Key Provincial and Territorial Government Welfare Links

- L'aide sociale - Liens importants des gouvernements provinciaux et territoriaux

Updated April 29, 2010
Page révisée le 29 avril 2010

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[ Go to Canadian Social Research Links Home Page ]

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Jump directly to a specific jurisdiction: [The links in this yellow box will take you further down on the page you're now reading.] Provinces and territories: Newfoundland and Labrador Prince Edward Island Nova Scotia New Brunswick Québec Ontario Manitoba Saskatchewan Alberta British Columbia Yukon Northwest Territories Nunavut ---------------- Income Assistance for members of First Nations living on a reserve ---------------- Social/Income Assistance for immigrants Different rules apply depending on whether someone wishes to come to Canada as an immigrant (i.e., permanently), a visitor, a worker (temporarily), a student or a refugee. ---------------- General/national welfare resources: (also lower down on the page you're now reading) * Welfare statistics * Welfare rates (benefit levels) * Welfare expenditures * Welfare and the Canada Child Tax Benefit * Welfare leavers - what happens to them? * Legislation * Historical welfare program information and statistics * Miscellaneous welfare research resources ---------------- NOTE: for the latest budget info, go to the Canadian Government Budgets Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/budgets.htm   Related Canadian Social Research Links pages: * Anti-Poverty Strategies and Campaigns * Guaranteed Annual Income   FACTOID: On a yearly average, this page is viewed over 7,500 times a month. [Spring 2010]

For each Canadian province and territory, you'll find links to the following info on this page: Department responsible for welfare - Link to the government department responsible for the administration of the welfare program Name of the welfare program - Whatever a jurisdiction chooses to call its financial assistance program of last resort - social assistance, income support, income assistance and welfare assistance are the most common - "welfare" refers to government programs of last resort that provide financial assistance on the basis of a test that takes into account the applicant household's financial resources and needs (both notions as defined in provincial/territorial welfare legislation); entitlement is based on the budget deficit - needs minus non-exempted financial resources. (See the Welfare Reforms in Canada page of this site for more information about the needs test under "Welfare in Canada Today"). Legislation - Legislation is subject to change, so be sure to note the latest revision of any online legislation you use. Consolidations of statutes and regulations that are posted online usually include the date of the last update or amendment. Where there are several regulations under a particular jurisdiction's welfare statute, you'll find a link to each of those regs (e.g., NS, Alberta) in this page, but the regulation containing the general welfare provisions is highlighted. The other regs that appear under any given welfare statute deal with special topics like appeals, training, recovery of overpayments and a number of other areas. In addition to statutes and regs, you'll find a link to the source of legislation for each jurisdiction, so you can poke around for yourself... - see the special note on welfare legislation at the bottom of this page for alternate sources of legislation and regs. Policy Manual - This is where you'll find detailed information about the nuts and bolts of welfare in Canada. Initial and continuing eligibility conditions, benefits, administrative matters, interactions between welfare and other government programs, including many programs offered under the federal-provincial-territorial National Child Benefit initiative. Manitoba offers the most comprehensive and user-friendly online policy manual of all Canadian jurisdictions. A few other provinces offer a more modest policy manual online, and some have yet to post their manual to their website. If you wish to explore *only* welfare policy manuals, go to the Provincial/Territorial Welfare Policy Manuals page of this site: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/manuals.htm Welfare statistics - see the special note on Canadian welfare stats at the bottom of this page (welfare dependency, costs, etc.) - for stats on poverty, income, health, etc., go to the Social Statistics Links page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/stats.htm Welfare rates (benefit levels) - see the special note on Canadian welfare rates at the bottom of this page Related links - recent (and some historical) welfare reform information and other relevant links, plus a link to a separate Canadian Social Research Links page (of links) for each province and territory. ------------------------------------------------------- Google.ca Search Results pages - for each jurisdiction, you'll find links to search results for "welfare" (excluding child welfare or animal welfare) NOTES: 1. These links always take you to the most current search results, as if you'd just done a Google.ca search yourself. 2. Search results include Web search, News search and Blog search. 3. Because there is no Canada section as such on this page, and because there's still a modicum of interest in welfare-related issues at the national level, here are links to the same searches at the Canada-wide level: Latest search results on for "welfare, Canada" - - - ------------------------------------------------------- Historical welfare information How did welfare work in Canada before the implementation of the Canada Health and Social Transfer in 1996? See Social Assistance in Canada, 1994 (further down on this page.) + selected historical welfare statistics ------------------------------------------------------- Have Canadian Welfare Reforms "Succeeded"? [This link takes you further down the page you're now reading] HINT: "YES!", says the Right. "NO!", says the Left.

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Welfare Incomes 2008
With the recession starting in 2008, more and more Canadians are having to deal with one of the 13 different social assistance systems, discovering how complicated, cumbersome and stigmatizing most are.

Bulletins No. 1 through 4 give you a snapshot of the welfare incomes situation in 2008 for 4 types of families, and a fifth document provides detail on the methodology. Each bulletin focuses on one family type and provides, for the 2008 calendar year, the following information for a household in that situation:
* the total annual estimated income for the household (including government benefits and any exempted income) in each jurisdiction
* the total annual estimated income of a household receiving welfare compared with the Low-Income Cutoffs, the Market Basket Measure and average incomes in all provinces (but not the territories)
* asset exemption rules for all jurisdictions (how much an applicant can have in assets and remain eligible for welfare)
* the extent of the decline in welfare incomes in recent years
* earnings exemption provisions (what portion of work income is excluded when calculating entitlement)

* (PDF - 1.8MB, 6 pages)
* (PDF - 1.7MB, 6 pages)
* (PDF - 1.7MB, 6 pages)
* (PDF - 1.6MB, 4 pages)
* (PDF - 1.3MB, 5 pages)
Source:
(back to 1999)

Source:

The National Council of Welfare advises the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development in respect of any matters relating to social development that the Minister may refer to the Council for its consideration or that the Council considers appropriate.

Welfare Incomes, 2006 and 2007
December 2008
(16.6MB, 157 pages)
- table of contents with links to smaller PDF files for each chapter
Table of contents: * Message from the Chairperson * Patterns and Trends * What is Welfare? * Adequacy of Welfare Incomes * Welfare Incomes Over Time * Welfare Incomes and Child Benefits * Total Welfare Incomes and Poverty Over Time * Concluding Thoughts * Appendices * Fact Sheet: 2007 Provincial Welfare Rates Compared to the MBM
NOTE : the HTML version of the report also includes links to earlier editions of this report back to 1999

Fact Sheet:
- (PDF - 18K, 2 pages)

Source:

The mandate of the National Council of Welfare is to advise the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development in respect of any matters relating to social development that the Minister may refer to the Council for its consideration or that the Council considers appropriate.

Related links:

Market Basket Measure links
from :

November 2007 (PDF file date)

June 2006

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- includes previous editions back to 1999

- links to NCW research areas and collections of fact sheets

Source:
The Council was created in 1969, and its mandate is "to advise the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development in respect of any matters relating to social development that the Minister may refer to the Council for its consideration or that the Council considers appropriate."

Google.ca Web Search : ""
Google.ca News Search : ""
Source:

Important note for anyone
comparing welfare rates across different Canadian jurisdictions:

Since its launch in the summer of 1998, the federal-provincial-territorial (NCB) initiative has imposed a change in the way welfare rates for families with children can be compared across Canadian jurisdictions. The federal is now integrated with income support (welfare) for families with children in a number of Canadian jurisdictions - but not all. This means that any interprovincial comparison of welfare rates for families must, for the sake of comparability, include the basic welfare benefit for the household AND the total of any federal/provincial/territorial child benefits that the family receives on behalf of each child.

Canadian jurisdictions have adopted different approaches in their treatment of the CCTB and provincial-territorial child benefits for welfare rate calculations.
See - from the .

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Comparing welfare rates for families in different provinces?
Be careful...

When I added the above links to the CCTB amounts for all tax years, I thought I should also update the list of provincial and territorial child benefit programs that are related to the CCTB, all under the umbrella of the . As I read that list for myself, my heart went out to the hapless analysts in government and non-governmental researchers whose job duties include comparing welfare rates across jurisdictions, especially for families with kids. Since the launch of the NCB initiative in 1998, many provinces and territories have been creating separate children's benefits programs for all children in low-income families, not only those on social assistance. And thus I came to understand what David Ross (former Director of the Canadian Council on Social Development and a respected champion of social justice issues) had meant when he said back in the early 1990s something about "taking kids off welfare". In the case of families in receipt of welfare, it's generally child-related costs that constitute the so-called "welfare wall", which is the loss of non-cash benefits like vision, drug and dental coverage when a household head leaves welfare for a job. I wholeheartedly support the provincial-territorial government trend towards paying child-related financial benefits to *all* low-income households outside of welfare, so that families can leave welfare more readily without losing their children's benefits. HOWEVER, because Canadian jurisdictions have adopted different approaches in their treatment of the CCTB and provincial-territorial child benefits for welfare rate calculations, it's getting exceptionally difficult to compare welfare rates across provinces and territories, especially for families with children.

The has been doing interprovincial welfare rate comparisons going back to 1986 (annually since 1989) for various family types and sizes, and their rate information is always vetted for factual accuracy by government officials in each jurisdiction prior to release. The latest complete annual report in this series is (December 2008). The comparative rate tables in this report take into account the treatment of child benefits in the welfare system of each jurisdiction. There's also a brief overview of the different approaches that provinces and territories have adopted concerning child benefits and welfare. For more detailed information on child benefit clawbacks and pass-ons, see - from the .

For more than 20 of my 30 years in the federal civil service, I was responsible for producing and maintaining detailed welfare rate information for each province and territory for the administration of the Canada Assistance Plan. Part of my job was supporting the Council in the production of their welfare incomes series, and I can vouch for the rigid verification process that the Council followed to ensure a high-quality report.
(only recent years are posted on the Council's website).
It's the ONLY source that I'd recommend for longitudinal welfare rate comparisons across Canada.
On behalf of welfare researchers everywhere, I'd like to thank the provincial and territorial government officials who take the time to provide feedback on rates for their jurisdiction in each edition of Welfare Incomes and thus ensure that the series is a factually-accurate, credible resource for all to use freely.

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Related information :

Table of contents of the report:
Message from Federal/Provincial/Territorial Ministers Responsible for Social Services
Executive Summary
* Chapter 1 – The National Child Benefit Supplement
* Chapter 2 – National Child Benefit Programs and Services for Low-income Families with Children
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NOTE: contains detailed information about the three different approaches used to harmonize/integrate federal and provincial-territorial children's benefits paid to Canadian families. This is compulsory reading for anyone who does welfare rate comparisons for families with children across Canadian provinces and territories.
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* Chapter 3 – The First Nations National Child Benefit Reinvestment Initiative
* Chapter 4 – Monitoring Progress - Societal Level Indicators
* Chapter 5 – Assessing the Direct Impact of the National Child Benefit Initiative
* Chapter 6 – The Way Ahead
List of Appendices
* Appendix 1 – Glossary
* Appendix 2 – Provincial, Territorial and First Nations National Child Benefit Reinvestments and Investments
* Appendix 3 – Results of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) Analysis
* Appendix 4 – Additional Statistical Information

News Release:

June 13, 2008

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Source:

See also:

* [ ]

* (from the ) includes a section that covers the treatment of federal children's benefits under provincial-territorial welfare programs.

See the Unofficial Social Union Links page for more about the NCB and NCB reports
See also the Unofficial Provincial/Territorial Social Union/NCB Links page of this site for over 200 links to information from all provinces and territories about their programs under the NCB initiative.

From the website of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada:

Income assistance (welfare / social assistance) for
Members of First Nations living on reserve*:

- from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC)
INAC has engaged in on-reserve income assistance activities since 1964, with the broad objective of providing individuals and families with the means to meet basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. (...) As a matter of policy, INAC follows the terms and conditions of provincial and territorial general assistance [welfare] programs. While INAC may directly deliver the income assistance program, the program has been largely devolved. The Department's present involvement in income assistance activities is primarily to provide funding to First Nations who in turn deliver programs and services to community members. In , 534 First Nations administered their own program (This figure does not include First Nations functioning under self-government arrangements).

[ * First Nations members living off-reserve must apply for welfare to the provincial authority where they reside. ]

Related link:

NOTE : includes excellent information on the history of social assistance to members of
Canada's First Nations along with information on the federal-provincial-First Nations roles and responsibilities in the area of income assistance.
Table of Contents:
* Introduction
* Definitions
* 1 - Backgrounder
* 2 - Program Components
* 3 - Funding Arrangements
* 4 - Financial Administration
* 5 - Reporting and Compliance
* Annex A - Resource Information and Links
* Annex B - Resident On-reserve Communities
* Annex C - Income Assistance on Site Compliance Review Process

In addition to income assistance, INAC supports "province-like social programs" in First Nation communities including education, early childhood development, housing, family violence prevention and help for persons with disabilities. Click the link above for general information or click any link below for more specific info.

* * * * * * * * * *

Source:

Different rules apply depending on whether someone wishes to come to Canada as an immigrant (i.e., permanently), a visitor, a worker (temporarily), a student or a refugee.
Select a link below for more information on eligibility and benefit levels for each program.

If you want to immigrate to Canada, there are a few different ways to apply. You will need to decide which immigration program will work best for you and your family.

Every year, more than 5million people visit Canada. Depending on where you live, and the reason for your visit, you will need to meet certain entry requirements. In some cases, if you plan to stay in Canada for a certain period of time, you will need a Temporary Resident Visa.

Every year, over 90,000 foreign workers enter Canada to work temporarily in jobs that help Canadian employers address skill shortages, or as live-in caregivers.
A work permit is needed for most temporary jobs in Canada, though for some positions and business people it is not necessary.

More than 130,000 students come to study in Canada every year and even more come to Canada to learn English or French.

Refugees and people needing protection are people in or outside Canada who fear returning to their home country. Groups and individuals can sponsor refugees from abroad who qualify to come to Canada.

Source:
(Government of Canada)

NOTE: for links to welfare statistics for a specific province or territory,
go back to the top of the page you're now reading and select a jurisdiction in the left-hand column.
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As of May 25, 2010, here's a link to the latest public statistics
on welfare dependency in Canada's provinces and territories:

(PDF file - 133K, 1 page)

These statistics were collected by the and published in the Council's report on Welfare Incomes for 2005 after they were verified to be correct by each jurisdiction.

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The report below is a more detailed breakdown of welfare statistics for each Canadian province and territory that was produced by the group where I worked until my retirement in 2003. This is the best resource for caseload profile information for each jurisdiction, but you won't find any aggregated stats for all of Canada and you won't see many more after this one for 2006. That's because the group where I worked until my retirement grew smaller and smaller as co-workers retired or left and weren't replaced. There is no more capacity in the federal government to produce this type of report, nor is there any interest in such a statistical system from a Conservative policy perspective. [There is, to my knowledge, one more "edition" of the "S.A. Stats report" - for 2007 - that's almost ready to release. That's it.]

August 2009 (Third edition)
Posted online April 9, 2010
Prepared by:
Federal-Provincial-Territorial Directors of Income Support
"In recognition of the growing public demand for comprehensive information on provincial and territorial social assistance programs and caseloads, the Social Assistance Statistical Report: 2006 is the third annual joint publication by federal, provincial and territorial governments. The report provides a general overview of social assistance in Canada, as well as a description of income support-related/social assistance programs in each jurisdiction. This report does not include social assistance rates as this information is currently available to the public on most provincial and territorial government Web sites."
(Excerpt from )

NOTE: of the report is a six-page descriptive overview of social assistance in Canada in , comprising a (very) brief history of federal social assistance since 1966 and general information about welfare eligibility and benefits. Other chapters of the report provide, for each province and territory, information on eligibility (including asset and income exemption levels) and benefits, as well as an impressive number of statistical tables, graphs and charts providing numbers of cases and beneficiaries (time series statistics going back as far as the mid-1990s, depending on the jurisdiction), profile information (age/education/sex of household head, cases by reason for assistance) and even (for most jurisdictions) the percentage of households reporting income.

- (751K, 129 pages)

Links to the two earlier editions of this report:
*
*

Source:

[ ]

< Begin social researcher's lament. >

While it is reassuring to read in the report summary that Federal-Provincial-Territorial Directors of Income Support recognize "the growing public demand for comprehensive information on provincial and territorial social assistance programs and caseloads", I wish they'd also recognize that there's also a need for reasonably *timely* data about those same programs and caseloads. This report is dated August 2009, but it wasn't posted to the HRSDC website until April 9, 2010. The latest data in the report are for March 2006, now four years out of date. Thus, since March 2006, there is NO national picture of the number of households receiving welfare in Canada.

So what?

So now researchers can't tell, among other things, how many new welfare cases are "EI exhaustees" (families whose Employment Insurance benefit period has expired) and how many are there because they didn't qualify for EI in the first place.

HEY, MR. HARPER - That is NOT accountability, and it's unacceptable.

Welfare reporting must be comprehensive AND reasonably current. The people of Canada are supporting provincial welfare with their tax dollars to the tune of billions a year, and yet we don't even know how many people are on welfare in Canada, let alone the total bill.

Perhaps it's time to farm out the production of welfare statistics and related information to an objective, non-politicized third party...

< /End social researcher's lament. >

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Welfare expenditures

On this one table, you'll find the latest five years' worth of information on national expenditures (provincial stats available for a small fee) in the area of transfers to persons, which includes (among other programs):
* Family and youth allowances * Child tax benefit or credit * Pensions - First and Second World Wars * War veterans' allowances * Grants to aboriginal persons and organizations * Goods and services tax credit * Employment insurance benefits * Old Age Security Fund payments * Provincial Social assistance, income maintenance * Social assistance, other [bolding added] * Workers compensation benefits * Canada and Quebec Pension Plans.
NOTE: In case you're interested in province-level stats, click the "" link under 'Source' at the bottom of the table. There you can obtain more specialized CANSIM tables, including provincial tables, for a few dollars each. The "Find information related to this table" link (which is also at the bottom of the StatCan table) contains methodological notes and other related StatCan products, many of which are free of charge.
Source:

Welfare leavers

British Columbia:

(PDF - 279K, 16 pages)
2009 (PDF file dated April 24/09, 2pm)
The analysis in this report uses tax data from Statistics Canada to examine the income of clients that left assistance and never returned. It is a followup to a previous report, Outcome of those Leaving Assistance, which found that over 80 percent of employable clients who left assistance had employment income.
Specific findings of the report:
· Median total family income of clients, defined as aftertax aftertransfer income including employment income, is higher after clients leave income assistance and increases over time.
· Clients who left income assistance have income significantly higher, in some cases two to three times higher, than they would have receiving income assistance for the entire year.
· Most of the increase is attributable to increases in employment income.
· More...
Source:

[ ]

Related link from HSD:

(PDF - 61K, 6 pages)
February 2007
"(...) Since 2002, 88.2% of Expected to Work (ETW) clients who have left assistance and have not returned as of 2005 have employment income, are attending education or have other income in the year following their exit from IA."

By Andrew MacLeod
April 24, 2009
The British Columbia government has suppressed a report on what happens to people who leave the province's welfare system, but now is promising to release it today.
(...) The province has insisted that the rapidly declining welfare caseload has been the result of more people finding employment. Other research, including a (PDF - 599K, 8 pages) by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives researchers, and , suggests tightening eligibility rules in 2002 played a large role in the decline. A recent report by provincial Ombudsman Kim Carter, (PDF - 2.2MB, 132 pages) , noted, “The ministry lacks evidence to support its conclusion that the reduction in the income assistance caseload is a result of people leaving assistance for employment.”
NOTE: The above article was posted in the morning on April and the Ministry posted its report (below) at 2pm (the timestamp on the PDF file).
The Tyee will quite likely have a followup article early in the coming week; check the Tyee home page for updates.
Source:

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August 2004
by R. Sceviour and R. Finnie
"This paper explores the dynamics of Social Assistance use over this period [] to calculate annual incidence and entry and exit rates at both the national and provincial level, broken down by family type. These breakdowns, available for the first time ever, are revealing as policy varied by province and family type and not all provinces shared equally in the recession or the expansion that followed it. The paper does not attempt to apportion the movements in SA participation rates between those related to the economy and changes in the administration of welfare. The focus is on the empirical record of SA entry, exit, and annual participation rates.
Source:
[NOTE: check out dozens of links to past feature articles here!]

[ ]

Followup article:

November 17, 2004

Feature Article in the November 2004 issue of The Canadian Economic Observer
"Social assistance rates fell in every province between 1993 and 2003, but nowhere was the decline more dramatic than in Alberta and Ontario, according to a new report."

Earlier studies on welfare leavers:

March 2003
"Family incomes rose for the majority of people who stopped receiving welfare benefits during the 1990s. However, for about one out of every three individuals, family income declined significantly, according to a first-ever national study of the economic outcome for people who left welfare rolls."
The link above takes you to a summary of the report.
Complete report:
(PDF file - 332K, 32 pages)
Source:
[ ]

Related Links:

(British Columbia)
"Statistics Canada has released a study on people who leave welfare that contrasts with the story spun by BC's Minister of Human Resources, Murray Coell. "Life After Welfare: The Economic Well Being of Welfare Leavers in Canada during the 1990s" by Marc Frenette and Garnett Picot provides some fascinating contrasts with Coell's characterization of the 90s and
with what are passing as welfare exit surveys in his ministry."
Source :

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Historical welfare program information and statistics

Social Security Statistics, Canada and Provinces
1978-79 to 2002-03

This is a goldmine of statistical information (beneficiary data and expenditure data) on current and defunct Canadian federal social programs, and even some on provincial/territorial programs.

This report offers 25 years of longitudinal data on costs and numbers of beneficiaries for most programs - over 100 tables - covering a large number of programs --- here's a partial list:
- Child Tax Benefit, Family Allowances, the Child Tax Credit, Old Age Security/Guaranteed Income Supplement/Spouse's Allowance ("The Allowance"), Federal Training and Employment Programs, Federal Goods and Services Tax Credit, the Canada/Quebec Pension Plans, War Veterans' and Civilian War Allowances, Veterans' and Civilians' Disability Pensions, Unemployment/Employment Insurance, the Canada Assistance Plan, Workers' Compensation, Youth Allowances, Social Assistance and Social Services for Registered Indians --- and more...

Source:

[ ]

(short blurb only)

[Read the Introductory notes at the top of the page and in of this report for all methodological notes.]
"...Tables in this report have been organized into two parts. Part I presents three Overview Tables which illustrate the trends in social security expenditures by all levels of government for Canada. Part II comprises Component Tables which provide data on beneficiaries and expenditures for individual programs."

A number of tables were removed from this edition of the Social Security Statistics report, including some tables with info on Blind Persons' Allowances, Disabled Persons' Allowances and Unemployed Assistance.

Many of the tables are historical and likely of little interest except to historians and CAP-o-philes --- they offer historical caseload and expenditure statistics on each of the CAP cost-sharing components (General Assistance - Homes for Special Care for Children and Adults - Child Welfare - Health Care - Other Welfare Services and Work Activity).

Scroll down to find a particular program, then click on its name to access the HTML version of the table (the HTML page includes links to the PDF and Excel versions of the table).

You'll find many key stats tables and some interesting analyses here - only a few of which appear below
- includes links to over two dozen tables (Tables 352-911) with info on federal contributions under the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) and the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) to the cost of provincial and territorial welfare programs.
NOTE: for more info about CAP, the CHST and the Canada Social Transfer (CST, which replaced the CHST in April 2004), see the Canada Assistance Plan / Canada Health and Social Transfer / Canada Social Transfer Resources page of this site.

A few sample tables:

NOTE: Table 360 traces the evolution/devolution of transfers under the Canada Assistance Plan (in dollars) from 1976 to 1999. No new claims were paid out under CAP after the Canada Health and Social Transfer came into effect in April 1996; amounts shown as CAP expenditures for the fiscal years after 1995-96 are final settlements with each jurisdiction for all outstanding commitments by the federal government.

- This is a key table for research on welfare programs - welfare dependency statistics by jurisdiction over the years. These are the final, definitive numbers.

- this table should be of special interest for welfare historians and number-crunchers - it shows exactly when Canadian government spending on welfare (by the federal and provincial/territorial governments) started looking a little fuzzier. When the feds imposed the cap on CAP (max. 5% annual increase in total CAP payments) in Ontario, Alberta and BC in the early 1990s, those three provinces stopped reporting how much of their CAP dollars were going to welfare (vs. other CAP components covered under the same federal contribution). Table 362 shows that as of 1991-92, the federal contribution to those three provinces for General Assistance appears as "n/a" - so it's been impossible to produce a national figure since then. Unless, of course, one wanders over into the minefield of provincial government welfare statistics, where welfare programs (and related expenditures) have undergone a major transformation. If you *do* want to check out welfare stats for each Canadian jurisdiction, your best starting point is the Key Welfare Links Page of this website - http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/welfare.htm - which includes links to welfare stats in each province and territory where they're available.

[The note under table 360 also applies to this table. ]

Table 435

Table 438

Table 526

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See also:

(2nd edition, 1983)
Jointly produced by the Social Science Federation of Canada and Statistics Canada
Go to the home page and browse the table of contents of this excellent historical resource. Tables are arranged in sections with an introduction explaining the content of each section, the principal sources of data for each table, and general explanatory notes regarding the statistics. This online statistical collection complements and expands on Human Resources Development Canada's Social Security Statistics, Canada and Provinces report.
Source:

Historical Statistics of Canada contains links to over 1,000 statistical tables (downloadable in Excel format) on the social, economic and institutional conditions of Canada from the start of the Confederation in 1867 to the mid-1970s. It's worth downloading the free from Microsoft if you don't have Excel software on your machine.
For a complete list of topics covered, see the - everything's there from Accidents and Fatalities to Zinc Production.

Here's a sample section:

- by T. Russell Robinson, Health and Welfare Canada
Contains seven pages of historical information on the evolution of Canadian social programs, plus links to over 180 tables organized under the following headings: Federal Income Security Programs - Federal and Provincial Income Insurance Programs - Cost-shared Federal-Provincial Income Security Programs - Federal and Provincial Social Service Programs - Provincial-Municipal Income Security Programs - Government Expenditures on Social Security by Broad Program Areas. Unfortunately, the section on the Canada Assistance Plan provides stats only from 1970 to 1975, but you'll find other historical gems here, like federal transfers to the provinces and territories, 1947 to 1975, Unemployment insurance account, 1942 to 1976, Old Age Pensions recipients for Canada and by province, March 1928 to 1951, and much more...
Great collection of historical Canadian social program stats!

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From the :

- poverty lines, poverty statistics, welfare incomes, etc.

- 60+ links to information about social indicators in Canada and other countries

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- See the Canadian Social Research Links Social Statistics page for more statistical links.

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Government expenditures on major social programs

On this one table, you'll find the latest five years' worth of information on national expenditures (provincial stats available for a small fee) in the area of transfers to persons, which includes (among other programs):
* Family and youth allowances * Child tax benefit or credit * Pensions - First and Second World Wars * War veterans' allowances * Grants to aboriginal persons and organizations * Goods and services tax credit * Employment insurance benefits * Old Age Security Fund payments * Provincial Social assistance, income maintenance * Social assistance, other * Workers compensation benefits * Canada and Quebec Pension Plans.
NOTE: In case you're interested in province-level stats, click the "" link under 'Source' at the bottom of the table. There you can obtain more specialized CANSIM tables, including provincial tables, for a few dollars each. The "Find information related to this table" link (which is also at the bottom of the StatCan table) contains methodological notes and other related StatCan products, many of which are free of charge.
Source:

Legislation woes?
It's very frustrating trying to keep up with legislative links in each jurisdiction - they keep changing the legislation, and they keep changing the links to that legislation.

If you can't find statutes and regulations for a specific Canadian jurisdiction, try these links:

- incl. over 100 links to federal, provincial and territorial courts (incl. supreme courts), as well as statutes and regulations for most jurisdictions.

- from the federal

See the Canadian Social Research Links Legislation Links page for links to other related sites.

You'll find a lot more welfare-related information on other Canadian Social Research Links pages. The most detailed information is in the provincial/territorial section (left column) of this site's Home Page - hundreds of government and NGO links, including reports and studies on many aspects of welfare in Canada. NGO links are either at the bottom of the government links for each jurisdiction or on a separate page (depending on the number of links for each jurisdiction).

For information on conditions of eligibility (including the financial nitty-gritty), administration (fraud controls, application review process) and benefit calculations, I'd recommend Provincial/Territorial Welfare Policy Manuals. Not all jurisdictions are online yet, and the amount and quality of content vary. If provincial government people are reading this, I'd like to recommend as an excellent model for your manual.

Related pages on this site:
Anti-Poverty Strategies and Campaigns
Welfare Reforms in Canada*
Canada Assistance Plan / Canada Health and Social Transfer / Canada Social Transfer Resources*
*include some content based on my experience as well as links to relevant sites and reports.

The "themes" section of this site (right column on the Home Page) - also includes more links to welfare information. The content of those pages is more chaotic than the government section, but I guarantee you'll find welfare links on every one of those pages.

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From the
Canadian Council on Social Development:

Social Development Report Series, 2009
Series Editor: Katherine Scott
May 2009
Fourteen authors discuss the ideas, interests and institutions that have shaped the evolution of poverty reduction policies and programs in Canada and the issues for each jurisdiction moving forward.

Recommended reading - includes detailed historical and contextual information on welfare and poverty reduction in each province and territory, along with an overview of the federal role in and contributions toward poverty reduction in Canada. For links to all reports, click the link above or go to the Anti-Poverty Strategies and Campaigns page of this website, where you'll find links to all 14 reports in this series + 900 more links to online content related to poverty reduction in Canada.

Source:

Related links:
- Go to the Anti-poverty Strategies and Campaigns page: http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/antipoverty.htm