Conference kaosws::canada

    And at the same time, we have had and still have economic policies that
    put more and more people out of work and on to social assistance
    programs.  We have instituted trade deals that encourage off-shore
    manufacturing putting yet more people out of work.  
    
    Clearly, if a good proportion of the unemployed were working again,
    then we wouldn't have a deficit and our taxes would go down, and
    we wouldn't be so worried about social program fraud, because it
    would be insignificant in comparison with the GNP, and it would
    actually be worth people's while to work.
    
    After years of these policies, employers are afraid to maintain
    high staffing levels (witness Digital) and would rather hire and
    fire as and when the need drives.
    
    Clearly the answer is to eliminate the inflation paranoia that has
    come from Friedman's Monetary fiscal policy.  It's time for a new
    economic policy that recognizes that the consumerism in the world
    is not going to drive the same high levels of manufacturing and
    that service industries are a majot part of the world.
    
    After all the talk in years gone by of the long vacations and short
    work weeks ... where is it ?  It has in fact happened ... there
    are more workers than work available ... but instead of happening
    during increasing prosperity, it happened in inflationary and then
    recessionary times.  So we don't get the same pay for 30 hour weeks
    and 8 weeks vacation, we're all struggling for full time work to make
    ends meet.
    
    
    Stuart
    
    

    Make it less attractive to be on welfare or unemployment. In the 50's
    and 60's it was an embarassment to be on either of these.
    
    Personally I find it obsene that people on welfare live in apartments
    or town houses that many people working full time could not afford.
    
    Yes there is an unemployment crisis in Canada, and people should be
    taken care of but to me taken care of means food and shelter not 
    entertainment expenses and a condo.
    
    
    Brian V
    

Here's an idea:

Force the people who are on welfare who are *able* to work to do some community
volunteer work.

i.e.  you do X hours/week or month or year otherwise, we'll start deducting from your
free *salary*, in proportions to the number of hours worked against the number of hour 
they were required to work.

Now the problem comes:

How do you decide who's *able* to perform volunteer work while making sure people on 
welfare don't voluntarily inflict themselves injuries or fake them to get out of it?


As far as I know the Quebec government is toying with a wrlfare volunteer work idea but 
I'm not sure about the details.

/Mario

>> Force the people who are on welfare who are *able* to work to do some community
>> volunteer work.

    If the work needs doing, why isn't someone being paid a full wage to do
    it ?
    
    Whilst I agree with the principle, is there not a danger that people on
    welfare become a source of cheap labour ?
    
    Regards,
    Wayne

    There in a nutshell is exactly the problem ... there is actually LOTS
    of work "that needs doing" out there, in both the public and private
    sectors ... but no-one is willing to pay to have it done.
    
    In the public sector, it's not being done because it would push up
    taxes ... and in the private sector, it would cut into profits
    which are already struggling during this recession.  The fact that
    putting people back to work giving them money to spend and pay taxes
    on seems to have escaped the notice of our politico-economists. This
    would go a long way towards creating wealth and creating more and more
    jobs.  But, the politico-economists say that this would cause rampant
    inflation, and for now inflation is public enemy number 1.
    
    With approximately 10% unemployment across the country, that probably
    represents something like 500,000 people drawing UI and welfare.  Now,
    I'm just guessing at some numbers here ... say we put half of them
    back to work ... 250,000.  Say the average family income is around
    $30,000 per year and they would pay about 25% in income tax and around
    another 2% in GSTable items.  Say also that they currently get around
    $10,000 per year in UI and welfare.
    
    Now this means a total income of 7,500,000,000
    
    That's about 2 billion in tax revenue alone.
    
    Now deduct the 2.5 billion that you don't have to pay out in UI.
    
    That's 4.5 billion per year off the deficit instantly.  This amount is
    probably much larger than this due to the ripple down effects ...
    less costs in running the UI and welfare programs ... more
    manufacturing activity resulting in higher corporate profits and
    taxes.  I wouldn't mind betting that with the ripple down effect, the
    total impact on the deficit would be in the order of 8 billion, and
    that's only putting HALF the unemployed back to work.
    
    Remember that the 30 billion deficit we are currently running includes
    interest, so we are probably looking at reducing the deficit by a
    total of 30%.
    
    Basically inflation fighting has cost Canada and the world MEGA $.
    
    And the question remains ... When will this inflation fighting era end?
    
    Stuart

    Just getting people on welfare to go and pick up their checks instead
    of having it mailed to their residences has met with cries of which
    hunts.
    
    There are no easy answers, but I think some means of tarification is
    going to be the way to go.  In the early days of medicare, there was
    under-use because people knew how much a doctor cost, they would not go
    to the clinic for a cold of some other ailment which they could take
    care of themselves.  Now there is abuse of the system, not only the
    medical system, but all governement run systems because people "think"
    they are free.  Now is the time to associate a symbolic "bill" as well
    as a deductible to each and every service.  
    
    An example: Why should I pay the same water tax as my neighbor who has
    a pool?  He uses a LOT more water than me (we have no water meters). 
    Why does the clinic close to my house pay the same to have 20 bags of
    garbage removed as I do for 1 or 2?  why does my neighbor pay the same
    school tax as I do yet he has no children? ....
    
    Jean
    

>    An example: Why should I pay the same water tax as my neighbor who has
>    a pool?  He uses a LOT more water than me (we have no water meters). 
>    Why does the clinic close to my house pay the same to have 20 bags of
>    garbage removed as I do for 1 or 2?  why does my neighbor pay the same
>    school tax as I do yet he has no children? ....

Two reasons ...

The cost of providing the service ... such as garbage, water etc is not
totally proportional to use ... It makes little difference between picking
up 1 bag or say 4 bags at your driveway (or at least USED to! Today the
cost per kilo of garbage to dump is getting to where it does matter ...
but rather than bill per bag ... many communities have sought to limit
the amount disposed ... thus making people more sensitive to what they
use.  That your community does not charge for water by metering is an
inequity ... mine charges flat rate for sevice and then so much per
cubic metre.

The second reason is that the service benefits all *at some time
or another or in some way or another*.  That is, it is not a short term
payback.  That you pay school tax and your neighbour doesn't is just such
an example.  Your family gets direct benefit from schooling, your neighbour
gets benefit maybe later if he has a family, or in terms of well educated
youth who will help support him in his old age.

Yes, we all need to know how much a service costs in order to use it, but
charging user fees is not necessarily the way to go.  For example, there
are many doctors who recommend their patients go to emergency rather than
provide after hours coverage.  It is far more costly for you to visit a
doctor in emergency than your own doctor.  Recently, we have seen a lot
of "Walk-in" clinics set up and these certainly alleviate the strain on
hospital emergency rooms a) if you know where they are and b) if you trust
the doctors on duty.  Some clinic doctors seem to prescribe pennicillin
for ANYTHING!

The other reason for soaring medical costs is that more and more we expect
our doctors to use diagnostic tests (we'll sue em for malpractice if they
get it wrong).  We also expect doctors to be able to cure every ailment,
big or small, and take more and more steps to achieve that, where at one
time we'd accept "take 2 aspirin, go to bed and call me in the morning"!

So, let's make sure we're blaming the right things and decide what it is
we expect of our social services before we complain about their cost.

Stuart

    I believe the idea of "workfare" was toyed with at various times in
    several different locations in Canada. London, Ontario and Dartmouth,
    Nova Scotia are two locations I am aware of.
    
    Workfare was essentially taking able bodied people on 'social
    assistance" and having them do some civic work such as cleaning
    streets, sidewalks, etc. 
    
    I know in Dartmouth the union representing the city workers believed
    workfare would infringe on their jobs. (??) As well, it was a question of
    trying to determine who was able bodied and who could do the work. In
    the end workfare was defeated, and everyone ended up paying higher
    taxes as the City workers got a raise and a lot more people went on
    welfare.
    
    It's a great system isn't it.
    
    Terry 

    
    	Yup, we had a Canadian family visit a few weeks ago and the
    daughter (22) had a daughter (2.5) and she (the older) hadn't worked in
    years!  Said the gov. paid all...incl. money for Christmas!  She had
    $100 bills to spend "down" here.  Said the cleaning ladies get
    $14.90(Can) min. wages after bein' on the dole!  (do y'all call it "the
    dole", or just welfare??).  Also said work is moving to the USA like
    Americans complain that work is movin' to Mexico.  What do you think,
    I'm asking, I don't know, was last in Canada many moons ago!  Oh, and
    everyone had mucho medical coverage, too.  They live in a "frontier"
    location, does that give one more bennies??
    
    	I'm not makin' a statement, just inquire'n and learnin' how things
    work up there....may need to move there myself!!  Just kiddin'!!
    
    KMP

    
    Here's a pearl for you all...
    
    A friend of mine owns a company that supplies used appliances
    to the welfare crowd. Earlier this year he made two deliveries
    in the Orleans area to a house that in his estimation was worth
    in the vicinity of 275 to 300,000 dollars. The first set of
    appliances "disappeared" while the owners were away (!). When he
    asked his Social Services contact about this, he was politely but
    rather firmly told that there were "welfare police" already out there
    checking, and he should confine his efforts to the job for which he
    was contracted. He hung up the phone, shaking his head.
    
    Abuse aplenty. In fact, there are not enough used appliances available
    of sufficient quality in Canada, so he must import from south of the
    border to fill the demand. He supplies only to the welfare crowd!!
    
    Every time I meet him he has a new whopper to tell me.
    
    Pat

    Tell him the fridge is working great!
    
    What a deal that was!
    
    Glenn ;-)