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CBC News
Wow $3400.00 a year if any one thinks they are just sitting around smoking cigaretts and drinking beer
How ?

   

This all comes down to a question of whether or not welfare rates should be comparable to the lowest wages permissably paid in a society.

The answer is tenuous.

In many places in Canada (Alberta, particularly), we are experiencing a labor shortage. There is no shortage of jobs.

It's hard to sympathize with someone who's living on welfare, below the poverty line, if they don't have a job, and aren't working. A person may have to settle for minimum wage. But these wages, when combined with any welfare payouts (for those still below the poverty line) should be a difference maker. Even people with disabilities should be able to find some sort of job, one suiting the abilities they have (which, in my view, is a more constructive and dignified approach than focusing on their disabilities), be productive, and support themselves -- even if it is with some help from the government, by way of welfare payments.

Welfare needs to be treated as a supplemental income for those who need it, not a primary income for anyone. Should welfare payments be comparable to minimum wage? No. Minimum wage should be higher.

   

I, for one, do sympathize with welfare recipients. Call me a socialist, but I believe in helping those who need help.

Welfare recipients, and other low income families, are one of the biggest reasons our health care system is in jeopardy (or will be soon). Low income families are much more likely to have obese members, simply because of diet and exercise. Why? Because a 2L of Coke is much cheaper than a 2L of orange juice. And a box of KD is much cheaper than making a real dinner with rice, vegetables and chicken. So they eat crap (if they eat at all) and are much more unhealthy than a middle class family. That will cost society down the road in heart disease, strokes, etc.

And it's fine and dandy that there is a labour shortage in Alberta, but most welfare recipients can't benefit from it because they lack the training (be it a trade or college education). And welfare automatically deducts your income from your payments, so if you make more than a few bucks a week ($115 or $230/month), it quickly means that you are working 40 hours and are FURTHER behind than you would be if you just sat on your ass. That's why so many don't work. The system needs to be revised to allow for more training/education as well as allowing welfare recipients to earn more than a $25/$50 a week.

http://www3.gov.ab.ca/hre/is/reg/pdf/ncn0433.pdf

And people with disabilities deserve a break. My father was a typical hard-working Albertan and worked for 50-70 hours a week for his whole life, paying into the system and struggling to raise a family. After he got divorced, he took up driving cab (arthritis deprived him of his skill as a mechanic) and worked up to 80 hours a week, trying to get by. When he fell and broke his hip after doing that for 5 years, he wound up with a measly $400/month disability cheque, less than a quarter of what he made as a cabbie (which was now over). If he hadn't had a pension from the Air Force, he likely would have starved...instead he struggled for 3 years until he finally got CPP/OAS. Now he makes a smidgen more than the poverty line.

If Alberta is so wealthy, we should be able to help those who need it.

   

This is a topic of being for or against and only has enough room for animosity .Seniors are sucking up the pensions because there are so many , single moms are at record levels , people with all kinds of disabilitys (some bogus) foreign disaster and relief is sucking alot up , immigrants , indigenous and recently farmers (alot of them) ...what is one supposed to do ??? I only know that you can't throw them into the ditch to become ditch food .@ 3400$ per year businesses profit from welfare cheques to the tune of $3.4 billion for every 1 million . I think the bottom line is , who should live like crap and who shouldn't . If we can get people off of the system then great and if not maybe we should move them to a third world country where they would be considered filthy rich at $3400.00 per year and mail their cheques to them.I believe the trick to well being health and prosperity starts by moving somewhere where everyone is poorer than yourself .

   

Welfare was originally created as a temporary measure for those who lost their employment and could use the money in between jobs. It was never meant for people to live off indefinitely or for years at a time. I feel sorry for the hard working people who just need a little help but that is life for you. If people didn't scam the system and used it for what it was intended for people could probably get more money from it.

But instead we have people trying to live off it or are too lazy to go work and ruin it for everyone. There are lots of jobs now unless you live in the Maritimes or Newfoundland. I rather have a country with low taxes for people and businesses, which encourages more jobs, and the people have more money to spend on the things they need. Like Charles Darwin said natural selection and survival of the fittest if you can't support yourself you just perish why should humans be any exception?

   

It doesn't matter if there are 10 jobs for every unemployed person in the country, if they aren't trained for it, then they can't do it, it's that simple.

Or are you proposing to have untrained people building houses, operating heavy equipment, etc? I'm guessing with your Darwinian philosophy you probably would, those who had skill would do okay and the rest would wind up dead/maimed in industrial accidents. Then again it would likely catch up to you too because you would buy a house or drive under a bridge constructed by these untrained workers and it would collapse on you, eliminating you from the gene pool...

Whatever happened to good old fashioned Christian charity? I guess its gone by the wayside and now Christians are like everyone else, looking out for number 1.

   

It's simple - businesses need people to work for them. There are so many entry level positions available here, in Toronto, that you couldn't even believe it. To be on welfare in Toronto, as an able individual is inexcusable. There's no reason for it.

I always like to tell this story, because it really reflects how I became a conservative.

My grandmother and grandfather married at the age of 16 and 17, respectively. They lived in rural New Brunswick, with no skills or training. My grandfather got a job as a teller in ScotiaBank. He worked at this job for years, eventually becoming manager. He then moved to Southern Ontario. He continued in a managerial position, while going to university at night. My grandparents scrimped and saved so that he could go. He kept getting promoted.

He ended up the senior vice president of ScotiaBank at the age of 51.

My grandparents did not ever accept welfare. They worked hard, and scrimped and saved with four children, but did not ever accept welfare. My grandfather worked hard, and he accomplished more than most do in their lives. All from rural New Brunswick, with a child, with no skills and training, at the age of 17.

   

That is a great story however not all people are the same so it is hard to make a mold and apply it to all. If we all work together we will all succeed. Every man for himself is not a world I would like to live in.

   

That's cause you're lazy.

If your in good health there is no reason to have a crutch like welfare.

   

I work six to seven days a week 8 to ( 16 hours on weekends )
So how you came up with me being lazy who knows
I guess you know me better than I know myself
I had three part time jobs to put myself through school but I never lost compassion for my fellow man because some day It could be me or you that needs help and if everyone thinks like you It will not be there for us.

   

What a wonderful story. Too bad things like that don't usually happen any more.

If you want to work in a bank these days, you need a Bachelor's degree minimum (at least that was the case at the Royal 10 years ago). And with tuition far more these days than it was even only 2 decades ago (at least in AB where the prov gov't covers only 65%, as opposed to 85% in 1991), it's highly unlikely that very many people could work a fulltime job and go to university. Let's also not forget that many WW2 veterans got a free university education, so that's a form of government assistance, even if they had to kill a couple hundred Nazis to get it.

And if people want to enjoy the energy boom, they just can't walk into a welding shop and say, "Hire me!" They need training (plus the year off) for the course to let them do just that.

Yes, I suppose people could go to KFC or the Gap and work for $8 (maybe even $9 if they're lucky) and try and support themselves. Mimimum wage in AB is $7, but we'll assume the welfare bum gets lucky. Let's see, 40 hours a week @ $9, is $1440 a month, before the government gets ahold of it. After taxes, CPP, EI, you're looking at maybe $1000. After paying $600 for a single apartment, $65 for a bus pass, and we'll say $300 (a whopping $10/day) for food, our welfare bum is left with...$35 for all that work.

Not much leftover to pay for an education. Odds our welfare bum will work at the Gap or KFC forever and be permanently poor. And if a welfare recipient has a child or two, they wind up spending a big chunk of what they earn on childcare and still don't ever get ahead.

I'm glad you're grandfather was a self made man, and I wish everyone could be, but shit happens and sometimes people lose the ability to work (like my father).

While I agree that people should work for a living and not be on welfare, the best way IMHO is to educate them so they can become a plumber, welder, bank VP, whatever. Then that old saying comes true; "Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you'll feed him for life."

   

Well, for one thing, it's human nature to help our neighbours. And there is a good Darwinian reason for that. Cooperation often works better than competition in social animals like humans.

   

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

I remember this story as a child and still has relevance today. I wouldn't call taxing the ant to feed the lazy grasshopper charity. If the grasshoppers changed their ways and were more like ants then we wouldn't have people dieing in the cold. As for training and such many jobs provide that also how much skill do you need to wait tables, work a till, sell tickets, and answer the telephone in a call centre? Most people I know got a higher education by working at these jobs saving money and going to school at night. But if your going to sit on your arse and hope it falls from the sky then you deserve to starve.

Nothing wrong with helping your fellow man but I don't believe in supporting one who won't work. I don't mind helping someone if their house burned down or mind sharing my food with him but I'm not going to provide entirely for him so he can leach off the fruit I have earned.

   

I agree with you excepte in the situation of single mothers, who already have the full time job of taking care of children.

Welfare requirements should indeed be stricter, and I believe their purpose should be to guarantee all Canadians an equal base from wich they can improve their quality of life. You mentioned that in Alberta there is no shortage of jobs, however, there is a shortage of qualified people (in terms of education that is). Government support should be offered to assist people wanting to improve there standard of living through University (extremely expensive even with schorlarships) or other forms of education wich may be need to fill the criteria of particular jobs.

   

I have no particular desire to donate my hard-earned dollars to those that won't work either. But there are also many that can't work--due to mental illness, or being mentally or physically disabled, for example.

But the bigger question is: does society function better with or without welfare? If we adopted a completely competitive, non-cooperative mode with respect to the unemployed and indigent, would that make Canada a better or worse place to live?

   

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