Welfare Reform in Canada provides systematic knowledge of Canadian social assistance by assessing provincial welfare regimes and emphasizing changes since the late twentieth century. The book examines activation, social investment, and economic inequalities and provides nuanced perspectives on social welfare across Canada's provinces in relation to trends and issues in the country and beyond. These conceptual, international, and historical perspectives inform in-depth case studies of social assistance reform in each province. The key issues of social assistance in Canada, including gender relations, immigrants, Aboriginal peoples, and the impact of activation programs, are addressed, as is the possibility of convergence taking place in provincial welfare policy.

This book is the second volume in the Johnson-Shoyama Series on Public Policy, published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, an interdisciplinary centre for research, teaching, and executive training with campuses at the Universities of Regina and Saskatchewan.

Daniel Béland est titulaire de la Chaire de recherche du Canada en politiques publiques à la Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy (Université de la Saskatchewan). Détenteur d’un doctorat en sociologie politique de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris), il a été chercheur invité à l’Université Harvard, à l’Université de Chicago et à l’Université George Washington, ainsi qu’au Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Ses travaux portent principalement sur les transformations de la protection sociale dans les sociétés contemporaines.

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Pierre-Marc Daigneault is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Université Laval, and specializes in social policy, policy theories, program evaluation, and research methods.

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Beland and Daigneault have assembled a wide-ranging and comprehensive study of what remains an essential component of Canada’s social security system, as it is in most liberal welfare states. The chapters are effectively organized to offer a thorough overview of Canadian social assistance. Almost all empirical chapters are detailed and well organized, which attests to fine editorial oversight and the careful selection of participants, as well as reflecting consistent dedication by the authors. By bringing the volume to print so quickly, the University of Toronto Press is offering readers very current assessments of these programmes. This is an important study.

<i>Journal of Social Policy</i>