Health Care Coverage for Older People Canada

Social security programs in Canada evolved from what Guest (1994, p.1) terms as a "residual model of care in which social welfare was offered at the discretion of specific agencies after all other options such as looking to relatives and private sources of income, had been exhausted." Guest (1994, p.1) also notes that "Social assistance was not viewed as being a major state responsibility and applying for 'relief ' as it was commonly called was felt to be a demeaning and stigmatizing experience." Between the time of confederation in 1867 and the mid-1940s, religious charities and voluntary organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross and the Victorian Order of Nurses provided services to Canadians in need. Social security was not viewed as being a major state responsibility, and applying for "relief,"1as it was commonly called, was felt to be a demeaning and stigmatizing experience. Over time, Canadians embraced the perspective that providing a social safety net for families and vulnerable persons is part of the social cost of operating a society that aims to provide a higher standard of living for more people. The original old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and family allowance benefits in Canada were implemented between 1927 and 1944. Between 1945 and the 1960s there was increasing progress and consolidation between the federal and provincial governments in the role of social security. In 1966 the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) dramatically expanded the role of government in social policy by providing income security to workers in its contributory unemployment insurance, pension scheme, and other protection programs. The CAP act committed the federal government to paying half of any increase in provincial expenditures on welfare services for the lessening, removal, or prevention of the causes or effects of poverty, child neglect, and dependence on public assistance.