Canada’s social safety net is fraying. Why does it feel like everything is collapsing?

Canada is at a crossroad. Neoliberalism has hollowed out and sold off the social services Canadians rely on now more than ever, and has brought into stark relief the dissonance among colonial, Indigenous, and some of Canada's most at-risk groups.

The Social Safety Net tracks the forty-year attack on Canada’s social safety net. As neoliberalism has matured in Canada, Canadians are seeing the impact of these attacks: unreliable health services, crises in education and social services, and a society that feels like it is losing cohesion.

The first volume in a series by activist, author, and journalist Nora Loreto, the Canada in Decline series is the story of Canada’s untenable status quo and the forces that have led us to where we are today. It outlines the choices we need to make as well as the possible paths forward to fix all that is crumbling around us.

Nora Loreto is a writer and activist from Quebec City. She is the author of Take Back The Fight: Organizing Feminism in the Digital Age (Fernwood 2020) and From Demonized to Organized: Building the New Union Movement (CCPA 2013). Nora is the editor of the Canadian Association of Labour Media and is an opinion columnist whose writing appears regularly in many publications. She co-hosts the popular podcast Sandy and Nora Talk Politics with Sandy Hudson.

Nora Loreto's profile page