Guiding principles for social policy budgets

This commentary discusses three core principles that should guide the development of social policy measures in government Budgets:

• Social program expenditures play a vital economic role because they act as both shock absorbers and fiscal stimulus.  Rather than a drain on the economy, social programs have been crucial in ensuring that Canada’s economy has remained reasonably stable throughout the recent turbulence.
• Maintaining and improving social programs can be equally important for the economic recovery.  There is room for spending on new measures or improvements to existing programs by reassigning expenditure away from measures and programs that primarily benefit high-income Canadians or that are not warranted by current evidence.
• Even in tough economic times, it is possible to introduce fundamental reforms through new measures or substantial modifications to existing programs.  So long as the aim of fundamental reform is well articulated and a clear pathway toward its attainment is laid out, it is possible to reach the end goal through a series of incremental steps.

ISBN – 1-55382-575-6