Demand for EIA ‘transformation’ lacks vision By: Dan Lett Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Mar. 5, 2020 Last Modified: 7:10 PM CST Thursday, Mar. 5, 2020 Updates

Opinion

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This article was published 04/03/2020 (1711 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Say what you will about Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister, but he is a man of limitless expectations.

This week, Pallister revealed in a mandate letter to Families Minister Heather Stefanson he wants her to “transform” the province’s Employment and Income Assistance (EIA) program to discourage “dependency” and help those who want to escape the indignity of the social safety net.

On the face of it, any plan that gets people off EIA and into the workforce is worthy of discussion. However, it’s important to note there is no plan here.

As is the premier’s style, the mandate letter is wildly and blindly aspirational.

Transform income assistance? He might as well have tasked the health minister to cure cancer or the climate minister to stop climate change.

Stefanson said the transformation would begin by working with Red River College, Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology and the private sector to enhance job-training opportunities. That is a good thing, but on its own will not be transformative.

We’ve learned a lot about income assistance in the past three or four decades, not least of which is the fact it is difficult to lure people back into the labour market if they cannot earn a living wage. Since the Tories came to power in 2016, Manitoba’s minimum wage has gone up by 35 cents (to $11.65/hour). That means anyone earning the minimum wage has lost significant ground to inflation.

Another barrier is found in the reduction or elimination of dental and health benefits available to people on income assistance should they return to work. These are not excessive benefits, and extending them to lower-income, working Manitobans would likely do as much or more to get people off EIA as more job-training opportunities.

And what of families with children, including single-parent families? It is impossible to expect single parents to pay for child care on a minimum wage. There have been some improvements over the years, but not to the extent they could be called a transformation of the existing system.

It is impossible to expect single parents to pay for child care on a minimum wage. There have been some improvements over the years, but not to the extent they could be called a transformation of the existing system.

If Pallister and Stefanson really wanted to transform the welfare system, they must at least examine avenues such as tax reform for low-income workers, a significant increase in the minimum wage, consideration of some form of guaranteed annual income, extension and expansion of dental and vision benefits for the working poor — and 100-per-cent, no-questions-asked child-care coverage for any low-income single parent who wants to work.

It was with some irony the same week he revealed his desire to transform EIA, Pallister announced an additional one-point cut in the PST (to six per cent from seven, effective July 1). That is a fiscal policy that will cost a lot of money (more than $300 million annually, at last count) and do almost nothing for lower-income Manitobans.

It will, however, leave much less in the provincial treasury to do anything transformative.

That is not to say there aren’t serious implications coming from this pledge. Implied in the decades-old rhetoric summoned by Pallister and Stefanson is the distinct possibility benefits could either be frozen or pared back.

The Pallister government has already reduced benefits by limiting the number of people eligible for rent assistance and eliminating a modest job-seeking allowance for single recipients without children. There has been no innovation, no creativity, and — thus — no chance of transformation.

For those who fear a gutting of the EIA system, take heart: if past actions are any guide, the Pallister government will take years and years to come to any measures that actually change the system.

You can almost wager the pledge to transform EIA will kick off the following process: the hiring of a consultant to come up with a plan to reduce dependency; the hiring of a second consultant to implement the plan to reduce dependency; victory lap by the premier, who will claim that by creating a plan, he has “fixed” EIA dependency.

This is essentially what Pallister has already done to the provincial civil service and the health-care system. There is little doubt big, complex and costly organizations include lots of waste. However, even with the help of highly-paid consultants, Pallister was unable to identify such waste and then devise a better system. He instead imposed arbitrary head-count reductions and wage freezes, and then let the people delivering the government service figure out how to make do with less.

Pallister does not create better systems; he allows bad systems to go on in a greatly reduced size.

Transform EIA? Absolutely. However, if all we’re talking about is a few extra dollars for job training, it’s better to call it what it is: a modest but welcomed enhancement of an existing government program.

Leave the big, systemic fixes to people who’ve got the patience and vision to deliver real change.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca