Social development or skills development?

As Karri noted on this blog, when the new cabinet was appointed, Diane Finley replaced Monte Solberg as the Minister for HRSDC.

But a change in ministers is not all that occurred: the government also changed the title of Minister Finley from Human Resources and Social Development to Human Resources and Skills Development.

The change left some people wondering if there was a slip up. After all, the Department was at one time known as Human Resources and Skills Development when a separate Ministry of Social Development existed.

However, last week the Prime Minister’s spokesperson, Kory Teneycke, confirmed that the change was intentional. According to a Winnipeg Sun article, Teneycke believes “the best thing that one can do to help improve the life of someone who is unemployed is to help them get another job.”

I won’t argue with Teneycke that jobs will help the unemployed, but I do worry about this new emphasis on skills development.

The recent OECD report on growing inequality noted that over half of all households in poverty have at least some income from work. In 2004, 58% of two parent families living in poverty in Canada received their principal income from employment and received no social assistance or Employment Insurance (EI) payments. Not all jobs pay a living wage. So simply focusing on getting people jobs won’t solve Canada’s biggest social challenge: poverty.

Skills development will help individual workers compete in our global, knowledge economy by helping them to obtain higher paying jobs. But one-third of jobs in Canada are estimated to be precarious work: work that is part-time, temporary or contract, with little pay and no benefits. We can’t expect that every Canadian will be able to obtain higher paying work through skills development in this context.

We have too many Canadians working full-time, year round and yet not making a living wage. Fairness and justice requires living wage laws, a reasonable rate for the Working Income Tax Benefit, appropriate labour standards, and social supports, not just skills development.

Other significant challenges confront Canadian workers and their families. Not everyone who loses their job can access Canada’s EI program, even if they have paid premiums. In fact, in 2004, only 38% of unemployed Canadians had access to EI. Two recent news articles from the Ottawa Citizen and the Toronto Star highlight fears that growing numbers of unemployed due to a possible recession will stretch Canada’s EI system to the breaking point.

Finding appropriate, accessible and affordable child care is also a challenge for many Canadian workers.

Clearly, the work of social development extends well beyond skills training and employment programs. I hope the title change doesn’t limit the attention of the minister and the department when it comes to social development.