Our Liberal Masters Cut Up The Government Cash

Teddy Ballgame · March 4, 2006

The following report from the December 15, 2005 edition of The Globe and Mail provides a perfect picture of the Liberals' me first attitude and monumental incompetence when it comes to the administration of federal programs.

- Like all Liberal boondoggles during the time of the Chretien-Martin gang, this program was announced with great fanfare, promised to provide much help to a target group of recipients, and has actually delivered very little except to the pay, perks and pensions of politicans and bureaucrats.

- As the report indicates, in the two years since it was launched, the program has spent $69 million on administration (i.e. the care and feeding of the bureaucrats) and only $11 million on the actual target group whom it was ostensibly set up to help. In other words, the Liberals have been busy cutting up the cash "86 cents for us, 14 cents for the civilians".

- This 86-14 ratio is not unusual when it comes to Liberal "human services" programs because the first rule of civil service in Ottawa is to "serve yourself". It is merely publicized in this case because the program is relatively new and so has not yet slipped under the media radar and into the vast bureaucratic morass.

- But it should make discerning Canadians wonder whether Ottawa really can spend people's money more wisely than all those "beer and popcorn" people who actually earned the money. And it should lead to the conclusion that in most cases the people are better able to husband and spend their money than are their Liberal masters.

Globeandmail.com > National > Article GGGGGText Size:

Compassionate care program under fire

By ANDRÉ PICARD

Thursday, December 15, 2005 Posted at 6:09 AM EST

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

The program designed to provide financial relief to Canadians caring for a terminally ill loved one, launched with much fanfare two years ago by the federal government, is a dismal, money-gobbling failure, according to a new report.

The Health Council of Canada says the Compassionate Care Benefit is a bureaucratic boondoggle that provides little practical help in times of need, and does so in a heartless and sometimes offensive manner.

"Somewhere between the good idea and the implementation, this program seems to have crashed up on the rocks," Michael Decter, chairman of the national health watchdog agency, said in an interview. "It's hard to be anything but appalled."

The 50-page report, being released today, says the program -- which is supposed to provide six weeks of employment-insurance benefits to family caregivers -- is "important and necessary" but impractically designed and poorly administered.

Mr. Decter saved his sharpest criticism for the way money is spent: Over a two-year period, $69-million was spent on administration while only $11-million was distributed in benefits to those in need.

Jan Clark of Kemptville, Ont., whose husband Stephen has terminal lung cancer, said she was thrilled to learn there was a compassionate care program, but was left devastated and disillusioned by the reality, which she described as a "load of red tape and bureaucratic nonsense devoid of compassion."

As an entrepreneur running a home-cleaning business, Ms. Clark was ineligible for benefits. She thought of taking a salaried position but realized the program would allow her a maximum of six weeks of EI benefits, a nonsensical limit.

"Are you telling me that I have to turn to my terminally ill husband and ask: 'Dear, which six weeks of the rest of your life do you want me to sit with you?' "

The Health Council report says the failings of the compassionate care benefit program are wide-ranging, including:

The nature of the benefit: Because it is an EI benefit, large numbers of Canadians are ineligible, including the unemployed, self-employed and part-time, temporary and seasonal workers; the maximum benefit was pegged at $413 weekly.

Length of benefit: The six-week paid benefit period, which must be taken within a 26-week window, does not recognize the unpredictability of the dying process.

Sharing of the benefit: Families are limited to a total of eight weeks of compassionate care, and it is difficult to split or share the benefit.

Definition of family: Benefits can only be claimed by close family members, and excludes siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends (the government, however, has already promised to change that aspect of the law).

Paperwork: The claims process is onerous and requires, among other things, a medical certificate attesting that the person being cared for will likely die within 26 weeks.

Discriminates against women: The program fails to make provisions for the fact that the vast majority of caregivers are women and that for a number of reasons -- childbearing, child-rearing, part-time work, self-employment, sole-income household -- they are least likely to meet the eligibility criteria for the program.