Transcript Slide 1
5th Annual
Board Voice Society of BC
Conference
The Interaction of Social and Economic Policy
Presented by:
Janet Austin
CEO, YWCA Metro Vancouver
November 28, 2014
Context
• Economic & social policy: enabling and
remedial
• Canada’s constitutional division of
responsibilities
• The current reality
• Universal early learning & care – our best
option
• Navigating political culture in the modern
world
Government Action
• Remedial policies:
– address directly unfair, unjust or other harmful
social situations, e.g. poverty, inequality
– Often seen as social in nature
• Enabling policies:
– look to create opportunities, e.g. infrastructure
– often economic in orientation
• Good policies have both positive social &
economic outcomes
Some history
Early Canadian Enabling
Policies
• Transcontinental railway:
– the physical infrastructure for nationhood
– new settlers were necessary, economically &
politically
• Immigration policy:
– Reached beyond the Anglo-Saxon sources of new
settlers to Eastern Europe
Federal Remedial Policies
• Old Age Pension, 1927 – 50% contribution to provincial
plans
• Annual appropriations, 1930 – 39, to aid provinces
struggling to pay relief
• 1940’s constitutional amendment to allow Unemployment
Insurance
Provincial Remedial/Enabling Policies
• Saskatchewan hospital & medical insurance
• Many provinces consolidated school districts & built
universities in the 50’s & 60’s
Federal/Provincial
Collaboration
• Cost-sharing agreements:
– Hospital Insurance Act, 1957
– Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), 1966
– The Medical Care Act (1968) replaced by Canada Health
Act (1984) – federal support for provincial plans
– Federal/Provincial Social Housing Agreements
• On-going federal/provincial “interface problems”
Enabling Change
Through Economic Policy
• Since mid-80’s, federal focus has been economic
policy:
– Globalization & free trade
– FTA, NAFTA & successor agreements
• Mid-90’s fiscal crisis brought major cutbacks in
transfer payments (health & education)
• “Fiscal management” dominant focus
“Social, Political & Economic
Challenges of the 21st Century
It is indisputable - the modern world is
technologically, culturally, politically &
economically intertwined
Challenges for BC today
• Child poverty - 20.6%
• Child vulnerability - 33 %
• First Nations population fastest growing but lags
• Family formation
•
smaller families, low birth rate,
•
immigration, migration
• Rising inequality
•
increased health & social problems
•
educational attainment & skills development
• Best educated generation of women, but underemployed
• Social policy reflects post-war paradigm
Challenges for leadership &
governance
• Entrenched/polarized political culture
• Complexity/centralization
• Economics dictates politics
• Technology an enabler & a disruptor
Family policy doesn’t reflect the
modern family …
"The generation raising young kids today is squeezed for time at
home … for income because of the high cost of housing & … for
services like child care that would help them balance earning a
living with raising a family."
Paul Kershaw: UBC HELP, Generation Squeeze
“The cost of work/life conflict among employees with pre-schoolage children costs the Canadian business community in excess of
$4.0 billion.”
Warren Beach: Former CFO Sierra Systems
Cost of Child Vulnerability
• 0-6 most sensitive for brain development
• 30% of BC children are vulnerable vs. 10%
biological rate
• Middle-class problem
• Cost of child vulnerability = 20% GDP growth/60
years
• 10X provincial debt
BCBC Outlook 2010, Clyde Hertzman & Paul Kershaw
UBC, H.E.L.P.
Technology
• Accelerating technological change
– 47% of US jobs are at high risk of automation within a
decade or two
– computers challenge human labour (bank layoffs, Watson –
Jeopardy)
• Lousy & lovely jobs
– growth in “cognitive” occupations
– hollowing out middle income routine jobs
– more competition for less skilled jobs
Preparing for jobs that don’t yet exist yet, not those
that are disappearing
“Skills matter. America has a skills
problem. So do many other countries.
Rising inequality is a sign of this
problem.”
James Heckman, Schools, Skills & Synapses
“A major refocus of policy is required to
understand the life cycle of skill &
health formation & the importance of
the early years in creating inequality …
& in producing skills for the workforce.”
James Heckman: Schools, Skills & Synapses
What we know …
Investment in early childhood & reforms to family policy are key
to our social, economic & political future:
Reflecting the modern family
Skills development & educational attainment
Enabling women to participate fully in the labour force
Aging population
The decline of the West, the rise of the Rest
…versus what we do
Canada is last among 14 OECD countries in spending on early
learning & care (OECD, 2006)
Spends $45K/senior >65 vs. $12K/person < 45
Canada’s Distinct Society
• In 1997, Quebec introduced the first universal
childcare program in Canada:
o Social & economic
o Remedial & enabling
• All provincial program spending per capita, 20132014:
o Quebec - $7911
o Saskatchewan - $11,977
o Alberta - $10, 919
Quebec’s Universal Low
Cost Childcare Program
• Direct subsidies to:
o Early childhood centres
o Home childcare
• Tax benefits
• Opened to all children (0 to 4) by September 2000
• Nearly half of all pre-schoolers (2011)
Authoritative Analysis
Dr. Pierre Fortin, Professor Emeritus, University of
Quebec (Montreal):
• Past President of the Canadian Economics Association
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
• Member of the Economic Council of Canada
• Recipient of the Governor-General’s Gold Medal
• Research Fellow, C.D. Howe Institute
Cost/Benefit of Quebec
Program
• 70,000 more mothers held jobs (2008)
• GDP up by 1.7% ($5 billion)
• Revenue to government (Quebec & federal)
exceeded the cost
• Cost = $2,215 million (0.7% of Quebec’s GDP) in
2011-2012
Other Benefits
• Labour force participation of single mothers
increased 22% (1996 to 2008)
• Single-parent families on welfare declined from
99,000 to 45,000
• Poverty rate of single-mother families declined from
36% to 22%
• Their median real after-tax income shot up by
81.3%
Rest of Canada –
Limited Results?
• New initiatives in most provinces
• Full school-day kindergarten (Ontario & BC)
• Declared inability to fund
– Recession & emphasis on tax competition
– Competition from major social programs
– Health $16.9B, Education $7.3B (2014/15 BC)
Limited Results – Why?
• Too big? Too costly? Benefits too long-term?
• Cultural expectations for women
• Vested interests & usual suspects
• Purists versus incrementalists
• Comprehensive vision not embraced by all players
• Advocacy efforts inconsistent & not sustained
• Political suicide
Where to from here?
Best Policy Response
• Enabling strategy – broad agreement on human
capital investment, emphasizing early learning &
care:
Short-term: jobs training, higher education, family friendly
early development child supports (may be targeted)
Longer-term: universal early learning/care & new family
policy framework
Beneficial to child, parents, and society into the future
• Correlate with fiscal state & work incrementally to
implement
.
We Need . . .
Political/Cultural Shift
• From “short-term” tactical to “longer-term” strategic
• More sophisticated, less adversarial, evidence-based
• Discussion of demographic transformation & intergenerational equity & fiscal choices
• Willingness to review & reform ‘entitlement
programs’
.
Complementary Challenges
in Context
• Make health funding & governance more accountable &
transparent – spending in context of fiscal & policy choices
• Devolve greater fiscal powers to cities
• Emphasize rapid affordable transit as part of intergenerational
equity, environmental & economic growth strategy.
• Government/Non-Profit Initiative to find incentives to achieve
client independence & greater efficiency in social programs
The Pay-Off …
Realize maximum human potential amid global competition.
Benefits to families & society:
• reduced school failure, illness, crime, teen pregnancy
• reduces obesity & diabetes, hypertension & heart
disease, some mental illnesses, premature aging
Spectacular economic returns
The pay-off …
Returns to a Unit Dollar Invested
Understanding Power
• Objectively: division of powers among levels of
government
– Municipalities have no constitutional status (except as
creations of the provinces) & meager financial
resources
– Federal government has greater taxing power
– Provinces have constitutional power often greater
than their financial resources
• Subjectively: assessing the political landscape or
zeitgeist
Understanding Government
• Built for stability
• Resists change to provide continuity & stable programs
• New options must be as good as the ones we want to
replace
• Decisions not always logical, politics not policy
• Policy change has enormous implications
• Bring solutions
Influencing Decisions
• What kind of change?
– Incremental, discrete, program level
– Systemic, broad new initiatives
• Where does power reside?
– At the Centre - PMO, PCO, Premier’s Office
– Powerful ministers; not all created equal
– Deputy |Ministers – “short-order cooks” – limited research
capacity/institutional memory
Program Change
•
Establish clear goals
•
Provide specific solutions & documented benefits
•
Understand government objectives & limitations
•
Organize support among involved parties
•
Choose your arena carefully
•
Don’t define yourself/your interlocutors ideologically
•
Consider incremental, self-reinforcing steps
•
Look for partners; avoid making adversaries
Systemic Change
• Major new programs/initiatives are inherently
“retail” politics
• Conducted within existing political parties or
issues-based advocacy groups
• Campaign 2000
• Generation Squeeze, Dr. Paul Kershaw
– New parent benefits – 18 months
– High quality child care
– Flexible working hours
Some Advice
• Decide when to be an advocate & when to be an
adversary
• Frame your arguments in a popular manner – not
political rhetoric
• Identify prominent advocates & unlikely allies:
– Justice Emmett Hall, Royal Commission on Health
Services
– David Dodge & James Heckman
•
•
Listen to criticism & adjust
Plan for complications & compromises
Questions to consider
• What does government need?
• How can we provide it?
• When should we adapt out goals?
• How to sustain advocacy effort over the long
term?
Changing lives
since 1897.