Pubdate: Thu, 10 May 2001 Source: Toronto Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2001 The Toronto Star Contact: http://www.thestar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456 Author: Jim Coyle PROVINCE DELIVERS ANOTHER INDIGNITY Even little children, even the most malevolent of them, usually tire after a time of plucking the wings off flies, or torturing bullfrogs with pointed sticks, or teasing younger siblings. But not the Ontario government. Not when it comes to tormenting social assistance recipients. Not even after almost six years of it. The latest indignity was served up this week by Social Services Minister John Baird in his trumpeting of proposed literacy and addictions testing for those receiving welfare. And, as always, it is interesting to note the timing of the government's outbursts of tough love. On the education front, there's ongoing turbulence in the schools. On health care, the Premier has opened the possibility of added upheaval and instability with recent musings on more private-sector involvement. On Ipperwash, the killing that just won't go away, Mike Harris seems to be suffering from an acute case of StockDay Syndrome - an inability to recall what he was up to at critical moments in his duties. Beyond question, his is a government that no longer enjoys so firm a hold as once it did on either the agenda or public affection. But, as always, nothing so picks up the spirits and restores the faith of waverers during moments of crisis - not to mention occupying the attention of newshounds - as a sound thrashing of the poor. Perhaps the only thing more nauseating than Baird's initiative itself is the minister's unctuous assurance that the government has only the best interests of social assistance recipients at heart. "We want to break down the barriers to employment," he purred. "Whatever stands in their way - whether it's a lack of experience, poor reading skills or an addiction to alcohol or drugs - we think our government should help." It is difficult to imagine the government's campaign of stigmatization could have been escalated. But it has. Now, social assistance recipients are not just lazy. They're junkies (even though there is no evidence rates of addiction are higher than in other groups). And they're illiterates, too. It's noteworthy that as the minister itemized the barriers to employment he did not mention acute shortages of child care, a rental crisis worsened by the lifting of rent controls, the near-absence of social housing programs, welfare rates that haven't risen for six years even as the cost of living has. He did not mention an economy that's relentlessly divided society into haves and have-nots. Just this week, the Toronto Community Foundation released its Vital Signs report and noted - as other organizations have before - that income is becoming ever more polarized, that homelessness, the use of shelters and food banks has risen sharply over the last decade. It is such an antediluvian view, this idea that the down on their luck are by definition drunk or dopey (in all senses of that word). For we have had social assistance recipients so literate, the wonderful Pat Capponi comes to mind, that they became celebrated authors. We have had Ontario cabinet ministers so tested by the language, and Lorne Henderson was just one example, that they could tell assembled multitudes that "me and the Premier brung ya this cheque." Even if problems of illiteracy and addiction among social assistance recipients were as critical as Baird suggests, even if his motives are as noble and compassionate as he purports, anything paying more than lip service to the idea of training and treatment for those needing it would involve huge investment. Something none but a fool would expect from this government on this constituency. The lack of sincerity is probably best evidenced by the remarkable ignorance of the government on the nature of addiction. If ever there was an area that did not lend itself - other than for the purposes of propaganda - to the simple nostrums of the Harris government, this is it. Neuroscience is making advances in understanding the how and why of the complex world of addiction. But we are a long way from triumph. "Never ask me why," the alcoholic writer William Faulkner once told those inquiring as to the reasons behind his prodigious drinking. "I don't know the answer. If I did, I wouldn't do it." Half a century on, the progress is modest indeed. The success rate of even the best of treatment centres remains woefully low. Most medical schools still provide only minimal training in addiction. Many doctors are baffled by it. Yet that which has bedevilled families and befuddled medical science is somehow simply to be solved through the tender mercies of the minister. Specialized staff are to be set up in welfare offices. They will screen welfare recipients suspected of addiction. They will administer a written or oral test to confirm their suspicions. They will whisk them off to rehab. They will cut the benefits of those who decline. As public policy, it is laughable. Repugnant to those in the addictions field. Offensive to those concerned with privacy or civil liberties. But the "treatment," so to speak, of social assistance recipients was never really intended to cure them of anything. It was always about making the government's supporters feel better. - --- MAP posted-by: Andrew