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I. Introduction

Women’s disproportionate poverty and reliance on social programs, including social assistance and related social services, are well-documented. For women, and particularly for women whose race, disability, age or single motherhood deepens their disadvantage, access to adequate social programs is integrally linked to human rights. Legislation and transfers that establish social programs, and determine funding levels for them, are indispensable practical vehicles that give life to women’s human rights.

The Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action has written a number of submissions to United Nations treaty bodies that set out the linkage between access to adequate social programs and women’s enjoyment of their human rights. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women in 2003 found that cuts to social programs, made since 1995, are inconsistent with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1999, and again in 2005, expressed concern about the discriminatory impact on women of cuts to social assistance and other social programs. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has also criticized Canada repeatedly for failing to meet its obligation to ensure that everyone enjoys an adequate standard of living, a human rights norm set out in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) from which women are entitled to benefit.

However, domestically, there is an implementation gap between the human rights commitments that Canada has made, and the practice of designing, delivering and monitoring social programs.  On the one hand, as Canada itself has recognized, social programs are a central means by which human rights obligations are fulfilled.  On the other hand, the means to ensure that, on a day-to-day basis, our social programs actually comply with human rights norms are lacking.

In 1995, the Canada Assistance Plan Act (CAP) was repealed and replaced by the Canada Health and Social Transfer. On its face, the CAP was neither gender-specific nor a human rights-promoting instrument. It was a vehicle for setting the terms of federal/provincial cost-sharing for social assistance and related social services. However, in effect, the CAP was a mechanism through which governments protected the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, as set out in the ICESCR. When Canada reported to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it claimed the CAP as a means of implementing its ICESCR obligations. The CAP promoted women’s human rights by mandating the provision of adequate social assistance and related services, which are essential to women’s enjoyment of their rights to equality, security of the person and an adequate standard of living. The repeal of CAP left a vacuum that has not been filled by any other mechanism. 

The recent creation of the Canada Social Transfer (CST) provides a new opening to re-visit what CAP offered and how it can be improved upon. New ways of ensuring that social programs comply with human rights norms, including appropriate accountability mechanisms, are needed.