Rituals of Degradation: Administration as Policy in the Ontario Works Programme

Abstract

After the election of a neo-liberal provincial government in  , Ontario was at the forefront of work-based welfare reform in Canada. Many of the sweeping reforms carried out under the banner of the "Common Sense Revolution" received widespread coverage: for example, reductions in welfare rates, the introduction of the Ontario Works programme, the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy for so-called welfare fraud, and changes to the rules relating to common-law spousal relationships. However, much less attention has focused upon significant changes to the ways welfare is delivered. This paper critically interrogates a number of key changes to the Service Delivery Model in Ontario. After the passage of federal legislation in  , national entitlements to welfare have been terminated, replaced with local responsibility; this decentralization is changing not only the hierarchy of the regulation of poor people, but also the form and function of provision. In particular, there is evidence of the reinvention of administration towards the microregulation of job search and personal behaviour and the deterrence of welfare receipt as applicants and recipients are bureaucratically disentitled. Although administrative practices have historically acted as a secondary barrier to welfare receipt, the paper suggests that the current incarnation of work-enforcing reforms could be especially significant as the worlds of welfare and work continue to change.

Challenges of Appraising Intangible Outcomes with Unclear Objectives: Performance Management Issues in Local Government in Ontario

“…Performance management requires performance indicators but simply measuring performance is not sufficient for performance management (Kloot and Martin 2000). For example, the decreasing caseload of Ontario Works does not amount to former service recipients are securing gaining employments or lowering the poverty rate in Ontario (Finnie et al 2005;Herd et al 2005;Snyder 2006). The consequence is that what is measured is visible and important in organizations, and what is not measured becomes invisible (Broadbent 1995).…”

“…The fact that most performance management systems are imposed from either by central government or by senior management in a top-down manner, local government employees and front-line staff might tempt to distort the effect in order to produce more desirable quantitative outputs (Smith 1995). For example, Ontario Works caseload indicators can be improved by deterring people from submitting application (Finnie et al 2005: Herd et al 2005.…”

A Tory High Modernism? Grand Plans and Visions of Order in Neoconservative Ontario

“…As low-level private sector jobs became increasingly stingy and insecure, the Tories abolished rent controls, sliced welfare rates by 20%, and made workfare or 'learnfare' compulsory for a growing number of 'employable' welfare recipients (Peck 2001: 240-247;Silver et al 2005;Vosko 2000). Disabled workers found their benefits under attack, and like welfare recipients, were subject to increasing scrutiny, suspicion, and stigmatization (Herd et al 2005). Disentitlement-whether bureaucratic or legislativeseparated thousands from the welfare safety net, while new measures like compulsory fingerprinting dissuaded others from applying.…”

“…Radical cuts to the welfare state, and disruptive reorganizations of all its major institutions, effectively dispossessed thousands of Ontarians of common rights they had enjoyed in a more Keynesian era. Overt cutbacks were supplemented by 'bureaucratic disentitlement'-those seeking access to social services were dissuaded by increasingly onerous and degrading administrative demands (Herd et al 2005). Like other clearances and enclosures, this one was backed up by a tougher approach to law and order-symbolized by the introduction of the supermax prison, the embodiment of Tory high modernism.…”

Resident Work in High-Support Housing

“…Neoliberalism is enacted through the implementation of political-economic strategies, including the erosion of protections for workers, the privatization of state assets, the reorganization and roll-back of state supports and the promotion of individualism and self-reliance in policy making (Clark, 2002;Peck & Tickell, 2002;Harvey, 2005;Bezanson & Luxton, 2006b;Graefe, 2007;McBride & McNutt, 2007;Herd, Mitchell, & Lightman, 2005;Wacquant, 2010).…”