The Social Investment State and the Social Economy the Politics Of
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The Social Investment State and the Social Economy The Politics of Quebec’s Social Economy Turn, 1996-2015 By Gabriel Arsenault A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science University of Toronto © Copyright by Gabriel Arsenault, 2016 The Social Investment State and the Social Economy. The Politics of Quebec’s Social Economy Turn, 1996-2015 Gabriel Arsenault Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science University of Toronto 2016 Abstract This dissertation argues that investigating the social economy is necessary to fully understand social investment politics and the specificity of the Quebec social model. Quebec has been structuring and promoting a social economy sector since the mid-1990s, launching social economy policies in areas such as child care, perinatal services, home support, social housing, and social insertion. No other provincial welfare state has taken a similar path. Why? Given their goal to address post-industrial social needs by increasing employment levels, Quebec’s social economy policies are here construed as social investment policies. Drawing from the comparative social investment literature and the Canadian federalism literature, I identify five hypotheses accounting for Quebec’s distinct trajectory: power resources, cross-class coalitions, learning, structural changes, and federalism. Using a process tracing methodology and relying on a variety of documentary sources and a unique data set of 77 interviews, I argue that the strength of Quebec’s Left in the mid-1990s, in combination with coalition engineering during the 1996 Economy and Employment Summit, are what chiefly account for Quebec’s social economy turn. The centre-Left PQ has proven to be significantly more committed to the social economy than the centre-Right PLQ. Moreover, it was actors from the Left, including the Quebec Women’s Federation and the CSN, who brought the issue of the social economy on the government’s agenda. The Social Economy Task Force, launched in prevision of the 1996 Summit, then skillfully engineered a Left-Right social economy coalition based on the idea that the social economy would infringe upon neither the public, nor the private sector, while creating jobs and addressing unmet social needs. The dissertation’s argument is nuanced, however. Although Quebec’s social economy policies were launched en bloc, they were not quite underpinned by exactly the same causes. ii Acknowledgments Dear Rodney Haddow, I thank you. Your supervision work has been impeccable at every stage of the journey. You were authoritative when I was going off on a tangent; you were patient and kind when I felt lost; you were diligent and rigorous when I sent you stuff to read; you were intransigent when I was sloppy; you were enthusiastic about my work when I had self-doubts. I was very lucky to have you. If I have graduate students one day, I can only hope to be as good with them as you have been with me. Other professors have played a central role in my doctoral education: Chris Cochrane, whose kindness and sharpness have never ceased to impress me, but whose infinite patience almost made me err into thinking that I could do statistics; Peter Loewen, who has given me a very concrete sense of what it takes to be an academic star; and Alain Noël, whose wisdom I would turn to in critical moments and whose knowledge of Quebec politics inspired me to become a Quebec scholar in the first place. I have benefitted from the support of many other friends and colleagues at different stages of the program, including: Zain Asaf, Philippe-Olivier Daniel, Adrienne Davidson, Yannick Dufresne, Pierre Fortin, Marie Gagné, Julien Gagnon, Joshua Gordon, Peter Graefe, Maxime H.-Legault, David Houle, Christian Jetté, Andrew McDougall, Jean Lachapelle, Matthieu Mondou, Lama Mourad, Alexandre P.-Pelletier, Lior Sheffer, Abraham Singer, Grace Skogstad, Paul Thomas, Yves Vaillancourt, Graham White, and Linda White. In particular, I cannot imagine what my PhD would have been like without Alex, with whom I laughed and had lunch every single day. iii I also wish to warmly thank my 79 interviewees. Everything that is interesting in my dissertation comes from you. Beyond the thesis, it was an immense privilege to meet with you. Many of you inspired me and I keep very precious memories of our meetings. I would particularly like to express my gratitude to Nancy Neamtan: no one else (except maybe Alphonse Desjardins) has done more to develop Quebec’s social economy. Without you, I would have chosen a completely different dissertation topic and would likely have a very different life ahead of me. Other public officials and staff have also been instrumental in helping me access information for my thesis, including: Cécile Arcand, Jean-François Biron, Roger Brosseau, Raymond Gouin, Barbara Maas, Catherine Magny, Jacynthe Ouellette, and Pierre Plumail. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their love and moral support; to my father, Bruno Arsenault, for having transmitted me the notion that freedom is achieved through education; to my brother, Etienne Arsenault, for being the awesome brother that he is and for his invaluable assistance in the practical aspects of fieldwork; and to my partner, Tessa Wilson- Ewing, for inspiring me to be a better person and for giving me such a beautiful life. iv Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................ iii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................................ vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. viii List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................................................ x Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter Two: Theory and Hypotheses........................................................................................................ 26 Chapter Three: General Social Economy Policies ....................................................................................... 74 Chapter Four: Child Care and Perinatal Services ...................................................................................... 116 Chapter Five: Home Assistance................................................................................................................. 161 Chapter Six: Social Housing ....................................................................................................................... 206 Chapter Seven: Social Insertion ................................................................................................................ 252 Chapter Eight: Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 298 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................. 316 v List of Tables Table 1.1 Non-financial cooperative sector in Quebec, Saskatchewan, and Canada, 2001-2010 ................ 8 Table 2.1 Non-financial cooperative sector in Canadian provinces in 1995 .............................................. 36 Table 2.2 Demographic pressures in Canadian provinces in 1996 ............................................................. 41 Table 2.3 Provincial budgetary margins of manoeuvre, 1995 data (current dollars) .................................. 42 Table 2.4 Federal governments, 1993-2015 ................................................................................................ 67 Table 2.5: The causes of Quebec’s social economy turn in the mid-1990s ................................................ 69 Table 3.1 Social economy enterprises in Quebec: two definitions ............................................................. 93 Table 3.2. Use of the expression “social economy” in electoral platforms ................................................ 95 Table 3.3. Solidarity finance in Quebec 2013 ............................................................................................. 99 Table 3.4. Four understandings of the social economy and corresponding Left-Right support ............... 106 Table 4.1: Provincial efforts in child care ................................................................................................. 116 Table 4.2. Child care in Quebec ................................................................................................................ 118 Table 4.3 Type of new child care spaces .................................................................................................. 141 Table 5.1 Provincial spending on the PEFSAD (in non-constant and constant 1998 dollars) ................. 163 Table 5.2: Provincial public home support spending per capita (in constant 1997 dollars) ..................... 165 Table 5.3. EÉSAD workforce ..................................................................................................................