Canada’s social safety nets are failing. 12 social impact leaders share bold ideas to reimagine them.

All eyes in the social impact world are on the federal government today as it tables its 2021 budget. 

Since the last federal budget back in March 2020, much has been illuminated about the ways oppressed and vulnerable communities are failed by Canadian systems of social services and supports. 

Could 2021 be the year for a major transformation in our social safety nets? If history is an indication, it could be. The federal government introduced Old Age Security following Word War I. And Employment Insurance materialized in the midst of World War II, after the Great Depression.  

We asked 11 leaders in the world of social impact what they hope to see this time around: given what’s been illuminated the past year, how should our social safety net transform? Here’s what they told us: 

Abdullah Snobar | Executive director, Ryerson DMZ

“The pandemic has certainly highlighted shortcomings in Canada’s social safety net, and I believe the intricate social issues we face as a country require innovative thinking and inclusive technologies to help solve them. The lack of accessibility to government services is a huge issue, and as we live in an increasingly digital age, we have an opportunity to leverage technology to design inclusive solutions.

Designing an accessible safety net will require more collaboration between the public and private sectors. Startups have the flexibility and agility to see emerging challenges and respond to them. Together with governments, they can create viable solutions for the delivery of government services to help Canada’s most vulnerable citizens get better access to support. No one should get left behind. Providing a strong and accessible safety net that supports Canadians when they need it most will be crucial as we begin to drive a forward looking recovery.”

Andrew Boozary | Executive director, social medicine and population health, University Health Network

“Housing for all. The pandemic has exposed just how cruel and costly our failure is to deliver on housing as a human right. Housing and health have always been inextricably linked. But when the public health messaging has been ‘stay at home’ to save your life throughout, homelessness was a preexisting condition for COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, our collective policy failures on housing resulted in a five times higher rate of death for people living in shelters compared to their housed neighbours. But we have always known about the decades of life lost to homelessness and the inhumane health outcomes. We must now acknowledge that a health system that seeks to be ‘universal’ without housing for all will always falter. And we will need a generational response from all levels of government to finally end homelessness. And if not now, then when?”

Denise Williams | CEO, First Nations Technology Council

“I think it’s imperative that all Canadians, especially Indigenous peoples, have universal, equal access and more resourcing to determine our own digital future. One thing we’ve learned through the pandemic is how essential technology and connectivity are in moving forward and recovering post-pandemic, in receiving timely news and updates, and in the delivery of critical programs and services like healthcare. That’s why I’d like to see equal access to technology and connectivity as a fundamental part of Canada’s social safety net.

Closing the digital divide will increase shared economic and social outcomes for all citizens and further reconciliation efforts in Canada. This drives a lot of our work at the First Nations Technology Council. That’s why we’re working on a framework to increase digital equity, and a Labour Market Study to understand barriers for First Nations in accessing and participating in the technology and technology-enabled sector. We’re aiming to inform real policy changes based on our work to advance Indigenous rights and equity in the digital world.”

Elizabeth McIsaac | President, Maytree

“To ensure an equitable post-pandemic recovery, we have to reimagine the core principles of our social safety net. Fortunately, economic and social human rights — in particular the human right to an adequate standard of living — provide us with the clarity we need.

Rooting our post-pandemic social policies in economic and social rights will require us to answer a number of questions that have remained ignored for far too long. What does an adequate and accessible social safety net look like? Are proposed policies and programs addressing the needs of the most vulnerable?  Are people with lived and living experience of poverty at the centre of policy-making? 

What was once seen as bold is now necessary. To protect the dignity of everyone across Canada, we have to start with a clear articulation of what it will take to realize the human right to an adequate standard of living.”

Hillory Tenute | Interim executive director, Canadian Roots Exchange

“This is not a simple answer. It has to start with our relationship to the land and the continued call to action for #Landback. As Indigenous peoples our sovereignty is tied to the survival of our stewardship with the land, language, kinship, creation stories, and ceremony. Ultimately leading to mino bimaadiziwin. This movement needs to coincide with dismantling of state violence and the liberation of Black bodies. The settler-colonial state, what we now call Canada, needs to continue creating policy structures and investing in infrastructure to uphold the human rights of Black, Indigenous, People of Colour and the 2SLGBTQ community. Having stronger provisions in place is a requirement to protect marginalized communities against the police state, higher rates of incarceration and the apprehension of children into child and family services, lack of housing and clean drinking water, and underfunded education, to name a few. The systems we currently have only begin to scratch the surface of generations of colonial violence. While it will take another generation to see tangible outcomes as a result of this legacy, we will continue witnessing ongoing resilience and strength amongst our communities, most notably among our youth, the seventh fire. This is who we are. This is who we have always been.”

Lauren Ravon | Executive director, Oxfam Canada

“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is the importance of being well cared for – when we are kids, when we fall sick, when we grow old. As we begin to rebuild from this pandemic, we need to imagine a new economic model and social contract that is deeply rooted in the fundamental value of care. Health-care workers, early childhood educators and those who care for the elderly in long-term care facilities – the majority women – have been providing essential services throughout the pandemic. Yet women’s labour force participation is at a 30-year low, with women dropping out of the workforce in droves due to increased care responsibilities at home. Childcare is the bedrock of women’s full enjoyment of their rights. If we are to build back better and ensure a feminist recovery, we must put childcare at the heart of Canada’s social safety net. We need to build a good quality and accessible early learning and childcare system from coast to coast to coast. And we need to demand wage increases for those working in the care economy, to ensure their work is valued, compensated and celebrated for what it is: essential.”   

Liban Abokor | Co-founder, Foundation for Black Communities 

“In Canada, philanthropy is an important thread that runs through the fabric of our social safety net. Some might even argue that when public institutions and policies fail to meet the needs of our most vulnerable populations, it is the safety net to our safety net. 

That is why it is so alarming to see so many people, including Black Canadians, struggling to find help because Canada’s philanthropic organizations have ignored them. It is not due to a lack of resources, as Canadian philanthropy has a total capital base of more than $85 billion dollars, but rather to a distribution dilemma. Canadian philanthropic organizations should adopt and implement an equity funding benchmark. This means that each organization, regardless of mandate, should direct at least 50 percent of its grantmaking to organizations led by and serving members of equity seeking groups such as Black, Indigenous, Women, and People with Disabilities. That’s how we get from charity to justice while also patching up the holes in our social safety net, which continues to let people down.”

Jennifer DeCoste | Founder, Life.School.House

“Imagine if the community-level caretakers were valued as highly as our doctors for the essential service they are providing every day. These unsung heroes are weaving and reinforcing the threads of our social fabric by organizing meals to share, checking in on elders, or trading skills, tools, and expertise to sustain resilient communities. Only with their investment of time and skill in building trust and engaging in community will we have the conditions necessary to rebuild systems and institutions post-pandemic. Successful leaders in the next era need to think more broadly about supporting and funding these trusted neighbourhood leaders. We need to call for and support initiatives that draw together community at the grassroots level because this is where a trusted social safety net is being built.”

Morna Ballantyne | Executive director, Child Care Now

“The pandemic has exposed how important affordable, reliable, quality child care is for parents — especially mothers — so they can work. Paradoxically, Canada’s governments have collectively failed to do what is necessary to guarantee access to this essential service. Because they have not properly recognized, funded and managed child care as a public responsibility and public good, child care will be even less available and affordable as Canada emerges from the pandemic, setting back economic recovery for all. 

The solution: Budget 2021 must spell out a sufficiently bold policy plan together with substantial, sustained public funding. The federal government must commit to working with provinces and territories to transform child care in Canada. Together they must build, finally, a fully publicly funded system of child care. Fundamental to this is that governments must begin to ensure a sufficient supply of high quality, universally accessible, affordable inclusive and culturally safe early learning and child care for all children.”

Nadine Duguay-Lemay | CEO, Dialogue NB

“What if we conducted a pilot project whereby recipients of social programs became the decision-makers? This idea originates from the Medicine Hat example, which (aimed) to eradicate chronic homelessness by providing permanent housing and additional support to individuals within 10 days of first connecting to support agencies or shelters. Individuals who are in vulnerable situations have skills, valuable lived experiences and know better than anyone what their needs are so they can and should have a say into the decision that most impacts them. The role of those who traditionally hold power would be to provide mentorship in and cater to any other needs they have. It would help if these individuals were also heavily exposed to the lived realities of their clients, so it helps them to shift and counter their biases.”   

Nick Saul | Co-founder and CEO, Community Food Centres of Canada

“COVID-19 has revealed and exacerbated deep divisions in our society. Since the beginning of the pandemic, food insecurity has increased by 39 percent and now affects one in seven Canadians. 

This problem has fallen disproportionately on the shoulders of Black, Indigenous and racialized people, women and children. It has also affected single adults, who are three times more likely to live in poverty than the average Canadian. Single adults receive little government support, often relying on pitifully low social assistance payments.

But the pandemic has also provided us with an opportunity to reframe and rebuild our society putting people and equity front and centre. We must do this by creating an adequate and dignified income floor below which no Canadian can fall. 

Only progressive policy change can accomplish this. That’s why Community Food Centres Canada is advocating for a federal tax benefit, administered through a race equity lens, that would put money in the pockets of low-income working-age adults. This is one of the essential steps to address deep poverty within a group our country has ignored for too long.”

Richard Veenstra | Directeur général, Mission Inclusion

“Canada’s social safety net is focused on money, but we need each other as more than buyers and sellers of products and services. A reimagined net must focus on reducing inequalities and addressing our social wellbeing. While CERB was necessary, its mechanics illuminated an incriminating focus on preserving the inequalities of the status quo, rather than addressing or preventing suffering and poverty.

In fact, we are not socially safe. As the gaps in our net became exposed, those most marginalized suffered more and fell through. Among them the elderly, Indigenous, racialized, victims of violence, those with mental illness. Luckily, an under-the-radar network of community organizations scrambled to tighten those loose gaps in Canada’s safety net.

A balanced budget is not an ambition, it is a compromise. The priority of government budgeting must be to ensure the rights and needs of all citizens. A healthy economy is a means to this end, and yes, a guaranteed personal income is absolutely part of the way forward, in conjunction with federal, provincial, and private support mechanisms. But long-term, reliable, sufficient government funding for community organizations is crucial. They address economic and social needs, have their ear to the ground and their hands on the wheel. The more we support them, the tighter that net.”

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