Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

Chapter 8: Social Programs
Chapter 8: Social Programs
Social programs significantly affect some of Ontario’s most vulnerable citizens.
Social assistance, by far the largest expenditure component, provides the most basic income
and employment supports to the impoverished and people with disabilities. Child protection
services, delivered through a network of Children’s Aid Societies, keep Ontario’s children safe
and healthy. And developmental services support local programs and services that promote
inclusion and involvement of citizens with a developmental disability.
Despite the valuable services that social programs provide, our mandate requires us to
consider their fiscal impact. From 2000 to 2010, spending on social programs grew by
an average of 6.0 per cent per year — well above the rate we will need to return the provincial
budget to balance by 2017–18. A number of factors contribute to this, most notably those
related to social assistance. Demand for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) has
increased by about five per cent per year over that period. Caseloads for Ontario Works (OW)
too have grown, though only following the global economic downturn in 2008–09, after
remaining more or less unchanged since the start of that decade. Following a period in the
1990s when social assistance rates were increased and then cut dramatically, changes were
brought about in 2004 that would increase rates by 13 per cent over eight years. 1 And in 2008,
the province committed to uploading almost the entire municipal share of social assistance 2 as
part of the Provincial-Municipal Fiscal and Service Delivery Review. Together, these factors
have driven the increases in social assistance spending that have contributed significantly to
the overall growth of spending on social programs in recent years.
1 <strong>Commission</strong> for the Review of Social Assistance in Ontario, “A Discussion Paper: Issues and Ideas,” 2011, p. 11; R.D. Kneebone and
K.G. White, “Fiscal Retrenchment and Social Assistance in Canada,” Canadian Public Policy 35 (2009), no. 1, p. 26.
2 Only the administration costs of OW will be a shared expense once OW financial and employment assistance is fully uploaded in 2018.
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