Smith, (eds.), New Trends in Canadian Federalism, 2nd ed. (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2003), pp. 269-293.
28. National Council of Welfare, Welfare Incomes 2004 (Ottawa: NCW, 2005), ;
29. Stephanie Fletcher, "The Canadian Policy Response to the Crisis of Care" (master's thesis, St. Mary's University, Halifax, 2006);
30. White, "The Children's Agenda."
31. Canada, Evaluation of the National Child Benefit Initiative, also see Stephanie Paterson, Karine Levasseur, and Taryana Teplova, "I Spy with my Little Eye ... Canada's National Child Benefit," in G. Bruce Doern, (ed.), How Ottawa Spends, 2004-2005: Mandate Change in the Paul Martin Era (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004), pp. 131-150;
32. and John Myles, "Decline or Impasse? The Current State of the Welfare State," Studies in Political Economy 26 (1988), pp. 73-107.
33. Myles, "Decline or Impasse?" p. 94.
34. Ibid., pp. 96-97.
35. Campaign 2000, Decision Time for Canada: Let's Make Poverty History, 2005 Report Card on Child Poverty in Canada, p. 3, .
36. Ibid;
37. also see Campaign 2000, Oh Canada! Too Many Children in Poverty for Too Long...:2006 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada, .
38. The NCW reports that typical welfare incomes in 2004 were thousands of dollars below the poverty line and that benefits in many provinces and territories in that year were at their lowest levels since the 1980s (see National Council of Welfare, Welfare Incomes 2004).
39. Campaign 2000, Decision Time for Canada and Oh Canada!
40. See Prentice, "Manitoba's Childcare Regime." The Harper government introduced a "universal child care benefit" for families with children under age six, which was meant to help subsidize the cost of child care for these families and to stimulate the growth of child care in the private sector (or private/voluntary sector partnerships). Most critics agree that the plan does little to stimulate new childcare spaces or to cover the real costs of child care borne by families.
41. Fletcher, "The Canadian Policy Response";
42. Campaign 2000, Diversity or Disparity? Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada (ECEC) (November 2003).
43. For example, while Manitoba's fees for child care are among the lowest in Canada, a single mother in Winnipeg with two children, aged three and six, must still spend 26 percent of her budget on child care. If she earns more than $24,577 (net) per annum, she is not eligible for any assistance from Manitoba's childcare subsidy program (Campaign 2000, Diversity or Disparity, p. 11).
44. According to Campaign 2000, the average wages of workers in the childcare sector are "abysmally" low and not consistent with the average wage (Ibid., p. 13).
45. For a good discussion of the gendered and raced nature of the employment in the social services sector, see Donna Baines, "Seven Kinds of Work, Only One Paid: Race, Gendered and Restructured Care in the Social Services Sector," Atlantis: A Women' Studies Journal 28/2 (2004), pp. 19-28.
46. While the educational requirements for these jobs are set low (grade 12), most home visitors in Nova Scotia have post-secondary education or a university degree. The pay rate ranged from $10 to $15 per hour in NS in 2003. "Early interventionists" were paid $30,000 in NS in 2003. In PEI, the starting salary for home visitors is $8.50 per hour, going up after six months to $10 per hour (Susan Lilley and Phyllis Price, Home Visiting to Support Young Families in Nova Scotia: Report of a Province-wide Program Scan (Nova Scotia Department of Health and the Healthy Beginnings: Enhanced Home Visiting Initiative, Provincial Steering Committee, May 2003), p. 43.
47. See, for example, Margaret Little, "No Car, No Radio, No Liquor Permit": The Moral Regulation of Single Mothers in Ontario, 1920-1997 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1998);
48. Gerald Boychuk, Patchworks of Purpose: The Development of Provincial Social Assistance Regimes in Canada (Montreal and Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998);
49. Karen Swift, "Contradictions in Child Welfare: Neglect and Responsibility," in Donna Baines, (ed.), Women's Caring: Feminist Perspectives on Social Welfare, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 160-167.
50. Nova Scotia, Department of Community Services, Healthy Beginnings: Enhanced Home Visiting Initiative - Support Manual (Halifax, 14 March 2005), p. 7.
51. Low education of the primary caregiver is also a concern: "The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) found that education level of the person most knowledgeable about the child (most often the mother) was a significant predictor of children's verbal ability ..." (Ibid., p. 29).
52. Ibid., p. 23.
53. Ibid., p. 24. The program manual cites a Health Canada publication on the determinants of health on this question.
54. Ibid., p. 24.
55. Lilley and Price, Home Visiting.
56. These are described as "mid term outcomes" of the program; see Nova Scotia, Healthy Beginnings, p. 8.
57. Lilley and Price, Home Visiting, pp. 21-22.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid., p. 15.
60. Ibid., p. 19.
61. Ibid., p. 16.
62. For example, "[p]rogram staff maintain contact with families who are believed to be candidates for the program yet refuse to participate, using a positive approach to encourage them, over time, to accept support." (Susan Lilley and Phyllis Price, Healthy Beginnings: Enhanced Home Visiting Initiative - Evaluation Framework (Nova Scotia Dept. of Health and the Healthy Beginnings: Enhanced Home Visiting Initiative, Provincial Steering Committee, December 2004), p. 4.
63. Also see, Nova Scotia, Healthy Beginnings .., p. 33.
64. Lilley and Price, Healthy Beginnings, p. 8.
65. See Canada, Social Development Canada, "National Child Benefit Success Stories," .
66. Mothers with newborn children are assessed in terms of their initial bonding with the child: "it is likely that the strongest single familial factor protecting the potential for resiliency is the establishment of a secure attachment to a primary caregiver" (Nova Scotia, Healthy Beginning, p. 27).
67. Her behaviour with her child is observed and assessed, including any verbalizations, disappointment in the sex, negative comments on mothering abilities, and high levels of anxiety (Ibid., p. 28).
68. Lilley and Price, Home Visiting, pp. 20-21.
69. Vosko, "Crisis Tendencies," p. 158.
70. Margaret Little, "The Blurring of Boundaries: Private and Public Welfare for Single Mothers in Ontario," Studies in Political Economy 47 (1995), pp. 89-109;
71. Mariana Valverde, "The Mixed Social Economy as a Canadian Tradition," Studies in Political Economy 47 (1995), pp. 33-60.
72. Janine Brodie, Politics on the Margins: Restructuring and the Canadian Women's Movement (Halifax: Fernwood Books, 1995), p. 57.
73. See also Suzanne MacGregor, "Welfare, Neo-Liberalism and New Paternalism: Three Ways for Social Policy in Late Capitalist Societies," Capital and Class 67 (1999), pp. 91-118.
74. See also Gerda Roelvink and David Craig, "The Man in the Partnering State: Regendering the Social Through Partnerships," Studies in Political Economy 75 (2005), pp. 103-126.
75. Yalnizyan, Canada's Commitment, p. 100;
76. Roelvink and Craig, "The Man in the Partnering State."