University of British Columbia Press
From Rights to Needs
A History of Family Allowances in Canada, 1929-92
Distributed for University of British Columbia Press
From Rights to Needs
A History of Family Allowances in Canada, 1929-92
This book explores the family allowance phenomenon from the idea’s debut in the House of Commons in 1929 to the program’s demise as a universal program under the Mulroney government in 1992. Although successive federal governments remained committed to its underlying principle of universality, party politics, bureaucracy, federal-provincial wrangling, and the shifting priorities of citizens eroded the rights-based approach to social security and replaced it with one based on need. In tracing the evolution of one social security program within a national perspective, From Rights to Needs sheds new light on how Canada’s welfare state and social policy has been transformed over the past half century.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Dawning of a New Era in Social Security, 1929-43
2 Family Allowances Comes to Canada, 1943-45
3 The 1944 Family Allowances Debate and The Politics of It All
4 Sharing the Wealth: The Registration for Family Allowances Begins, 1945
5 The Impact of Family Allowance to the 1960s
6 Poverty, Politics, and Family Allowances, 1960-70
7 Family Allowances and Constitutional Change, 1968-72
8 Wrestling with Universality, 1972-83
9 The Demise of Family Allowances, 1984-99
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography