THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER WHITE PAPER IGNORES GUARANTEED INCOME The federal government tabled its long-awaited White Paper on social security in the Commons Nov. 30. AS ex- pected, it rejected the in- troduction of a comprehensive guaranteed annual income plan to replace existing income security programs. A guaranteed annual in- come, replacing Canada’s present patchwork of social welfare legislation, is a long- standing goal of the Canadian Labor Congress. It even drew support in a resolution adopted at the Liberal Party’s national policy conference in Ottawa last month, but Prime Minister Trudeau said it would not be implemented. CLC President Donald MacDonald said the White Paper “‘must be received with mixed feelings, even disap- pointment.”’ In the Commons, the White Paper drew criticism from Stanley Knowles, New Democratic member for Winnipeg North Centre. He | welcomed increased benefits to needy pensioners and low- income families and promised improvement in the Canada Pension Plan, but he said there were better ways to abolish poverty than the White Paper proposals. . These are the main proposals, which, in effect emphasize the means-test concept in the granting of assistance: e@ The present system of universal family allowances would be replaced by a Sso- called selective family income security -plan. nder it, families with incomes of up to $4,500 a year would get about double the present benefit for dependent children under 16. Payment-per-child would decrease under a sliding scale based on the combined income of the parents. Families with gross income of $10,000 a year or more would receive no benefits. @ There would be an in- crease of 42 cents a month in the basic old age pension to $80 effective Jan. 1 from the current $79.58. © The guaranteed income supplement to nearly 1,000,000 needy pensioners is to be in- creased — on a means test basis. A singlé pensioner may get up to $55 a month in sup- plement — up to $135 a month including the basic old age pension. e Benefits under’ the Canada Pension Plan are to be improved for the retired, widows, the disabled and wives of the disabled. e The cost-of-living formula is to.be eliminated for pen- sioners who draw only the basic old age pension but retained for those who receive the supplement, and it will be to a ceiling of two-percent a year. @ Payments under the new family income plan would be subject to income tax. The government was ex- pected to introduce legislation on the old-age pension changes within a few days. Target date for the new family income plan is September 1971. But proposed Canada Pension Plan changes require three years’ notice to the provinces. Health Minister Munro later said at a news conference that the government is de- emphasizing the concept of universality. CLC President MacDonald criticized the White Paper for falling short of proposing a fully integrated system of social security and _ for discarding the concept of the guaranteed annual income except for the aged. He said the old age security benefit has been reduced in ‘importance and in value’’ and would no longer be increased to take into account changes in cost of living, and even for those drawing guaranteed supplements the two percent maximum against living cost increases has been retained ‘tin the face of much more substantial price increases in recent years.” The three-year delay in implementing Canada Pension Plan changes ‘‘points up the need for more human con- sideration for those who continue to depend on the present low levels of benefits He added: “The White Paper points up the urgency for far-reaching taxation reforms. A more equitable system of taxation is indispensable if the burden of social costs is to be fairly distributed. “Otherwise the proposed beneficiaries of the changes suggested in the White Paper may be providing their own benefits while the well-to-do escape their share of the cost.” Labor welcomed family- allowance improvements, but regretted the reduction in benefits. to those families earning more than $4,500 a year. HOUSING COSTS UP — FOOD PRICES DOWN Housing costs are still going up faster than any other item in the cost-of-living index, according to October figures released by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. The clothing index also went up. However a sharp drop in food costs kept the cost of living index down to 130.3, two points below the July-August figure of 130.5. In the year to October the index rose only 2.8 points compared with a five percent rate previously. The index based on 1961 = 100 “was 126.8 in October 1969. But the housing index in October stood 5.1 percent above a year . ago. EMERGING SOCIAL SECURITY ISSUES Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University, June, 1969 . By ANDRY ANDRAS The booklet under review (it is only 22 pages in length) represents a brief but useful discussion of some of the prob- lems which now confront Can- ada’s system of social security. Organized labor has been con- scious for a long time that the Canadian sociai security sys- tem is much less a system than a collection of assorted pieces of social legislation de- veloped over a considerable period of time and markedly different from one another as to adequacy and effectiveness generally. Canadian Community This paper by Dr. Kelly, a reprint of one delivered at a conference held in June of this year, touches on a num- ber of points which are bound to be of concern not only to government authorities but to those who are directly affect- EMERGING SOCIAL SECURITY ISSUES ed either as beneficiaries, con- tributors or simply as mem- bers of the Canadian com- munity. — One important problem which is very much to the fore is that of jurisdiction. Al- though there has been a con- siderable swing of authority from local and provincial gov- ernments to the federal gov- ernment, this situation is an uneasy one as evidenced by the need for federal-provincial conferences on the subject. Beneficial Effect “, . From a national stand- oint,” Dr. Kelly observes, “federal participation in social security can probably be look- ed on as having had a bene- ficial effect.” e claims, however, that there have been some adverse the federal government virtu- ally to impose a program on the provinces whether they are willing to participate or not. From the point of view of organized labor, this may be not a bad use of federal par- ticipation, as the introduction of Medicare may attest. Means Test The Canadian government is now involved in an exam- versus selectivity. Selectivity is, of course, merely a euphe- mism for the means test as Dr. Kelly very clearly points out. He engages in a brief but useful discussion of this matter, using family allow- ances as his point of depart- ure. He finds that selectivity would be extremely difficult to apply to this particular type of program. What is bound to be of interest to organized labor is r. Kelly’s discussion of the guaranteed annual income. He examines two different ap- proaches to it, one by Robert Theobald and another by Milton Friedman, since they are representatives of two principal approaches. of Young Canadians. out his duties. COMPTROLLER PAID $250 PER DAY A salary of $250 a day is the pay received by the Comptroller of the Company Barry Mather, M.P. (NDP, Surrey) was given this information by the Secertary of State, Hon. Gerald Pelletier, in answer to a question. . What is the annual salary of the new financial comptroller of the Company of Young Canadians, Mr. Max Mendelsohn? A. The salary of the comptroller of the Company of Young Canadians as fixed by Order in Council of Dec. 19, 1969, is $250 for each day spent by him in carrying A couple of fishermen were lying about their catches. Bill?” asked one. “Haven’t you caught anything worth mentioning?” “No,” said Bill. “The last one I caught was too small to take home, so three fellows helped me throw him back in.” ON THE LIGHTER SIDE “So Jane is sore at her hus- mand,” she said. “I always thought he was perfect. In their ten years of married life, hasn’t he always turned his check over to her. the first of every month?” “Yes, but she just discover- ed he gets paid on the 15th, ‘ too.” An Alaskan on arriving in Texas approached a bystand- er and asked, “Where may I find a doctor?” “Are you ill?” inquired the exan. “No,” grinned the Alaskan “Tm suffering from claustro- phobia?’