Remembering Ken Battle
Ken Battle died on November 18, 2024 in Ottawa at the age of 77. Ken was founder and president of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, and a pre-eminent social policy analyst and writer in Canada’s history.
Ken’s work focused on income supports for Canadians whose employment didn’t pay them sufficiently to meet their needs and for those who couldn’t work because of disability or another social circumstance. A principal contribution was the Canada Child Tax Benefit in 1998, since amended and more fully funded and now known as the Canada Child Benefit. Caledon had a significant hand in other benefit designs for people living with disabilities and the so-called working poor.
As both Prime Ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin have written, Ken was a crucial resource to them, Martin having made Ken one of his first calls after becoming Finance Minister. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau personally thanked Ken for his contribution to Canada at the Caledon 25th anniversary event.
Ken and I founded Caledon in 1992, after several years of discussion and design. Maytree was over a decade old in its work on poverty in Canada. We were looking at ways to increase the impact of our work, and thinking that public policy offered the greatest opportunity to improve the lives of the most people. Stan McRoberts, a senior Finance official in Ottawa, recommended I look at the work of Ken Battle who was head of the National Council of Welfare (a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization, or QUANGO representing low-income people, founded in 1962 and terminated by the Harper government in 2012). Ken and Stan had been classmates at Queen’s University, where I had met Ken as well, and had worked together at the start of their careers in Finance, looking at the financing of established programs like national equalization. Stan described Ken’s work as deeply researched and readable, a unique combination it seemed.
I read Ken’s work, agreed with Stan’s observation, and called him. We met several times where I suggested forming an institute to focus on practical ways to lift people out of poverty. At the time, the Council’s independence from government influence was being threatened by the Mulroney government. Ken was also a leading candidate to lead the Canadian Council on Social Development, a venerable institution with 120 employees and a building overlooking the Ottawa River. When he mentioned this I asked him, “Do you want to manage a large workforce and look after a big building, or do you want to be able to do the work of policy design, analysis and commentary?” He was pretty clear on preferring the latter.
Ken’s intelligence was legendary. At Queen’s, he was the first, and perhaps still the only, humanities student to win the Prince of Wales Medal, given to the faculty of Arts and Science graduating student with the highest grades. It usually went to someone in the sciences like math or chemistry. He was said to be the brightest student of his generation at Queen’s, and went on to Oxford University on a Commonwealth Scholarship, sometimes referred to as “the Rhodes for people who don’t play a sport.” Ken’s ability to encounter complexity and discern patterns and pathways was exceptional. Unlike many who look for data to support a hunch or predilection, Ken would look at all the available data and understand what it said. His appetite for Statistics Canada income distribution data was astonishing!
I knew Ken best through our partnership at Caledon. His work ethic was high, and his focus was intense. He would not be distracted by current popular topics or scandals, nor drawn into commenting on matters where Caledon had not done sufficient work. He had no interest in being widely known or being invited to popular events. He drew real pleasure from having the quality of Caledon’s work acknowledged, even when it came from people who disagreed with it. He wanted to have influence that would improve people’s lives, particularly those without sufficient resources to live with dignity.
Ken’s friend from Queen’s, and longtime Maytree board member Dan Burns, coined the phrase “relentless incrementalism” to describe Ken’s approach. Ken understood that change happens slowly, particularly in government where every move is contested, complexity abounds, and gratitude is rare. Ken would accept the incremental step, but keep pressing relentlessly for the next step, and the one after that, until the best solution was achieved. An example is the child benefit, established in 1998 at less than a quarter of the recommended increment, requiring pressure at every annual budget to increase it, to index it to inflation, to iterate to current conditions, until finally it was fully funded almost twenty years later. Ken could stay the course.
Ken attracted important colleagues to Caledon, particularly Sherri Torjman with whom he had worked at the National Council of Welfare. Sherri brought Ken’s sense of depth and focus, and her own expertise especially on issues relating to disability. They attracted Michael Mendelson, a former senior public servant in Manitoba and Ontario, who contributed significantly. At each federal budget they would put their heads together and produce a commentary on the budget’s social measures, which was thoughtful, frank, and useful for governments willing to reconsider their course.
Ken was deeply serious about his work and his commitment to helping people. But he was also a fine and interesting person. He kept his motorcycle in the living room of his student flat at university! He was good company, had a sense of the absurd, and a boyish laugh. We traveled on Caledon business, and those trips were a good mix of serious conversation and fun.
Because Ken didn’t seek the spotlight, Caledon remained less well known than other organizations which engage in self-promotion and proclaim their victories. It was much better known to Prime Ministers and Ministers, deputy ministers and Clerks of the Privy Council, and others in charge of public policy. For them, Caledon was vital, and Ken Battle was a national treasure.