SE2iWA.L REGULATION AND ONTARIO SOCIAL POLICIES IN THE 1990s
Carol-Anne O'Brien
A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Facultp of Social Work University of Toronto
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Carol-Anne O'Brien Faculty of Social Work University of Toronto
Sexual Regulation and Ontario Social Policies in the 1990s
This thesis analyzes sexual regulation undex the Ontario Conservativesl Conmon Sense Revolution and compares these developments with what took place under the previous NDP government. Mainstream social policy scholarship has ignored sexuality. However, it is not possible to detenuine how sexuality is regulated by social policies at an abstract Level, nos is it useful to argue that a policy is "reallyw about sexual regulation. By analyzing four specific sites linked to provincial social policies, 1 found different strategies of sexual regulation. Strategies for governing welfare recipients have shifted from problematizing poverty to problematizing welfare dependency. State-induced dependency is constituted as a moral failing, but "traditional forms of supportw are promoted, such as economic dependency within heterosexual relations and of youth upon their parents. An analysis of strategies for governing homeless youth shows ii that "street youth" were invented as a category in the 19708, a historp closelp linked to sexual regulation. Sovereign power is now being overshadared by neo-liberal approaches which constitute youth as self-governing. The governing of spousal relationships is a more direct form of sexual regulation. Official recognition of lesbian and gay relationships intensifies class differencas and may introduce enforced dependence into same-se* relationships. ~ecognitionwill integrate gay couples into the responsibilizing strategies undermining social approaches to welfare, and is more likelp to be granted when it will financially benefit the state. Moral and sexual regulation, deployed through stigma, play an important role in AIDS policy. There have been few differences between the NDP and PC governments on treatment issues, due to the
NDP' s fiscal conservatism in their final pears in office, and to the ways AIDS and sexuality cross the boudaries of class, allowing
AIDS activists to exercise some influence on policy. Yet PC cutbacks to social services have seriously affected lm-income people with HIv/AIDS.
iii 1 have discovered that completing a dissertation is net possible without financial, research, intellectual and emotional support from an incredible arrap of individuals and organizations. My comments below cannot fully convey how appreciative 1 feel of the ways sa manp people helped me. My thanks go firstlp to the people of Canada who made my work possible through extensive public funding and tax erpenditures to the University of Toronto, and who also provided me with personal direct financial support through fout years of doctoral fellawships from the Social Sciences and Humaaities ~esearch~ouncil of Canada. 1 would like to thank the kep informants from various organizations and agencies who generouslp allowed me to interview them and draw on their knowledge and expertise. ~hanksalso to Carolyn Heald, of the Archives of Ontario and Mark Robertson, of the libraq of the AIDS Cdttee of Toronto. For kindlp providing me with access to agencjl documents and other sesearch material and for suggesting interviewees, f am grateful to: Joan Anderson and Darien Taylor of the AIDS Cornmittee of Toronto, B. Lee and Th McCaskell of AIDS ~ctionNowl, Elinor Mahoney of Parkdale Community Legal Services, John McCullagh of the Children's id Society of Metropolitan Toronto, Ian Morrison of the Clinic Resource Office of the Ontario Legal Aid Plan, Sheena Scott of ~usticefot Children and Pouth, Doug Weatherbee, the staff of Covenant House, YouthLink and Inner City Pouth, and the Coalition for Services for Lesbian and Gay Youth. 1 am very gratefui to my advisor, Sheila ~eysmithwho has been a constant source of support and guidance over the past four years. My committee members have also been invaluable to my work. Although 1 was not a student of the Centre of Criminologp, Mariana Valverde offered me challenging critiques as well as strong encouragement. 1 am very grateful to Adrienne Chambon and Allan Irving for taking such a keen interest in my work. Thanks also to m]l interna1 examiner, Eniie Lightman, and my external examiner, Roy Cain, for their helpful critiques. Two studp groups played an important tole in my work over the past four years, offering me personal support and critical feedback. In the Facultp of Social Work, 1 am really grateful to people who were members of the ~orothy Livesay Collective at different times, Donna Baines, Shari Brotman, Catrina Brown, Xiao- Bei Chen, Suzanne Dudziak, Susan McGrath, Jane McMichael, Ken Moffatt, Shoshana Pollack, and Frank Wang. 1 am also vetp happy to thank the members of Matiana Valverde's study group: Aiinette ~ickford,Kelly Hannah-Eioffatt, Jaaice Hill, Lucy Luccisano, Paula Maurutto, and Jacinth Samuels. A verp special thank you to my parents, Dolores and Patrick O'Brien, who have ben verp supportive of mp studies over many many years. Thanks to my sister Jane, and my brothers, Laurence and Allister for giving me lots of encouragement. 1 could not have made it through writing the thesis and other struggles of the past four years without nty wonderful friends and the Lesbiaa and gay connnunities that sustain many of us. In particular, Eric Mykhalovskiy, Maggi Redmonds, Norah Richards, Robb Travers, and Cynthia Wright were incredibly generous with ideas and support. Thank you to: Rachel Epstein, Lois Fine, Stephen Gelb, Nicole Laviolette, Bev Lepischak, John Lorley, Linzi Manicorn, Maureen McCarthy, Ki Namaste, Dino Paoletti, Maureen Simpkins, Tori Smith, Carolpn Strange, and Aana Travers. 1 would also like to remember the support and inspiration offered to me &y the late George Smith, whose death from AIDS was such a loss to AIDS activists and lesbian and gay politics in Toronto. Lorna Weit was immenselp encouraging about my work through many pears, and 1 reallp appreciate how, in the last few months of writing, het financial generosity made it possible for me to complete this thesis. As 1 finished the thesis, 1 embarked on some exciting new adventures that helped me to petsevere thtough the last stretch. In Ireland, thanks to old and new friends, especially, Kay Ferriter, Celine Leonard, Kieran Rose, Eoin Collins and others at Nexus Research, and Kathy and Mick O'Connor. In Toronto, the last months of writing and preparation for the defense were transformed by the love and fun that Nina Mosion has brought into my life. 'Jlhank pou. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Introduction Social Policy and Serualitp Theoretical ~ramework The Research Process Outline of Chaptets Endnotes
Chapter 2 Welfare, Seruality and Strategies for Governing Poverty 1. Dependencp as a Problem and a Solution A. The Problem of State-Induced Dependency B. Dependency as a Solution 1. Recipients in Heterosexual ~elationships 2. Teenage Welfare Recipients 11. From the Problem of Pooertp to the Problem of Dependency Governing Heterosexual Relationships Governing Youth through Dependencp on Parents Conclusion Endnotes
Chapter 3 fnventing Street Pouth: From Protecting 'Easy Victims" t0 Teaching Risk Reduction 106 Development of Services for "Street Youth" 108 A New Consensus on Street Youth 125 Governing Agencies Conclusion Endnotes Chapter 4 Governing "Pamilyn and "Spousalm Relationships The Failure of Bill 167 The Success of Health Care Legislation Contradictions of the Commoa Sense Revolution Shifting Intersections Between Class and Sexualitp Conclusion Endnotes
Chapter 5 Social, Medical and Moral Constructions of AIDS 196 AIDS Policies under the NDP 197 Anonpmous HIV Testing 198 Developing the Provincial Govemment's Response 199 Funding for AIDS Treatments 205 Political Discourses about AIDS 213 Contradictory Policies under the Common Sense Revolution222 Revising the Provincial AIDS Strate- 231 Conclusion 234 Endnotes 236
Chapter 6 Conclusions Endnotes Appendices 1. Information Sheet II. Consent Form III. Interview Guide
Primary Sources 268
Secondary Sources 277
vii Chapter 1
Introduction
The field of social policy' has been centrally concerned with state welfare programs , unemployment , housing, and other issues which are constituted as being within "the socialvw, vrpO1iticswv and "the economyw. Social policy has been constructed as unrelated to questions concerning sexuality. In this thesis 1 explore the intersections between provincial social policies and the regulation of sexuality, and suggest ways that narrow conceptions of the scope of social policy should be challenged.
In June 1995, the Conservative party won the Ontario election radical ly right-wing entitled
Common Sense Revolutionvw,which set out clear goals regarding welfare, education, health care, taxation and the budget deficit. This program and its implementation offer an opportunity to analyze an interesting moment in the shifting relations between and social policies, and compare these developments with what had been taking place under the previous NDP goverment. In particular, 1 focus upon four 2
different sites linked to provincial social policies: social
assis tance, the regulation of lesbian and gay relationships ,
AIDS , and funding for social service agencies , specif ically,
services for homeless youth. These sites were chosen not as
examples of semial regulation but as points of entry for
exploring the processes, direct and indirect, through which
sexuality is governed. 1 discuss how developments in these
sites may be theorized, drawing on theories of sexualiw,
concepts such as moral regulation, and recent Foucauldian
analyses of neo-liberalism.
This thesis has confirmed the insight that sexuality is not
an autonomous site of regulation; sexual and moral regulation
are implicated in various strategies for governing diff erent
sites and groups of people. Students of the history of
sexuality have long been interested in social policies. Through
this work 1 also show that sexual regulation can play a significant role in particular contemporary social policies.
However, 1 do not think that it is useful or possible to determine how sexuality is regulated by social policies at an abstract or general level. Each of the sites 1 examine reveal specific strategies in semial regulation. 1 do not argue that new welfare regulations or other programs are "reallyW about sexual regulation. But sexual regulation is threaded through a number of important social policies.
With regard to social assistance, 1 argue that the focus of governing strategies has shifted from the problem of poverty to the problem of welfare deperidency. Nowever, while state-induced dependency is constituted as a moral failing, 'l tradi tional forms of supportq' are put forward as solutions to the province's fiscal difficulties. This leads to the renewed promotion of economic dependency within heterosexual relations, that is, of mothers upon their male partners. New restrictions upon teenagers' access to welfare promote their economic dependence upon their parents, and limit their ability to independently explore many issues, including their sexualities and sme-sex desires. Thus "the familyrqis reinforced as the site which has the authority to govern youth sexuality. These changes in welfare rules are not the result of the state's intention to directly govern sexuality: heterosexual relations are regulated through the spouse-in-the-house social assistance rule while youth sexuality is governed at a distance through restrictions on teen welfare.
Strategies for governing homeless youth are another focus of the thesis. 1 argue that "street youthV1was invented as a category in the 19709, in a process which was closely linked to semal reg~lation,with the rape and murder of Emanuel Jaques in 4
1977 being a key catalyst in this process. In the 1950s and
l96Os, child protection strategies deployed sovereign power to protect or police young people who might become involved with
prostitution or homosexuali ty; in the 19708, new agencies developed techniques of "s treet outreachVr which consti tuted youth as self-governing. In recent years street youth have been governeci through risk reduction strategies in relation to HIV and prostitution. A new-found recognition of lesbian and gay identities means that many agencies working with street youth do not constitute homosermality per se as victimizing of street youth. These agencies have agreed to address the needs of lesbian, gay and bisexual street youth. 1 also argue that the
Consenrative governmentls funding cuts to street youth agencies does not emerge frorn sexual regulation but from changing s trategies for governing voluntary agencies . However , the ascendency of risk reduction strategies allows some street youth agencies to use funding for HIV prevention to supplement their budgets at a time of cutbacks for other programs.
The third site of sexual regulation exploreci in this thesis concerns the governing of spousal relationships. In contrast to the previous two issues, this one concerns a more direct form of state involvement in sexual regulation. The state defines which couples i t will recognize, thereby excluding . O ther relationships 5
from off icial recognition . Progress in winning off icial
recognition of lesbian and gay relationships throws into relief processes of class differentiation in lesbian and gay cornmunities and will introduce into same-sex relationships a non-gender-specific version of the gendered dependence through which heterosexual relationship are regulated. 1 also argue
that although the records of both the Conservative and NDP parties are contradictory on this issue, state recognition is more likely to be granted when it will provide fiscal gains to the state. Advances in gaining official recognition of lesbian and gay relationships will integrate them into strategies which are VesponsibilizingWindividuals and families and undermining social approaches to welfare.
The fourth and final site which 1 examine in the thesis is
AIDS policy. 1 argue that regarding a number of issues that directly concern AIDS , there have been few significant differences between the NDP and Conservative governments. This is partly due to the NDP1s fiscal consenratism in their final years in office. It also reflects the processes through which
AIDS and sexuality cross the boundaries of class, allowing AIDS activist groups to exercise influence on policy when some of their members have family links to the Conservative establishment. The location of AIDS within the medical domain 6 has also allowed certain programs directly concerneci with AiDS to avoid Consenrative funding cuts, to &te. Yet AIDS cannot be constructed as an exclusively medical issue. Common Sense
Revolution cutbacks to welfare, housing subsidies , and other social services have seriously affected low-income people with
HIV/AIDS (PHAs).
My analysis of Ontario parliamentary debates on AIDS shows the important role of moral and sexual regulation, deployed through AIDS stigma. This stigma leads to politicians treating
AIDS as a largely lqnon-partisanwissue in the legislature. It also designates a minority of people with HIV/AIDS as "innocent victimsm, implicitly imputing moral blame to other PHAs. The sexual and moral regulation of political discourse on AIDS is also shown by politicians' extensive use of euphemisms to refer to AIDS.
In examining these different sites, 1 do not focus exclusively on sexual regulation, Since sexuality is not an autonomous site of regulation, it carmot be theorized without an examination of broader social and political contexts at particular historical moments. Thus, throughout this thesis, discussions of sema1 regulation are threaded with arguments about, for example, strategies for governing welfare recipients in general. 1 explore the growth of lVstreetoutreachw and Visk 7
reductionn as techniques for governing street youth. 1 discuss
the emergence of neo-liberal programs under the NDP government,
and the CO-existence of neo-liberal and other strategies for
governing welfare recipients and poverty. 1 suggest that cuts
to street youth agencies are not centrally driven by a concerted
program of attacking homeless people but emerge from a strategy
of developing new ways of governing voluntary agencies.
In the following pages 1 will discuss issues raised in
literatures relevant to sema1 regulation and social policy. I
then outline the theoretical framework for the thesis and the
approach 1 adopted in researching this topic, and conclude with a chapter outline of the thesis.
Social Policy and Sexuality
Feminist critiques of social policy offer insights that are
relevant to an exploration of the intersections between sexual
regulation and social policy. In her analysis of social policy
in Britain, Fiona Williams differentiates her approach f rom that of the political economy mainstream. Williams deplores the fact
that work in the field of social policy continues to focus narrowly upon class and poverty excluding gender, race and other categories of analysis (Williams, 1989). Williams argues that this approach defends "predominantly white male forms of full
employment, universalism, and egalitasianismw (1989, p-xxvi) and
limits the debate to questions such as the impact of
"privati~ation~~and wpluralismlr on welfare provision. Taking a
position often put forward by feminist and other critics of the
welfare state, Williams suggests that social policies have
always been intertwined with subordinations baseci on gender and
race :
as Ear as women or Black people are concerned, the policies emanating from the welfare state 'in crisis' represent not so much a break with past practice as an intensification in a much harsher way, as well as being justified in a much more explicit mannes, of elements of a familism, a nationalism and a variety of racism inherent in the development of the welfare state (1989, p. 12) .
Linda Gordon argues that inattention to gender and race
leads to scholarship on social welfare being marked by a
l*di~torted~~analysis of policies or even the lack of recognition
that a policy towards a particular social group exists
Irespecially if the policy is not spelled out at a general level
but emerges £rom the intersection of many governing rulesWr
(Gordon, 1990 p. 10) . This is abetted by a "failure to
understand that policy is as much constructed by the denial of
needs as by meeting themwl, and difficulties faced in attempting
to identify llpolicy that is constructed of the practices of private employers, educational institutions, medical insurance 9 carriers, tom, country, state, and federal taxation, employment, welfare and family law" (1990 p. 11) .
For nearly two decades, a significant focus of the social policy li terature has been the analysis of developments under neo-conservative and neo-liberal governments in different countries. Much of this work, by scholars identified with the lef t, has continued the marginalizations of gender, race and other relations of power. In Britain, debates developed about whether or not New Right politics should be theorized as
"ThatcherismVf, which Stuart Hall argued was a unique form of what he temed "authori tarian populismfv (Hall, 1988 ; Jessop,
1988) . Sarah Franklin et al (1991) have questioned Hall and othersg rendering of "Thatcherismw as a coherent and tansformative conservative politic. Critiquing Hall and other left theorists for failing to address the significance of the
Thatcher years for gender relations, they suggest that it is doubtful that "Thatcherismw is a concept that is useful if one wants to look beyond class to gender and other social relations.
In Canada, analysis of neo-conservative social policies emerged f irst from assessments of the "res traint" programs introduced by the Social Credit goverment in British Colwnbia in 1983 (Callahan, 1984; Lord, 1984; Magnusson et al, 1984a,
1984b; &lcomson, 1984; Redish, 1986). There are also critical 10
analyses of the policies of the former Conservative government
in Saskatchewan (Riches, 1984; Jeffrey et al, 1984; Bryant,
1989; Pitsula and Rasmussen, 1990; Riches, 1990; Ralph and
Stobbe, 1991; Riches and Manning, 1591), recent developments in
Alberta (Harrison and Laxer, 1995) and a substantial literature on restructuring in Canadian federal social programs (Mishra,
1990; Lightman, 1991; Lightman and Irving 1991; McQuaig, 1993;
Moscovitch, 1993; Johnson et al, 1994; Kerans, 1994; Mullaly,
1994 ; Resnick, 1994) . These analyses are almost exclusively focussed upon class or poverty and theorizations are drawn from political economy. The implications of these policies for gender relations or other social divisions are routinely ignored, although the particular impact of cutbacks upon women
(Lord, 1984; Dacks et al, 1995) or children (Callahan, 1984) are occasionally discussed.
While questions concerning gender and race are not integrated into literatures on social policy and the welfare state, issues related to sexuality are rarely even mentioned.
For example, a recent examination of Canadian AïDS policy
(Poirier, 1994) does not touch on the ways in which state responses to AIDS may be related to sexual regulation. However, since the late 19709, feminist and gay historians have identified a close connection between social policy and the study of sexuality, as Jeffrey Weeks describes below:
There has long been an intimate connection between social policy and the study of sexuality. The nineteenth century concern with moral and social hygiene, and the resulting search for legal, medical and philanthropie ways of coping with prostitution, venereal disease, homosexuality, incest, public decency and private immorality, largely gave rise to early sex research, and ultimtely led to the emergence at the end of the century of an embryonic discipline for the study of sexuality. The resulting construction of a new continent of knowledge, preoccupied with the laws of sexuality, and assigning a crucial aetiological significance to the tsexualr, has in turn fed back into social policy (Weeks, 1981, p.112).
Among scholars of social policy, Fiona Williams is unusual in arguing that "familylVand sexuality are among the lqorganizing principlesqv of social welfare provision (1989, 1992 ; cf.
Carabine, 1992) . Williams suggests that the provision of welfare benefits in Britain has %oth appealed to and reinforced
(and occasionally challenged) particular ideas of what constitutes family lifew (1989, p.xiii) .
There are dangers in theorizing certain social policies as
"family policiestl, as some other scholars , particularly feminists, have done (Baker, 1994; Eichler, 1983; Rodger, 1995;
Çmart, 1991; Spakes, 1996; Torjman, 1994)'. The category Vamily policywl includes many different issues such as child care, income securi ty, maternity leave, and, in principle, policies related to the promotion of (hetero)sexual partnerships, such as those concerning marriage. "E'amily policy" as a category renders sexual regulation invisible. By subsuming sexuality within "the family", non-familial , or non-mari ta1 sexuali ty is excluded or constituted as deviant . A number of other questions are also obscur&, including, how particular programs contribute to hetero-normativity and the exclusion of lesbian and gay sexualities, and how certain elements of the dominant form of heterosexuality are prornoted, such as womenls economic dependence upon their male partners.
The small body of literature that has explored sexuality and social policy primarily focusses upon feminist analyses of the implications of welfare policies for the regulation of sexuality . Many feminists have long argued that welfare policies regulate womenvs sexuality, as the following quote from a US welfare rights activist sugges ts :
... The truth is that AFDC is like a supersexist marriage . You trade in a man for the man. . . The man runs everything. In ordinary marriage, sex is supposed to be for your busband. On AFDC, youlre not supposed to have any sex at all. You give up control of your own body. ftrs a condition of aid. . . [emphasis in original] (1972, quoted in Amott, 1990 p.289).
Amott (1990) points out that the Reagan administration in the US criticized welfare for encouraging women without husbands or jobs to have children, undermining rnarriage and the family.
A few Canadian publications have explored related 13 questions . Ralph and Stobbe (1991) argue that the Consenrative government in Saskatchewan in the 1980s depicted poverw as requiring %oral reformV1. They include a few coments about the sexual regulation of women on welfare within such a project of moral reform: "Singleci out for special reforming zeal were the sexual moresw and "inappropriate sexual activity by assistance recipients" (Ralph and Stobbe, 1991, p.271) . In Margaret
Little *s (1994) his torical analysis of the experiences of
Ontario single mothers in receipt of social assistance she discusses the regulation of cleanliness, worthiness, dress, child rearing practices , and sema1 activities .
A recent addition to this Canadian literature also draws primariiy upon class analysis and upon political economy. @en for Business. Closed to People (Ralph et al, 1997) discusses the first year of Mike Harris's governrnent in Ontario with the aim of "unmask ring] " its "corporate ideological assaultw and showing
"the disastrous impacts Harris policies will have on al1
Ontarians, especially the mos t vulnerable" (p.16) . An edi tor of the collection argues that the Cornmon Sense Revolution is a moment in a "worldwide class war of capital versus everyone else, a war which the bubble of the Keynesian welfare state temporarily obscuredvT (Ralph, 1997, p. 15) . One contributor suggests that Harris .s policies have brought in "a new age of 14
corporate rule in Ontario (Clarke, 1997, p.36) , another argues
that such policies will ?iismantl [el the welfare statew
(Regimbald, 1997, p. 49) 3.
Other scholars have suggested that neo-consenrative social policies in Britain and the US ushered in a "new moral economyl', in which, for example, sex education in schools was subordinated to the wishes of parents and was Wsed to bolster the patriarchal familyll (David, 1983, p. 212 ; cf. Rodger , 199s4) . The most developed li terature on this topic has emerged from scholars in Britain. Most analyses point to complex processes in the interactions between neo-conservatism and sema1 regulation (Durham, 1991; Franklin et al, 1991; McNeil, 1991;
Stacey, 1991; Weeks, 1991; Langan, 1992; Smith, 1994) . Franklin et al (1991) suggest that, in Britain, neo-conservative discourses of familialism attempted to depoliticize the family, yet Thatcher did not cal1 for women to be confined to the home.
Thus neo-conservative morali ty was muted. McNeil (1991) argues that, due to its Eocus upon econamic rather than moral questions, the Thatcher government was reluctant to take an explicit stand on many issues related to sexuality, and thus
"Thatcherism distanced i tself much more sys tematically than
Reaganism from undiluted new right morality and sexual 15 puritanismm (p.233). Some issues, such as parents' campaigns to have the right to control their daughters' access to birth control , exposeci divisions within the gavernment , while others, such as Clause 28 (discussed below) and the refusal to respond to AIDS, allowed them to unify against homosexuality. Echoing
Linda Gordon ' s complaint, McNei1 argues that critical assessments of Thatcherrs policies in relation to gender and sexuality have been limited by too literal an understanding of
"poli~y~~and poli tic^'^. She says that it "is as if we have been looking for the manifesto and it has not appeared!"
[emphasis in the original] (p.222). Under Thatcher sexual politics Wid not geneally declare itself" and its efforts were
"being waged in disparate and, sometimes, unexpected, quarters"
(p.236) .
Durham (1991) argues mat there are significant differences between right-wing moral crusades and neo-conservatism, resulting in a mixed impact on social policy. On the one hand
British educational policy required that sex education be
"placed in a moral frarnework", and Clause 28 prohibited local governments front rrpromotinglv homosexuality. At the same time anti-abortion and parental rights campaigners were critical of the record of the Thatcher government (Durham, 1991 p.179).
Langan (1992) argues that while the Thatcher government was 16
associated with ideological support for male-dominated nuclear
families, in practice the impact of its social policies was more
cornplex; with something of an "extension of the traditional
nuclear family paradigm to incorporate a new mode1 family"
(Langan, 1992 p.68). It is Langanls assessment that child
protection legislation and demands for paternal payments of
child support drew upon traditional ideologies regarding the
family. In contrast, regarding the care of old people,
demographic changes in Britain leci to a pragmatic recognition of
diverse family forms in order to draw upon these resources and
deflect expectations that state agencies would provide care. In
this thesis 1 will show that similar issues are raised by
apparently contradictory developnents in official recognition of
lesbian and gay relationships in Ontario.
Jeffrey Weeks (1991) maintains that the new right in
Britain included 9noral enthusiastsfl who were concerned to
protect the family from the threat of wpermissivenessll (p* 136) .
These anxieties focussed first on sex education in schools and
local governments' efforts to develop a campaign which promoted
"positive imagest1 of lesbians and gay men, and led to the 1987
introduction of Clause 28 which prohibited local governments
f rom promoting homosexuali ty . Weeks argues that although the movement against the clause was not able to prevent it from 17 becoming law, "significant concessions were extractedwand, more importantly, Clause 28 and the struggle against it "greatly contributed to an enhanced sense of identity and conununityw among lesbians and gay men (p. 137) . In contrast to Smith's analysis below, Weeks argues that the significance of the clause can be found in the way the wording prohibited not only the promotion of hornosexuality, but also specifically forbade schools fxom teaching "the acceptability of hornosexuality as a pretended family relationshipml (quoted in Weeks, 1991 p. 137) .
Weeks argues that the growth of lesbian and gay communities in
Britain had challenged traditional notions of the family. While further criminalization of homosexual acts was not demanded by the public or politicians, there was considerable opposition to lesbian and gay relationships.
In Anna Marie Smith's work (1994) on new right discourse about race and sexuality in Thatcher's Britain it is argued that the discourse on sexuality played an important role in British new right politics. Smith argues that the introduction of
Clause 28 deployed homophobia in an attack upon local governments because they had been sites of resistance to
Thatcher's policies ; and [g]iven the saturation of the mainstream media with extremely homophobic representations of the AIDS phenomena at this tirne, this representation of local 18 government autonomy became a highly charged stategyl' (p. 16) .
Smith further suggests that the lldemonization of homosexuali ty played a crucial role in the legitimation of the Thatcherite attack on local government autonorqp (p. 17) . However, she argues that the discourse about homosexuality was more complex than merely being a deplopent of homophobia. It was not marked by a simple %trategy of exclu~ion~~but by the "promotionw of particular forms of homosexuality. On the one hand, "the dangerous queer" was excluded, by which Smith means, for example, gay people who flaunt their sexual activities. At the same time someone who was middle-class, respectable and discreet would be included as Yhe acceptable good homosexualn (Smith,
1994, p.17).
Theoretical Framework
This thesis draws upon insights of fered by the li terature discussed above; it is also framed by a number of other key theoretical resources . My unders tanding of sexual regulation owes a lot to a rich critical literature on sexuality, including feminist, gay and lesbian and Foucauldian work. Cri tical analyses of gender , VaceI1 and semial orientation have suggested that sexualiw is intertwined with relations of power (Snitow et 19 al, 1983; Vance, 1984; Valverde, 1985; Weeks, 1981, 1985, 1986;
Kinsman, 1987; Collins, 1990; Fuss, 1991; Parker et al, 1992).
Michel Foucault's work on sexuality (1990) critiques the notion that sex has been repressed by Victorian taboos and argues that there has been a multiplication of discourses about sex, deployed through power relations . Foucault argues that sexuality has been constituted as a distinct category which is seen in the dominant discourse to be societyvs deepest secret and the key to each individualls deepest self and identity.
This thesis has also been influenced by critical analyses of the category llsocial policyw. Like many of the authors whose work was discussed in the previous section, Fiona Williams defines "social policyl1 as l'the development and operation of state welfare policies and practicestt [emphasis in original j (1989, p. 3) , This definition rests on a number of assumptions. The notion of "the statew as a unitary category and as the primary site of power has been questioned by those who argue that state power is more fragmentary and less coherent, and that relations of power extend beyond while encornpassing the state (Smith, 1987, 1989; Foucault, 1990;
Pringle and Watson, 1992) . The second assumption of standard definitions of "social policylv is that "the socialv1is a pre- existing category, upon which state intervention then acts. 20
Some theorists argue that "the social" is not a timeless arena but rather one which emerged at the middle of the nineteenth century (Donzelot, 1979; Fraser, 1989; Valverde, 1991). Nancy
Fraser sees "the socialu as encompassing issues which have emerged from the "private" family and the lvprivatellrealm of what is recognised as the economy in male-dominated societies.
Valverde argues that "the socialw is not a particular realm, but a "way of conceptualizing any and al1 problems of the collectivitym (1991, p. 20) .
"The socialw may be described as a historically specific understanding of relations of responsibility and solidarity between individuals and an imagineci lrsocietyw,which is bel ieved to be a single collectivity framed by the legal boundaries of the nation-state, and mediated by the interventions of that state (Rose, 1996) . The social includes political, economic and moral domains. 1t was his torically cons ti tuted through developments such as the establishment of early programs of s ta te insurance, public heal th and government-funded housing , the creation of lvsociologyrlas a body of knowledge about
"societyW, the supplanting of philanthropy with "social casew~ck~~,and the emergence of "social policyw as a field concemed with techniques and strategies for state intervention.
This suggests that social policy is not a fixed, timeless or 21 bounded field, but is an arena which is continually being constituted while also being a site of contesting discourses.
Recent Foucauldian analyses have argued that, with the ascendancy of neo-liberalism, we are now witnessing "the death of the socialw (Rose, 1996) . In this new lvpost-social"world a number of changes are taking place: Economic discourses are undermining the assumptions about society and collectivi ty upon which rests the field of social policy. New collectivities are being consti tuted, such as mu1 tiple and overlapping wcommunitiesw . The economy is conceptualized in terms of wglobalizationlland the primacy of the market. Individuals are governed through, for example, "riskll management and the promotion of empowerment , self-maximization, and personal responsibilization.
The concept of "moral regulation" also informed the theoretical framework of this project. Moral regulation, or the formation of individual ethical subjectivities (Valverde,
1994a), has been theorised as intertwined with the formation of sema1 subjectivities (Valverde and Weir , 1988) . Moral regulation was originally conceived by Philip Corrigan as lla project of normalizing, rendering natural, taken for granted ... what are in fact ontological and epistemological premises of a particular and historical form of social order" (Corrigan and 22
Sayer, 1985, p. 4) . Denis (1995) discusses the "moral culturen
of neo-liberalisrn in Alberta, and the moral regulation of
welfare recipients as economic failures . Valverde (1994b)
recently described analyses of moral regulation as drawing on
two schools of thought, one of which focuses upon the role of
the state and draws on Gramscian concepts of cultural hegemony;
Corrigan and Sayerrs work is the prime example. The other school of moral regulation emerges from Foucauldian work.
Foucauldian work on "governrnentali tyw is a key theoretical resource for this thesis. By wgovernmentality" Foucault (1979) meant a way of thinking and acting directed at the case of the population through a complex of institutions, procedures, and analyses. %overnment'~ is concerned with improving the heal th, wealth and happiness of the population. Foucault contrasted mgovernmentwwith wsovereigntyw, the form of power in which the concern is not the welfare of the population but the exercise of power over a territory and the submission of people within that terri tory to law.
In recent years Foucaultvs brief comments on goverment have been taken up and expanded by Nikolas Rose and Peter Miller
(1992) . They understand power as investing "diverse authoritieswvwith the capacity to govern through "political rationalitiesn and "govermental techn~logies~~,a 23
conceptualization that seeks to avoid the binary opposition of
discourse and practice . The term, q'pol i tical rationali tiesw
includes discourses and moral criteria concerning power,
rlnotions of the appropriate forms, objects and limits of politics, and conceptions of the proper distribution of such
tasks among secular , spiri tual, mili tary and familial sectors"
(1992, p. 175) . The term "governmental technologiesn encompasses
techniques, apparatuses, procedures and documents lr through which
authorities seek to embody and give effect to governmental ambitions1' (1992, p. 175) ,
Rbse and Miller have utilized this schema of goverment to analyze historical developments concerning "welfarism", such as
the Keynesian approach to social welfare, and neo-liberal governance . Welfarisrn' s poli tical rationali ty was social and economic improvement lqthrough the promotion of social responsibility and the mutuality of riskW (1992, p.192). The
q'governmental technologiesIT of neo-liberalism contrast wi th
those of welf arism. Neo-liberal management is based on financial rather than medical or social calculations. Private insurance rather than social insurance is developed and
"autonomous1' agencies provide services, while state entities are no longer directly responsible for services. Rose and Miller argue that rather than merely withdrawing state apparatuses from 24 governing the population, neo-liberalism envisages di ff erent roles for state enti ties . Neo-liberalism governs individuals through their "freedom to chooseVv (p.201) . Neo-liberal rationalities promote entrepreneurialisrn, suggesting that individuals need to be consti tut& as exercising autonomous choices aimed at self-maxirnization. Under neo-liberalism markets (and monetization) replace planning, entrepreneurship on the part of the individual replaces dependency, and state and non-state entities are "autonomizedw (p.199) Neo-liberalism's poli tical rationali ties are concerned with ending the "culture of dependencyw and what are seen as the expensive and inefficient bureaucracies of welfarism.
1 also draw upon Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon's genealogy of "dependencyl' (1994). Fraser and Gordon trace historical shifts in the meaning of this term front its pre-industrial positive connotations to its present-day highly stigmatized use.
Questioning why current U.S. popular and expert debates about poverty are framed by "welfare dependencyvV,they argue that the term has powerful moral and psychological associations.
"Welfare dependencyw individualizes poverty and shortages of jobs and child care spaces . As a lrpost-industrialpatho10gy~~
(p.325) welfare dependency is feminized and linked to llalcohol and dmg dependencyW. The term also condenses moral judgements 25 about wage labour, domestic labour and charity. As Fraser and
Gordon point out, welfare recipients are cons ti tuted as dependent, but not corporations receiving "bail -outsW1or defense contractors.
1 wi11 show how Fraser and Gordon's genealogy of dependency, together with Rose and Miller's conception of neo- liberalism, and Rose's theorizations of "the social", are useful in understanding changing strategies for governing poverty over the past decade in Ontario, Beginning with the later years of the NDP governrnent, a neo-liberal discourse constructed the welfare system itself as the problem, rather than lvsocialw issues such as poverty or unemployment. This was intensified under the Common Sense Revolution's approach to welfare, in which social assistance recipients are depicted as "trappedm in a "cycle of dependencyw which signals their individual moral and psychological defects.
Foucauldian work on risk has also proved useful to this study. Robert Castel (1991) argues that neo-liberalism has signalled a shift from Wangerousness ta riskn in strategies for governing populations. Basing his argument upon examples from the field of mental health, Castel suggests that there has been a decline in the significance of efforts to treat dangerous individuals . Instead, techniques such as epidemiology and 26 social statistics are deployed to calculate the combination of tlabstract factors which render more or less probable the cccurrence of undesirable modes of behaviour" (p.287 Cemphasis in original ] ) . Populations deemed to be "at riskwvare monitored by social workers and others. As Castel suggestsr these
"preventive policies thus promote a new mode of surveillance: that of sys tematic pre-detection" which %an be practised without any contact with..- the subjects under scrutiny" (p.288
[emphasis in originalJ ) . Castel s work helps illuminate new trends in the regulation of homeless youth in Toronto. 1 found that youth workers, child welfare workers, and other professionals are now structuring their interventions with street youth in tems of llrisk reducti~n~~,and as a result of these strategies , programs are becoming eligible for state funding for HIV prevention.
Canadian scholars of social policy and political science use the terms "New Rightvr, neo-consenrative, and neo-liberal in different ways. Johnson (1990) writes about the New Right in terms of neo-liberalism which he defines as the promotion of economic growth, individual initiative, limitations on state intervention and reàuctions in welfare spending. McBride (1990) and Resnick (1994) equate the New Right with neo-consenratism.
Resnick suggests that one element in neo-conservatism is: an appeal to 'traditional' moral and religious values against the supposed licentiousness and imorality of the liberal/left. It was most striking in the defence of the Yamily" against those forces that would allegedly bring about its dissolution -- radical feminism, gay rights, abortion on demand and so on (Resnick, 1994, p. 27) .
In contrast, Mishra (1995) does not use the term neo- liberalism, but he includes wi thin neo-conservatism belief s which other scholars consider to be neo-liberal, Examples are personal responsibility , libertarianism, and fai th in the market
Levitas (1986) suggests that the term New Right encompasses both neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, wi th neo-liberalism suggesting a focus upon economic issues and the assertion that markets are "goodV and governments are "bad" (p.3) . According to Levitas, neo-conservatism is more frequently used to describe campaigns and policies which emphasize "hierarchy , authori ty and nationn (p,4) , and limitations on individual freedom "particularly in sema1 mattersn (p.5) .
Foucauldian definitions of neo-liberalism share some commonalities with the work of these scholars of social policy.
1 will follow Rose and Miller's formulations concerning neo- liberalism and Levitas and Resnickls formulations of neo- conservatism. 1 will not designate the Harris government, as a whole, as either neo-conservative or neo-liberal. This is in 28 order to avoid the unproductive debates which took place in
England about whether or not "ThatcherismW existed, and in the hope of moving beyond the limitations of making comprehensive claims about the usually contradictory histories of political parties in elected office. 1 will argue that certain key programs of the present Ontario Conservative government, and of their NDP predecessors, are neo-liberal. 1 also argue that strategies of regulation do not develop in an evolutionary fashion with an old mode being completely supplanted by a new one. Al though neo-liberal s trategies are significant today, they co-exist with strategies which are welfarist or sovereign.
In this regard 1 drew on Foucaultrs article about governmentality in which he argued that governmentality has not replaceci sovereignty and discipline, but that they form a
"triangle1' of concurrent and interrelated modes of power (1979; cf- OIMalley, 1992). This formulation was useful in theorizing the concurrence, under the Common Sense Revolution, of welfare policies which target dependency on the state and which also criminalize recipients. The Conservativesl response to lesbian and gay relationships are a hybrid of modes of sexual regulation. On the one hand some legislation and programs include same-sex partners, partly in order to integrate them into responsibilizing strategies. On the other hand, a strategy 29 of exclusion was pursued when the provincial governmentls lawyers intervend in court cases against plaintiffs who were seeking recognition of lesbian and gay relationships.
The Research Process
This project drew on two main types of primary sources, documentary evidence and persona1 interviews wi th key informants from relevant fields. A detailed list of al1 primary sources is provided after the appendices to this thesis.
The files of the Ministry of Comunity and Social Services were consulted in the Archives of Ontario; the other archival records drawn upon were the Campaign for Equal Families papers in the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. I consulted council and conunittee minutes and reports for the City of Toronto and the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto at the Urban Affairs
Library of the Metro Toronto Ref erence Library . Unpublished goverment and legal documents which 1 used included reports, plans, staff training documents and news releases of Health and
Welfare Canada and the Ontario Ministries of Comunity and
Social Services and Health. 1 consulted most of the latter at the Government Documents section of Robarts Library or at the
Laskin Law Library, both at the University of Toronto; however, 30 in some cases comunity activists provided me with copies of goverment documents which are not publicly available. I drew heavily on Hansard and Ontario statutes, and files related to the court challenge to the new spouse-in-the-house rule (access to the latter was generously provided by the Clinic Resource
Office of the Ontario Legal Aid Plan) . Several other comunity organizations and agencies gave me access to documents that would have been difficult if not Unpossible to locate elsewhere.
These included material from various sources related to AIDS policies at the excellent library of the AIDS Committee of
Toronto, and interna1 documents provided by, for example, AIDS
Action Now, the Childrenrs Aid Society of Metro Toronto, the
Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Etights in Ontario, the Coalition for Services for Lesbian and Gay Youth, Covenant House-Toronto,
Justice for Children and Youth, and YouthLink-
My other major source of evidence was the 24 individual interviews 1 conducted; 18 in 1996 and 6 in 1997. These individuals were selected to be interviewed because they were key informants in their fields. They included people active in the leadership of AIDS organizations; managers of child welfare and street youth agencies; and senior staff Erom AIDS education sections in the various municipal public health departments in the greater Toronto area. I also interviewed a provincial 31 government policy analyst and a municipal government welfare worker. Included in the information on primary sources is a list of al1 of the interviewees, their positions or affiliations and the date of each interview.
With the exception of four individuals, the informants are listed by pseudonyms that 1 selected. Four interviewees, al1 working on AIDS issues, preferred that 1 did not provide th= with a pseudonym.
Al1 interviewees were infarmed about the purpose of the research and that the interviews were completely voluntary and confidential. The Interview Guide and the Consent Form for interviewees are included in the Appendices to this thesis. The interview guide was utilised in a flexible manner; depending upon the area of expertise of the person being interviewed, some questions were expanded upon in greater detail and others passed over. Virtually al1 of the interviews were taped, indexed and outlined so that relevant quotations could be located. These passages were then transcribed. Three interviews were not audiotaped: 1 took verbatim notes during the interview with
Joan Anderson of the AIDS Committee of Toronto; 1 conducted two other interviews, with B. Lee and Brent Southin of AIDS Action
Now, for background information, and during these interviews 1 took handwri tten notes. Outline of Chapters
In the next chapter, Chapter 2, 1 analyze the regulation of
sexuality within the context of strategies for governing welfare
recipients in Ontario. 1 discuss strategies for welfare reform
from 1986 until 1996, focussing upon a cornparison between
developments under the NDP government and the Wommon Sense
RevolutionV1. I explore shifts from strategies aimed at
addressing the llproblem of povertyrl to recent strategies which
focus on the lvproblem of dependencyl*, and look at how these began not with the election of a Consenrative government in
1995, but with an earlier and significant reformulation of welfare policy during the NDP years. 1 discuss intersections between these strategies and the specific welfare regulations concerning single mothers and youth; in particular 1 explore ways in which these are sites for the regulation of sexuality.
In Chapter 3 1 analyze the invention of "street youthw and recent developments in street youth services in Toronto, such as the radical reductions in funding from provincial government
"social IV programs, the rise of neo-liberal Visk reductionVV approaches to social work, and efforts by the Ministry to govern voluntary social service agencies. 1 also discuss the ways in which street youth services have been relevant to the study of sexuality in this city. The creation of this social services 33
sector was influenceci by efforts to regulate youth sexuality, in
particular homosexuality and prostitution, with the murder of
Emanuel Jaques in 1977 being a key catalyst.
Chapter 4 discusses competing s trategies for governing
%pousesw and "the familylv through a detailed examination of
recent developments concerning the recognition of lesbian and
gay relationships. 1 look at debates about a number of Ontario
s tatutes including Bill 167, the Substitute Decisions Act
(1992) , and Bill 19, which was passed by the Harris government
to repeal the Substitute Decisions Act. 1 focus upon how the
categories of Vamilyvv, "spousew and r1partner9rare deployed in
these bills. 1 also discuss the recognition of same-sex
relationships in non-state sites, such as through employee-
benefit plans. The implications of these developments for class
relations in lesbian and gay communities are also analyzed.
In Chapter 5, I focus upon AIDS policy in Ontario. 1
analyze policy developments under the NDP and the many years of
intense political pressure required to achieve certain programs
for people with HfV and AIDS (PHAs). 1 discuss political discourses about AIDS, including the relationship between "non- partisanship" regarding AIDS and the stigma surrounding the disease, and I explore the differences between the NDP and PC governments regarding issues that directly concern AIDS . 1 34 analyze how this is related to the ways in which sexuality and
AIDS cross social baundaries, and to the construction of AIDS as a problem of "medicinew rather than of social welfare. 1 discuss how funding cuts to social services and public health departments have serious implications for HIV prevention and the quality of life of PHAs.
In Chapter 6, the concluding chapter, I review the key arguments of each chapter, compare developments in the four different sites under discussion and synthesize the implications of my research for an understanding of the intersections between sema1 regulation and social policy, Chapter 1
ENDNOTES
1. 1 will generally use the singular fom "social policy" to refer to the scholarly field of study; the plural term "social policies" will refer to the programs and strategies of different authorities. 2. A critical analysis of the category "farnily policytlis provided by Van Every (l99l/92), while Fiona Williams has a well- developed critique of "farnilism" in social policy (1989, 1992, 1994).
3. Other authors in this collection claim that the Harris governrnent is "returning us to the past" (Moscovitch, p.90), or that it is an Ontario version of Thatchezism (Leduc Brome, 1997) or of the US. conservative politics of Newt Gingrich (Regimbald, 1997). It is unclear why it is theoretically interesting or necessary to argue for such duplications when Ontario politics and society have their own history. And politically it would seem to be more useful to understand the particularities of the Cornmon Sense Revolution in order to respond with effective alternative strategies. 4. A recent article by John Rodger (1992) makes a problematic analytical distinction between "farnily policy" and "moral regulationfl,by which he means policies which support families versus "the policing of families". However, the article lacks an analysis of gender and sexuality and does not define "family". Chapter 2
Welfare, Sexuality and Strategies for Governing Poverty
In this chapter I will analyze the regulation of sermality within the context of strategies for governing welfare recipients in Ontario. The chapter will begin with a discussion of changes introduced in 1995 by Minister David Tsubouchi under the banner of the Ontario Progressive Conservative partyvs
"Cornon Sense Fte~olution~~.1 will examine the overall direction of these changes analyzing how they constitute different s trategies for governing poverty. 1 will then discuss intersections between these strategies and the specific welfare regulations concerning single mothers and youth; in particular
I will explore the ways these are sites for the regulation of sexuality. 1 wi11 analyze the strategies embodied in key policies over the past decade, exemplified by reports such as
Transitions (1988) , The for Action (1992) , and by the Common
Sense Revolution campaign document.
Drawing on Fraser and Gardon's genealogy of "dependencyw
(1994) and Rosers work on neo-liberalism (1992; 1996), 1 will explore shifts within these policies from strategies aimed at 37 addressing the "problem of povertyvwto recent strategies which focus on the "problem of dependencyVr. 1 will argue that this shift did not begin with the election of a Conservative government in 1995, but with an earlier and significant refosmulation of welfare policy during the NDP period in government. 1 will also show that not al1 Ponns of dependency are probleniatized in this new discourse; it is dependency upon the state which is targeted, while other forms of dependency are promoted, within heterosexual relationships (of women upon men) and within families (of teenagers upon parents) .
My focus upon the intersection of the regulation of sexuality with welfare policies will show both continuities in strategies throughout this period as well as the ways in which policy changes had a particular impact on the governance of sexuality. 1 will discuss how focussing upon the governance of a particular Vield", such as sexuality, reveals the ways in which relations of power are not evolutionary but multiple, shifting and contested. Thus the process through which s trategies addressing welfare dependency have recently been fore-grounded in Ontario is only one element in the government of welfare recipients . 1t CO-exists with long-established strategies to deploy dependence in heterosexual relationships and relations between youth and parents. 38
In this chapter 1 wi11 not be arguing that the sexual
regulation of single mothers and teenagers is the goal of Mike
Harris's promotion of what is called, under the Common Sense
Revolution , Vraditional forms of supportw. Rather, 1 am
suggesting that the relevance of these policies to sexual
regulation should be explored.
1 discuss the new welfare rules for 16- and 17-year-olds
introduced by the Harris goverment and show how they are part
of a strategy of promoting "traditional forms of supportmv,in
this case the dependence of teenagers upon their parents. Like
the spouse-in-the-house rule, this form of non-state dependency
is contested, but an examination of political debate about the policy ueveals a wider consensus endorsing teenagers' dependence on their parents. The strategy of promoting economic dependency among teenagers entails the regulation of other forms of independence regarding their education, social relations and recreational activities. The administration of the spouse-in-
the-house rule requires that applicants be questioned about whether they have a spousal, that is, a sexual, relationship.
The rules regarding welfare for teenagers are different. They do not regulate youth sexuality per se, but they do attempt to regulate youth independence, which has many implications for
Young people, one of which is the regulation of their 39
sexualities . Although 1 would not argue that this is the
stated aim of the policy, young people's sexual activities and
sexual identities are regulated through the regulation of their
access to income from the state. 1 show how one example of this
is provided by the analysis developed by lesbian and gay
activists about the importance of access to social assistance
for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth.
There are significant differences in how the regulation of
sexuality intersects with welfare policies towards single
mothers and how it intersects with rules regarding teenage
applicants for welfare. In the first case the governing of
dependence is intertwined with the regulation of (heterosexual)
spouses, that is sexual relationships. In the case of youth,
social assistance rules govern youth sexuality at a greater
"distancewv (Rose and Miller, 1992). What is being contested
with these policies is not youth sexuality per se, but who has
the authority to govern youth sexuality. The new rules attempt
to maintain, or reinstate, "the farnily" as the site which has
the authoriw to govern youth sexuality. In this chapter 1 show how one source of alternative strategies for governing youth
sexuality emerge from lesbian and gay communities, particularly with their growing claims to speak on behalf of youth who are exploring lesbian or gay sexual identities . Parental authoriw 40 over youth sexuality has also been long under challenge frorn different groups of professionals, social workers, teachers and
safer sex educators . The membership of these professional groups sometimes overlaps with gay comunities , wi th feminist advocates of abortion rights, and with others who promote alternative s trategies regarding the regulation of sexuality.
In the next chapter, on street youth, I discuss the growing influence of harm reduction stategies in social work with youth; these strategies eschew efforts to "protectw or rlrescue" youth from sexual and recreational activities that may be illegal and that were formerly seen as illicit. Both comnunity and professional strategies for governing sexuality represent challenges to parental authority . Limitations on teenagers access to social assistance strengthens "the familyV1as the primary site for the governance of youth, including the governance of their sexuality.
1. De~endencvas a Problem and a Solution
In my view, welfare creates disincentives to both work and marriage: Do either one and the benefits cease. It's time to change these disincentives. Toby Barrett (MPP-PC) (Hansard, 7 February 1996, p.E-152)
In this section 1 will discuss the ways in which recent 41 s trategies for governing welfare recipients constitute certain forms of dependency as a problern while other forms of dependency are deployed as solutions.
Rose and Miller (1992) pointed out that a critique of the
"culture of dependency" is a feature of neo-liberalism. Fraser and Gordon (1994) have argued that "welfare dependencyV1 has becorne problematized in the U .S . as individualized moral, psychological and economic failure. This discourse was taken up by the Ontario conservatives under the Common Sense Revolution.
Social assistance recipients were constituted as l'addictedlf to government v'hand-outslv, and Vraditional forms of supportw by husbands and parents was valorized,
A. The Problem of State-Induced Dependency
l'The Common Sense Revol~tion~~(CSR) was released by the
Ontario Progressive Conservative party as its platfom in May
1994. Under the heading "reform welfaren, the party promised to intrduce lVworkfareuand "learnfarerVto "help those most in need and those who genuinely want a hand up, not a hand-out". The document declared that, "We want to open up new opportunities and restore hope for people by breaking the cycle of dependencyl'
(p. 9) , suggestinj that welfare was an addiction. The role of the state should be to provide "opportunity to those who want to get off welfare and back into productive livesvl (p.91, and welfare programs should be repiaced with:
a work, education and training social policy that rewards individual initiative and demands responsible behaviour from recipients of public assistance, even as it expands opportunities to achieve self- sufficiency... We should prepare welfare recipients to return to the workforce by requiring al1 able boàied recipients -- with the exception of single parents with young children -- either to work, or to be retrained in return for their benefi ts (p. 9) .
This suggests that recipients are being simultaneously governed through choice and coercion. Within the terms of the
Common Sense Revolution a central problem is "dependency", in particular dependency which is believed to have been created and maintaineci by state welfare programs. This discourse also represented a shift from social explanations of people's lack of financial means and of the welfare caseload, to explanations which looked to individual deviance, such as %buse of the systemw, or individual moral and psychological pathologies, such
In the last years of the NDP goverment Mike Harris f requently raised criticisms about social assistance in the
Ontario legislature, He suggested, for example, that "welfare rolls are ballooning. We read stories of fraud everyday in the newspaper, including today about a recipient driving a BMW while collecting welfarel' (ILînsard, 30 November 1993, p. 4389) . Harris 43
asserted to the then NDP premier that "There is no end, unless
there is a substantial welfare reform, to the number of people
who will be willing to accept welfare as a lifestyle. YOU know
thatls wrong. 1 know thatrs wrongvv (tiansard, 21 Match 1994, p. 5045) . He proposed that welfare reform "do two things : one, help those people who truly need help in a most generous and compassionate way ... and stop the ripoffs and abuse of the
system by those who have no business being on itvq (p.5046).
Attacks on welfare recipients also figured prominently in
Harris s election campaignl.
Six weeks after the election, the new government cut social assistance rates by 21.6%*, established a special telephone line for the public to inform on suspected cheaters, and instituted stricter eligibili ty cri teria. Shel ter allowances for homeless people were reduced, a langer waiting period before collecting welfare was required of people who resigned from their jobs, and surprise visits to welfare recipientsv homes would be made by welfare inspectors. The new regulations also restricted 16 and
17-year-olds' access to welfare and eliminated assistance for recipients who were deemed to be living with a common-law partner. (The latter two changes will be discussed in detail below .)
Premier Harris stated that the new rules would help break 44
"this cycle of dependencyn and would lead those currently on welfare to more productive lives in the future113. In the new governxnentls Throne Speech of September, 1995 it was claimed that in Vhe past 10 years, the number of people trapped in the welfare system has nearly tripled, while welfare expenses have quintupledm (Hansard, 27 September 1995, p.6). The Lieutenant Governor declared that rlOntarians,. . want a welfare system that doesn t create dependency but ends itlV (p.6) . Later, in response to sus tained cri ticisms of the new policies, Diane
Cunningham, the Women s Issues minister , said that [plersons have to accept responsibility for their family members and themselves if they want to have self-este- and be succe~sful~~~.
This statement clearly suggested a strategy of individual and familial responsibilization.
The same themes were taken up by David Tsubouchi, the new provincial minister for social services, who told news reporters that these changes would "help ensure that social assistance goes to people with genuine needsm5. He declared that the governrnen t envisioned "an effective and aff ordable service system which supports and invests in families and communities to be responsible and accountable, where adults are as independent as possible, a society where children are safe and where support is provided to people most in needVr (Hansard, 6 February 1996, Tsubouchi argued that previous policies had created "a
system that encouraged dependency ... a welfare trap that is
extremely difficult to escapew. The changes he introduced to
address this implied addiction:
have begun to break that cycle of dependenq. We are providing an avenue of escape for those trapped on welf are and we are promoting opportunities to give people a renewed sense of personal responsibility in their lives through work. It is an enomous task but [sic] it is not going to be accomplished easily. But if we do nothing, the human consequences will be greater (Hansard, 6 February 1996, p-E-113) .
The key subjects in Tsubouchi s speech are 5ndividuals, families and c~mmunities~~,"independent adul ts" , "safe childrenw, "people most in needm, llpeople trapped in welfare", and "people in the cycle of dependency? Thus the key strategies in the Common Sense Revolutionls approach to governing poverty are the use of sovereign power of inspectors to control cheating, the use of the sovereign power of the state to "break the cycle of dependencyw, and wpersonal", "family", and llcomunityw responsibilization6.
The Harris policies placed greater errrphasis upon the use of sovereign power through strategies of coercion and criminalization . Coercive s trategies included workf are and compulsory school attendance for recipients aged 16-18; and criminalization through an intensified anti-f raud campaign. A 46
telephone "snitch linen recruited non-recipients to assist in
the staters regulation of their neighbours. Other scholars have
pointed out that prosecutions of welfare recipients for fraud
"have become so common that a working knowledge of the law of
criminal fraud is becoming a prerequisite for poverty law
practice. . . [and] the Law Society held the first ever specialist session for criminal lawyers on defending welfare fraudw
(Morrison 6 Pearce, 1995, p. 15) Morrison and Pearce 's critique
is based on their work with legal aid. Lawyers joined many
other anti-poverty activists in researching, organizing against
and developing al ternative s trategies to Harris s welfare policiesa.
B. Dependency as a Solution
David Tsubouchi, the new Minister of Comunity and Social
Services, outlined how his government interpreted its central principle of "shared responsibility" :
We believe that individuals, families and communities have a primary responsibili ty to provide for themselves . Social services should promote self - reliance . They should supplement , not displace traditional supports in the farnily and the community (Hansard, 6 February 1996, p-E-113) .
While dependency is constituted as a moral problem in the
Conmon Sense Revolution when its strategies concern supposedly gender-neutral and age-neutral welfare recipients , only state- 47 induced dependency is targeted. As Tsubouchirs statement makes clear, some aspects of the new Consenrative policies are aimed at creating and maintaining other forms of dependency. In the following sections I will examine how lltraditional forms of supportv1in the form of two types of dependency are promoted as solutions to the problem of lrgovernment overspendingw (CSR, c.1994), and "the rising cost of social assi~tance"~.
1. Recipients in Heterosexual Relationships
In October 1995 the provincial government introduced changes to welfare regulations that required any recipient who was living with a member of the other sex to prove that s/he was not in a spousal relationshiplO. When a welfare recipient or applicant is deemed to be in a spousal relationship the assets and income of bath people are considered in assessing eligibili ty for assis tance. The previous rules had permi tted other-sex housemates to live together for three years before being required to prove that they were not spousesl'.
Following this se-introduction of what has been known as the %an-in-the-houseV or the wspouse-in-the-house~rule, legal aid clinics brought a court case against the provincial government on behalf of four single mothers, Sandra Elizabeth
Falkiner , Claude Marie Cadieux, Cynthia Pauline Johnston, and 48
Deborah Ann ~ears". In the course of this case the petitioners were able to gain access to the Ministry's interna1 statistics on the impact of the changes and to cross-examine senior
Ministry officiais. The lawyers for the four single mothers argued that because the new regulations disproportionately affecteci women and sole support mothers they infringed their rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ministry statistics showed that women comprised 888. percent of the 10,103 recipients who had been declared ineligible between
October 1995 and May 199613.
Kevin Constante, the senior Ministry off icial responsible for social assistance, responded by arguing that the new regulations eliminated discrimination against married couples by treating comon-law and married couples equally; it also brought
Ontario into line with practices in eight out of ten provinces".
Constante also argued that when a similar regulation had previously existed (up until 1987) applicants with other-sex co- residents were asked whether or not it was a sexual relationship. This was now seen by the Ministry as an invasion of privacy and the new questions merely attempted to determine whether or not they lived as a couple in the ~omnunit$~.
The Ministry argued that the "intent of this change is to ensure that only those truly in need are eligible for social assistan~e"'~. Spouses were defined as being of the "opposite sexm, and having Ira mutual agreement or arrangement regarding their financial affairs" or the provision of financial support by one to the other. The "social and familial aspects of the relationship between the person and the applicant or recipient
[should alsol amount to cohabitati~n~~(p -2) . The Ministry goes on to state that: For the purpose of. . . the def ini tion of mspousell.. . unless the applicant or recipient provides evidence to satisfy the Director to the contrary, it is presumed that if a person of the opposite sex to the applicant or recipient is residing in the same dwelling place as the applicant or recipient, the person is the spouse of the applicant or recipient (p.3) .
"Financiai in terdependence" between two CO-residing members of the woppositellsex was to be determined by welfare officers investigating whether, for example, there were joint bank account , jointly-owned property , access to employee benef i ts , gifts exchanged or the joint use of goods such as cars, entertainment equipment, appliances or furniture (p.6). The
Ministry also assessed what it called rrsocial and familial circumstances/mutual support/presenting themselves as a coupleIV
(p.5). Factors examined included "receipt and acceptance of invitations as a couple and recognition at these social gatherings as a couple1*, I1attendance at church or benevolent organizations... as sp~uses~~and spending llevenings, weekends ... [and] vacation [s] togetherw (p.7 1 .
The Ministry developed a detailed questionnaire for use by welfare workers in assessing spousal status17. Recipients who were parents were asked 69 questions, while those who did not have children were asked 51 questions. Included among the 26 questions designed to assess financial interdependence were "who deals with the landlord?'I, 'Iwho pays for the groceries and other household supplie^?'^, 'lwho pays for food ordered in?". The 25 questions concerning *lsocial/f amilial interdependence/mutual supportw included "do you and your CO-resident have cormon friends?", "do you and your CO-resident spend spare tirne at home togetherrl,l'do you ever open each other l s mail1', vvwhoprepares the meals at your home?", and "does your CO-resident ever do your laundry (or the childrenls)? [emphasis in original]". The
Ministryls interna1 document for training staff to apply the new regulation, enti tled IqResiding with a Spousen, again s tated that
"sexual factors are not to be considered in assessing whether or not someone is in a spousal relati~nship~''~.
In the court case Constante gave evidence on behalf of the
Ministry that "social assistance is not provided on an individual basis but to benefit unitsl1 and that the "organizing principle for virtually al1 social assistance programs and incorne security programs in Canada is the family or spousal unitL9. He stated that in December 1995 sole support parents constituted about 30 percent of social assistance casesz0, of which 95 percent were single mothers (p. 6) . Constante stated that the new definition of spouse was "not intended to inhibit the formation of relationshipsw (p. 25) . He argued that approximately 69 percent (n = 6,947) of the 10,103 recipients who were declared ineligible remained off welfare . Cons tante interpreted this to mean that they were actually within a comnon-law relationship and that financial support was avaiiable from that spouse (p.23).
Witnesses who supported the women challenging the new spouse-in-the-house rules argued that one way in which assaulted women protect themselves from further violence by their ex- partners is by entering into a relationship with a new partnell.
It was also argued that the new rules would deter recipients from forming heterosexual relationships , and that this would
"en trench and perpetuate single parenthood'122. Vander Plaa ts argued that :
Even before the October regulation changes many women on assistance were afraid to have boyfriends. Even though it was not true, many recipients (and many other people) continued to believe that single mothers were not eligible for assistance if they had any relationship with a man (p. 9) .
Welfare recipients who are charged with fraud for failing to declare a spousal relationship have not found that the courts necessarily consider themselves to be bound by Ministry policies which attempt to limit explicit questioning regarding the sexual aspects of a relationship between other-sex cohabitants. The
(hetero) sexual aspect of a relationship was scrutinized in a
1994 fraud case, to the detriment of the welfare recipient
(Carruthers, 1995; Ellsworth et al, 1994).
While the Ministry and some quarters of the judiciary were deploying a strategy of governing welfare recipients in heterosexual relationships through dependence on their male partners, this was a highly contested strategy, as the court challenge makes clear , 1 t is also apparent from the af fidavi ts of the four wornen welfare recipients who launched the legal challenge that alternative strategies for organizing heterosexual relationships were being proposedz3. One strategy aims to achieve economic independence. In the following quotation, Sandra E. Falkiner describes the approach she developed after experiencing vulnerability and insecurity in a relationship with a violent male partner:
1 was left with little trust in men and a determination never to be financially or emotionally dependent on any other man ever again (paragraph 28).
After she was declared ineligible for social assistance because a new male cornpanion was sharing her home, Falkiner declared :
My reaction.. . is one of panic and despair. 1 do not know how 1 will pay for the medication ... for my son or for our material needs ... this is a devastating loss of pride and independence for me (paragraph 31).
Her sentiments would appear to be quite congruent with the goals of the Comnon Sense Revolution (CSR), but the CSR was only concerned with eliminating dependence on the s tate . Poor women ' s economic independence wi thin heterosexual relationships was not a goal.
Another strategy for managing heterosexual relationships was suggested in the legal evidence of Cynthia P. Johnston, whose ex-husband had financial and employment difficulties which resulted in the Eamily requiring social assistance even before the break-up of the couple's relationship. Rather than advocating complete economic independence within a heterosexual relationship, Johnston argued that independence should be permitted until it could be showri that dependence or interdependence would be in the best interests of the children in a family:
1 was not willing to enter into a familial relationship if it meant that 1 was again unable to provide for my children due to having a Vather" f punctuation in original] figure in their lives . Robert [her companion) was unwilling to enter into a familial relationship if it meant putting my family in jeopady, that is, if we would be required to live on his unstable earnings (paragraph 17). As a result of the Ministryls decision to terminate her benef i ts , Johnston said:
We are now left in desperate financial circumstances. My children and 1 have been ait off Family Benefits. We have been denied welfare assistance. Robert cannot support us (paragraph 18).
Deborah A, Sears followed a similar path in negotiating her new relationship with a man who was recovering from alcoholism:
1 have a need to keep my finances separate from Paul's. As Paul is only just recovering, 1 want to be sure that he continues on the path of recovery before I become financially dependent on him. 1 am concerned that responsibility for me or my
children and 1 do not depend on him financially. This is very important to me (paragraphs 37 h 58) .
Two of the women who went to court over the new spousal regulations also suggested that the Minis try ' s insistence that their heterosexual relationships be grounded in economic dependency would jeopardize the very existence of these relationships. Falkiner stated: "There is a great deal of financial and persona1 pressure on [her companion] which may endanger our relationshipVT(paragraph 31). And according to
Sears, if she and her companion llwere forced to apply for welfare as a family, we could not manage financially. Our only option would be separationw (paragraph 53) .
Since lesbian and gay relationships are not recognised under social assistance legislation, same-sex partners and 55 roonmates are not subject to enquiries to determine if they are spouses. The implications of this for lesbians, gay men and people with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) are discussed in Chapter 4, on relationship recognition.
2. Teenage Welfare Recipients
In this section 1 will discuss the new welfare rules for
16- and 17-year-olds introduced by the Harris goverment. 1 will show how these new ales are part of a strategy of promoting what, under the Comon Sense Revolution, has been te& Vraditional forms of supportt1, in this case the dependence of teenagers upon their parents. Like the spouse-in- the-house nile, this form of non-s tate dependency is contested, but an examination of political debate about the policy reveals a wider consensus endorsing teenagers1 dependence on their parents. The strategy of promoting economic dependency among teenagers entails the regulation of other foms of independence regarding their education, social relations and recreational activities. Although 1 would not argue that this is the stated aim of the policy, young peoplels sexual activities and sexual identities are regulated through the regulation of their access to independent sources of income £rom the state. In this 56 section of the chapter 1 show how one example of this is provided by the analysis developed by lesbian and gay activists about the importance of access to social assistance for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth.
In Ontario, unless they are single parents, youth are required to be f inancially dependent on their parents rather than on the state, and up to age 16 must live under the care of their parents or a state-approved guardian". Welfare is not available to 16- and 17-year-olds unless there are ''special circums tancesr1, including being abused by parents . Youth who are under 16 years are not permitted independent access to social assistance under any circumstances and may corne under the statutory authority of the child welfare system if they are living outside of parental care (Scott, 1993). However , children 's aid societies frequently decline to accept 14 - and
15-year-olds as clients or wards if they are not judged to be
"at riskVt (Satchel, 1994, p. 14) 25.
The Comon Sense Revolution campaign document only makes one comment related to youth. Under the heading "children in needw it states that a "Learning and Earning and Parentingtv program will be developed in which "young single parents on welfare will be encouraged to stay in school and complete their educations (p.10). But this brief comment fails to 57 convey the significance of teenage welfare to the Consenrative election campaign, in which young recipients were central figures in Mike Harris's attacks on welfareZ6. As early as two years before the election Harris made interventions in the
Legislature denouncing "the plan to extend welfare benefi ts to
16- and 17 year-olds who simply declare that they are no Longer cornfortable at home with their parents as the only criterion for eligibility (fhnsard, 30 November 1993, p.3794). The following year he argued that '.16- and 17-year-olds have been simply saying ' 1 don ' t want to live at home any more, ' and they are eligible for welfarew (Hansard, 21 Mar& 1994, p. 5231) . Harris quoted a youth counsellor who was quoted as complaining that youth who had not been abused were receiving interim welfare, pending appeals to the Social Assistance Review Board, and he challenged the social services Minister, "Do you know of even one example -- one, where a 16- or 17-year-old who claimed he or she neeàed welfare was refused?" (Hansard, 29 March 1994, p.5272). Harris argued that Tnany 16- and 17-year-olds ... have figured out how to beat the sy~tem~~and that there had been a
"dramatic increase in the number of people getting interim assistan~e'~(Hansard, 30 March 1994, p. 5533) . News reports of the 1995 Ontario election campaign suggested that Conservative candidates, led by Harris, continued to attack teenage welfare In September, 1995, the Throne speech declared that
''[wlelfare eligibility for 16- and 17-year-olds has been curtailed and will be phased outwq(IEansard, 27 September 1995, p.6). The following month new welfare regulations for 16- and
17-year-olds "who leave homew took ef fectze. According to the
Ministry, the "[elligibility critesia was revised to ensure that only those youths in need would be receiving The policy continued the previous interpretation of lqspecial circumstances~to mean abuse or withdrawal or lack of parental support3*. But these circumstances were now required to be verified by a family assessment:
The family assessrnent will help determine if the circurnstances in the parental home warrant the youth living outside of the home.. . Any local agencies or assessment services may [conduct the assessment] . . . When appropriate, the parent(s) should be encouraged to participate in the assessment. However if the parent (s) refuses, this is out of the control of the youth. The youth will then Be expected to attend the assessment without the parent (s) present . . . The youth may also be required to participate in some manner of family counselling, if the parents are willing. If there is any reason to believe that direct contact between the youth and the parent(s) could put the youth at risk of violence, the assessment should be completed between the youth and the agency staff alone31.
Thus it became mandatory for the youth (but not the parents) to agree to counselling with her/his family; this requirernent could only be waived if a risk of qrviolence'r could 59 be demons trated . According to a Ministry staff training document, the family assessment is required to help ltdetermine if circumstances in the parental home warrant the youth living outside the homew (p.92) . Before undertaking a family assessment welfare workers are required to contact the parents
"to determine whether the youth would be allowed to return homew and to elicit the parents l lrunderstanding of why the youth left home initiallyw (p. 93) . Similarly to the rule regarding family counselling, this requirement can only be waived when the welfare administrator is satisfied that there is evidence of abuse or risk to the safety of the young person.
The revised regulations initiated another new requirement for 16- and 17-year-old recipients : "that the youth maintain contact with a responsible adultw (p.94). This person might be a relative, "a person in charge of a roorning housegr, or any adult . They should have what the regulations termed
"experience", and should provide assistance in activities such as "budgeting, enrolment in school, grocery shopping, maintaining an environment conducive to meeting eligibility criteria ... [and] would ensure that the allowance was used toward the benefit and well being of the youthw. The new policy suggested that:
Youths should be encouraged to live in a family environment where emotional support and guidance is available,. . It is recomended but not mandatory that the youth live in the same home as the responsible adult (p.94).
Attendance at school or an approved training program became mandatory for 16- and 17-year-olds in receipt of welfare, except
for circumstances which are deemed to be "beyond the young person's control" such as school closures during the sunnier or participation in approved medical or mental heal th treatment .
If youth are suspended or expelled from school for any reason they become ineligible as '.[t]hese reasons would be considered within the control of youthw (p. 96) . And, in an unprecedented move , the Minis try declared that :
If the youth's General Welfare is terminated FOR ANY REASON, he/she will not be eligible for any further General Welfare Assistance in his/her own right until he/she reaches 18 years of age [emphasis in original]
(p.96) 0
The political discourse concerning the changes in welfare rules for 16- and 17-year-olds is highly contested. Among politicians and within the media two strategies propose di ff erent ways of operating within conceptions of the proper power of parents within "the familyw. Some conservative politicians, for example, focus upon making claims that teenagers should be dependent upon and live under the authority of their parents. They argue that strict limitations should be placed on young people's ability to evade parental power through access to state-funded income security programs. A Conservative
MPP argued that:
If we can prevent a teen from leaving home because he doesnvt want to cut the lawn or doesn't want to do the dishes, or doesnvt want to live up to a curfew, by cutting off his welfare, then I think it should be done, not to take away from a child whovs been abused3*.
Minister Tsubouchi's comment that "If you look at the 16-
and 17-year-olds ' situation, our question is , do they really
need it?~~~,underscored the notion that young people's departure
from their parentsv home was voluntary, if not wilful, as he
suggested on another occasion:
Sixteen- and 17-year-olds who decide to leave home cannot get welfare any more unless they undergo family assessments, live under adult supervision and regularly attend school or training ... Since the end of September [1995] we have gone from 6,295 16- and 17-year-old welfare recipients to 5,107 at the end of December. That is a drop of almost 19% (Hansard, 7 February 1996, p.E-114).
Some professionals who work with youth deploy the same
discourse. A newspaper report quoted a high school principal
who doubted the need for welfare for this age group:
The fact that a person has to be in by one ovclock on weekends seems to me to be the biggest cause of most of the fights that start in the homes. Pmout in the halls every &y talking to kids, not only on welfare, but to their friends who use the places of the kids on welfare for partiesg4.
A second strategy emphasises notions of children and youth as vulnerable to adults -- rather than resistant to parental power. In this case the technologies of social work would be deployed. An example of this was the opposition politicians who did not criticize the tightening of eligibility rules for welfare on the grounds that 16- and 17 year-olds should have open access to social assistance. Rather they suggested that the new requirement for 16- and 17-year-olds to live under adult supe~sionmight put them at risk of harm by someone who is not really a Vesponsible adultV1. Dave Cooke, an NDP opposition politician, asked how the Mlnistry was:
supervising the placements that 16- and 17-year-olds now have with adults . . . 1 lm very concerned where some of these teenagers are going to end up. . . 1 lm really worried about some 16- and 1'7-year-olds who are going to find thernselves in positions where they're going to be very vulnerable because of this rule (Hansard, 6 February 1996, p.E-123; 8 February 1996, p.E-197,198) .
While Gilles Bisson, a Liberal MPP said:
. . if my daughter who is 17 years old or my son decides they want to leave home and theylre not able to stay wi th us any more, and you ' re going to put them under the charge of an adult, what kind of assurances do 1 have as a parent that the person whols going to have that charge is somebody the ministry has some comfort level in, has screened, checked, has some sort of standard set? 1s there anything like that in place in order to make sure that these children, because theylre only 17 years O are actually under the supervision of somebody we can trust? (Hansard, 7 February 1996, p. E-184) . These politicians drew on the expertise of some professionals to argue that teenagers who are not living in their parents1 homes are escaping from abuse or have been rejected by their parents. Research is cited showing that a large proportion of llstreet youthW1were abused by their parents
(McCullagh and Greco, 1990 ; Kufeldt & Burrows , 1994) . Social workers and other professionals who work with youth argue that unless teenagers are given access to welfare they will be forced to live lion the streetw. Metro Community Services held that youth who are refused welfare or declared ineligible:
will have one service alternative: they can stay for a short period in a youth shelter. The other likely alternatives are for youth to return to their home, where they may face emotional or physical harm, or to manage without any income or parental support, which often means living on the street. This regulation may have a disproportionate impact in Metropoli tan Toronto, which attracts many young people who are seeking employment opportunities or necessary services and supports. As a result, the potential exists for a furthes increase in the number of young people in the region who are at risk3'.
This analysis of the situation of youth who are denied welfare mentions their search for llemployment opportunitiesw .
The debate about welfare regulations for 16- and 17-year-olds generally ignored the high rate of unemployment arnong young people and the role that this might play in applications for welfare among this group. Instead, political and professional discourses focussed upon moral questions regarding the control of teenagers activi ties , including sexuality . "The economyl* and "the socialll are rendered invisible in this discourse.
Justice for Children and Youth (JCY) 36 offers another 64
analysis of these regulatory changes. In a recent video made by
their Youth Advisosy Cornmittee a young woman charged that the
ttspecial circrmistancesv rule for 16- and 17-year-old applicants
for welfare implies that "the one whots beat up the most wins,
and you get a prize, which is a welfare chequen. Another young
woman said feel like 1 'm a scapegoattt and that she and her
friends were "king punished for being poor, for being abusedtv;
she argued that "we dontt have timew to fight back or respond to
attacks from politicians because, "wetre just survivingw. Other
young welfare recipients state in the video that 16- and 17-
year-olds leave home "because they had no choiceVt, they were
dealing with "many kinds of abusen. These youth argue that
"nobody really wants to be on welfarew, but ltpeople need to eat,
need a place to live and clothes, otherwise they cantt get a
job, or get an educationvt. A young female said that if she was
declared ineligible "no way Itm going back.. . [to her parents]
the abuse will get worsevt, especially if her parents knew that
she did not have access to financial resources from the state;
she said she would kill herself before going back to her family.
Another young woman said that if she lost her welfare benefits,
"1 '11 do anythlng, prostitution, anythingtt to survive on the
streets and avoid returning to her famil$'.
Justice for Children and Youth argued that the new bar to re-applications by 16- and 17-year-olds was an wextremely harsh measurew which "might mean an increase in the number of street youth in a time when shelters can ill-afford to take them"
(1996b,p.3). In a submission to the Ministry, JCY held that the longest waiting period for adult applicants to welfare is the three rnonths mandated for those who have resigned Erom their jobs; they point out even people who have de-frauded the systern do not face a waiting period. JCY argues that since this provision applies only to youth it is discriminatory. JCY predicts that the new "puni tivel' and ~~arbitrary~*~'regulations may force youth to return to abusive homes3g.
Regarding the requirement for a family assessment, JCY points out that spouses who leave each other:
are not faced with intrusive assessments as to the validity of their separation. Children, like spouses, are not chattel and the [Canadian] Charter may be used to challenge this discriminatory treatment ( ,p. 5) .
JCY also argues that youth should not be compelled to undergo family counselling since legislation requires that patients give consent for medical and other treatments. JCY cri tiques the practices of welfare offices , arguing that :
Even before the implementation of the new regulation, youth were being turned away, over the phone by welfare officers. Youth continue to be told that they are l'ineligible" and are not given the opportunity to apply or are told that they cannot apply. This is a clear violation of the Act and represents a lack of respect for young persons as clients of the social service system and as human beings. We have had youth who were told before the facts of their case were discussed that counselling/assessments/an adult were mandatory . This discourages youth from following up and applying (p. 11) .
JCY points out that youth over 16 have a legal right to leave home and suggests that "concerns over the preservation of the family unit are best left to social agencies and not to legislation designed to meet the financial needs of individuals"
Other critical analyses have emerged from activists and scholars within legal aid networks. Ellsworth, Morrison et al
(1994) point out that attacks by Consenrative politicians and consemative newspapers on teen welfare created the impression that there were huge numbers of 16- and 17- year-old recipients; they note that in 1994 there were less than 8,000 recipients in that category, representing 2.3 percent of al1 cases.
Ellsworth, Morrison et al argue that this political and media campaign was significant as it incorporated what they identify as some of the most important themes of the welfare backlash:
it targets a relatively powerless and unorganized group with little effective ability to respond, the issue is framed as a defence of the lfamily' (Le. power relations and inequalities within the nuclear family) and it both implicates and contributes to the perception that the abuse of welfare programs is widespread. These themes are also crucial in the campaign to contract incorne maintenance programs and to make thern more coercive and punitive. (Ellsworth, Morrison et al, 1994, p.18) 67
Within these contesting strategies concerning teenagersr autonomy and dependence, issues concerning the regulation of sexuality of ten emerge . Some authori ties consti tute youth ' s independent access to state-funded income pcograms as a threat to parental power over their childrenrs sema1 activities. For example, in the newspaper report cited above a teacher complained about the apartments of teenage welfare recipients being used for parties.
Talk about teenagers ' vulnerabili ty to sema1 exploitation
the streetr*is conversely deployed by professional experts to press for alternative ways of governing youth sexuality.
Rather than the sovereign power of parents, welfarist technologies of social casework are proposed. A social service worker in Alberta is quoted as "recount [ing] disturbing s tories of rooming houses for teens that effectively operate as brothelsn because teenagers were not eligible for welf are4'. And the manager of a Toronto youth agency is quoted in a news report :
Do we want a society that takes pride in preventing kids frorn ripping off the system but leaves a kid on the street who has to ho~k?~~.
Other professionals argue that autonomous access to welfare is particularly important for teenagers who are lesbian, gay or bisemial. They cite research suggesting that lesbian, gay and 68
bisexual youth comprise 18 to 40 percent of runaways and street
youth in different North American cities : 18 percent in Toronto
(Smart et al, 19921, 25-35 percent in Los Angeles (Kruks, 1991) ,
and 40 percent in Seattle (Orion Centre, 1986) . It is argued
that these large numbers are due to the particultar stresses
lesbian, gay and bisexual youth may experience in hostile family
or school environments (Boxer et al, 1991; Gibson, 1989; Hunter,
1990; Hunter & Schaecher, 1987; Martin & Hetrick, 1988;
Remafedi , 1987 ; Savin-Williams, 1994) .
nile these professional accounts often focus upon the
psychological stresses and the risk of contracting HIV faced by
lesbian, gay and bisexual youth who are no longer financially
supported by their parents because they have run away or been
ejected £rom home, accounts in the lesbian and gay popular press have emphasised the poverty experienced by these young peopled3.
(Questions about class and poverty among lesbians and gay men will also be discussed in Chapter 3, on street youth, and in
Chapter 4, on governing spousal relationships.) At a recent conference in Toronto, Elinor Mahoney, a local cammunity legal worker, argued that social assistance and the "special circumstancesw clause are vitally important to lesbian, gay and bisexual youth in Ontario (1996). Mahoney suggested that the new requirments that enquiries be made to parents about the 69 youthls departure from the honte, and that youth must be willing
to participate in family counselling are particularly onerous when a young person may be deaiing with hcstile responses to her or his sexual identity. Exmy, a youth speaker at the workshop also pointed out that lesbigay youth often have "special reasonsw for not attending school, such as homophobic harassment. Mahoney said that al1 of these different factors render this group of recipients particularly vulnerable to the discretionary powers of welfare workers .
II. From the Problem of Povertv to the Problem of De~endency
In this section of the chapter 1 will discuss developments in welfare policy during the past decade in order to explore the extent to which the policies of the Cornrnon Sense Revolution represented a radical break with the past or the culmination of a series of gradua1 shifts between contesting s trategies .
Following the trajectory suggested by Nikolas Rose's work (1996;
Rose and Miller, 1992) , in the mid-1980s, welfarist notions of social responsibility for poverty were still central to welfare policies in Ontario. By the Comon Sense Revolution of the mid-
1990s, neo-liberalism had becorne dominant, with its critique of state benefits for the poor and its promotion of personal responsibility. 1 will begin by examining the policies put 70 forward in Transitions, the 1988 report (to the then Liberal government) of the Social Assistance Review Co& ttee (Sa), and then turn to developments during the NDP government.
Subsequent sections will examine strategies for governing sexuality during this past decade of changes in social assistance programs.
The introduction of Transitions revealed political discourses both similar to and yet very different from those of the Comnon Sense Revolution when it stated that the work of the
Committee gave its members "a new or renewed understanding of the devastating impact of poverty on the lives of those who experience itw and of the many vvthousandst'who "live in poverty and feel powerless to escape it, because they lack the tools to make the transition from the programs that marginalize or trap themm (p.3). SARC's analysis of the problem of poverty suggested that m[w]ithout a change of direction, Ontario risks creating increasingly extreme disparities between affluence and privilege, and poverty and despairw (p.9) .
While SARC ' s guiding principle was wsociety's obligation to those in need", the central problem it addressed was "the cycle of poverty, including the growing dependence on social assistancew (SAX, 1988a, p.7). Reflecting the context of the late 1980s, it was proposed that the first objective of social welfare should be that:
Ail people in Ontario are entitled to an equal assurance of life opportunities in a society that is based on fairness, shared responsibility, and persona1 dignity for all. The objective for social assistance therefore must be to ensure that individuals are able to make the transition from dependence to autonomy, and from exclusion on the margins of society to integration wi thin the mains tream of comrnuni ty life (p.8) - The codttee argued that "society has a responsibiliw to assist its members in their development and integration, within a framework of economic equali ty and social justicen (p.7) .
Social assis tance should offer opportuni ties for those who live in poverty to achieve "personal growth and integration into the communi tyl. and "personal independence" through employment , training or llcommunity participation1' (p. 15) . Social assistance should also "enable individuals to assume responsibility for themselvesw and "ensure individual choice, self-determination, and participation in cornmini ty life" (p. 16) .
1 t was argued that IV [i] ndividual responsibility 1s greatly enhanced by treating people with respect and providing them with choices rather than imposing solutionsw (p.17) . Central to the recommendations of the Committee was a cal1 for the social welfare system to become an "active program" that would assign each recipient to work with an "opportunity plannerl' (SARC, 72
During the years in which the NDP formed the provincial government there were a series of shifts in the strategies deployeà in governing people on social assistance. In the early years the NDP government retained a focus on the problem of poverty, as well as on the new problem of Vhe recession". The strategies deployed included "trainingv1, making welfare an
"active systemn and wempowermentw. In the second half of the
NDP term there was a new emphasis upon the problem of lqdependency", drawing on s trategies of coercion and crirninalization.
Back on Track (1991), the first report of the Advisory
Group on New Social Assistance Legislation retained an emphasis on the central problem of poverty (1991, p.2,30) , and argued that:
in the midst of a recession ... social supparts for the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in our society must be strengthened (1991, p.6).
The Advisory Group also argued that poverty could not be addressed by social assis tance programs alone: We require an economic and social strategy that is aimed at full employrnentvl
(p. 131) . Back on Track also occasionally suggested that recipients lvdependencell (p. 6) was a problem but i ts critique of the lvwelfaretrapw was located in a left analysis of the social assistance system: we are trying to turn an unfair, punitive, outdated, illogical system that traps people in poverty into a system that treats people humanely and equitably, that supports their needs and the needs of their children, and that provides opportunities - for those who are able - to get out of the system (Advisory Group, 1991,~.141) .
AS well as "opportunity planningw, Back on Track proposed
"emp~werment~~as a key strategy in governing social assistance recipients . Empowerment was conceptualized as having both collective, or llcornmunityll,and individual facets . It was partly to be achieved by echoing SARCvs cal1 for "a voice" to be given to the people who receive social assistance through formation of a Council of Consumers (p.5) . Support to neighbourhood self-help groups would also provide "ways that comunities could be empowered to use their own skills and
1 imited program resources to make people more independent"
(p.68). Other routes to ernpowerment suggested in Back on Track include greater access to information about the systm and the promotion of "the rights of recipients by, for example, ensuring that they can have an advocate accompany or represent them in dealing with the system.. ." (p.6)".
The policies put forward by the first NDP Minister for
Comrnunity and Social Services, Zanana Akande, suggested a strategic direction that was similar to Back on Track, as the following quotation suggests: [wlhile we weathet the recession.. . we must deal directly with the ravages of unemployment and al1 its attendant ills. . . We will not leave people flat. We must provide help right now and we have to give people hope ... government has a responsibility to support families raising children (Hansard, 12 February 1991, p.E-57) .
The only vVdependentsvvof the social welfare system that
Akande referred to were children (p.E-56,57) . Vümse of the systemvlwas not mentioned, and "investing in people", vltrainingvV and %xnpowermentvv were among the strategies proposed.
A year and a half later, the beginnings of a shift in direction can be detected in the pronouncernents of the next
Minister, Marion Boyd. Boyd suggested that regarding
Vrwelfare. . . or any other area of service, we acknowledge that we have yet to achieve systems which work. In the past we could hold programs together ... by pumping in more money to paper over the cracksw. As a result of what were constituted in this discourse as iscalwvdif ficulties, "economic res tructuringvvand other problems, it was stated that %ow we face a new realityvv
(Hansard, 6, 7 October 1992, p.E-358) . Within a goal of reducing the Ministryvs spending, procedures were developed efforts to increase "eEficiencyVv and "discourage abusev1 (p.E-
At the same time, Boyd made frequent references to
"empowermentw. Ironically, on one occasion in the Estimates 75
Codttee, Boyd was chastised by Cam Jackson, a Consenrative member of the Legislature, on the grounds that: "ThereVs only one reference to empowerment in your entire presentationw
(tlansard, 4 October 1992, p.E-371). Boyd later listed numerous ways in which the Ministryvs work was %mpoweringW people, concluding with a suggestion about TTC passes for poor people:
"we are open to looking at those possibilities, particularly if they are more empoweringv (Hansard, 4 October 1992, p. E-376) .
Later in the same year, Time for Action was released as the final report of the Adviçory Group on New Social Assistance
Legislation. This report puts forward several of the multiple and competing strategies for governing poverty that marked this transi tional period. While consumer rights and the proposeci formation of a council of consumers were re-affirmed, other issues received greater prominence. Suggesting the strength of the opposing position, Time for Action devoted considerable attention to rejecting the imposition of sanctions and mandatory programs for welfare recipients as "proven failures of the pastw
(1992,p.l). The Advisory Group argued that social welfare should not "be a coercive system that forces people into training or job programs, for the simple reason that such strategies do not workl' (p.73, see also pp.82-5). However, while references were made to how the llfailing economyl' had led to large increases in the number of new applicants for welfare, the report stated that:
If the system is left as it is, it will continue to create a poverty trap from which it is difficult for people to Eree themselves, and few resources will be available to help recipients find employment and make the transition to independence (1992, p.2) .
Welfare was cited as the cause of social problems more than once: "People receiving social assistance are, .. rapidly losing their self-es teem within a system that £os tecs dependencyWr
The Advisory Group argued that social welfare "cannot - and should not - do it alone. ft must be part of a wider solution to fight poverty and revive the economyl' (p.3) . 1f the social welfare system is not reformed, %any recipients will be left outw of a future improvement in the ecanomy; they "will continue to be marginalized by poverty, discrimination and lack of opportuni tyw (p .5) .
Time for Action proposes that one of the goals of social welfare should be to:
qwerindividuals to exercise self-determination and must provide opportunities for self-development. This implies a system that is . . . active, developmental and goal-oriented. . . Empowerment is a term that speaks to people% ability to control their own lives (1992, p.36) .
The meaning of empowerment is thus ambiguous, it refers to both collective and individual change and is closely linked to
individual rlindependencelvand "self -relianceW.
Within a year, the climate had shifted further from social strategies. This was signalled in the 1993 Speech from the
Throne in which the NDP government critiqued welfare programs in sweeping new terms:
The social assistance system is not working. No amount of tinkering will fix it. This government believes it ' s time for fundamental reform (cited in Turning Point, MCSS, 1993,p.l)
Turning Point, the white paper on social welfare refom released by Minister Tony Silipo, proposed a unified social assis tance program that would elimina te the dif ferences between
General Welf are Assis tance and Family Benef i ts . mingPoint argued that the:
welfare system entrenches poverty and keeps recipients on the margins of society. The extraordinary cost would be money well spent if it represented an investment in helping people enter or re-enter the labour market. Ftight now, the system locks recipients into a lifestyle of dependency (MCSS, 1993,p.9)
The new program would be an llactivevlone (p.i) which would
Voster independence by encouraging work-related activityw
p.1 Turning Point argued that :
The welfare system is far too passive. 1t gives people some financial assistance to survive or to support themselves on the margins of society but it does not actively help them find their way back into the mainstream. Social assistance provides few links to training, education, jobs, or comunity activities . Ftather it focusses too narrowly on financial aid and ignores the broader range of supports that people require to achieve independence (1993, p.13).
Within a year, the ground had shifted again, and the
Ministerls statements and a 1994 poli-( paper on social
assistance, sub-titled "Finding the Problems and Fixing Themm 4s
devote more attention to of welfare. Silipo suggested
that:
We know that most people on social assistance need it. The challenge we face is to provide that balance between providing good service for those who are in need and, and trying to give them a chance to exit the system, while stemming abuse where it does exist (Hansard, 29 March 1994, p.E-575).
The Minister then made reference to the 270 new staff who
were hired to "minimize irregularities and better manage the
systemV1and other efforts designed to reduce costs". Whereas in
Back on Track, released in 1991, welfare programs were
criticised for being punitive and unfair to recipients , three years later the system had become the victim of its consumers,
or at least some of thed7. In IrFinding the ProblemsV1, the
Ministry makes allusions to problems in the economy yet focusses on problems interna1 to the social welfare system. mile it mentions 5neff iciencies the emphasis suggests that the most
serious problem is and fraud by recipients. And, foreshadowing the language of the Common Sense Revolution, this document states that the goal is to make "sure that the people who need social assistance are the ones who are getting it.. . that benefits [are] being paid to those clients truly in needvv
(p.l), suggesting that there are recipients who are not truly in need .
mile some scholars have praised the Rae government for increasing welfare benefits three times between 1991 and 1993
(Leduc Brome, 1997; Moscovitch, 1997)~', others criticised the
NDPvs programs of "Enhanced Verification and Casefile
Investigationm and "Priority Verificationw as "aggressive policinglv of social assistance recipients (Morrison & Pearce,
1994, p.4, see also Carruthers, 1995, and Martin, 1992). These programs involved the hiring of large numbers of new staff who inspected al1 welfare files in order to eiiminate what the
Minis try alleged was widespread f raudulent use of the system.
Ellsworth, Morrison et al (1994) argue that whereas in the past
Ministry "overspendingvv had been blamed on inadequacies with personnel or procedures, the site of the problem shifted to recipients themselves, leading to "a dramatic increase in the number of welfare fraud prosecutionsw (p.15). Ellsworth,
Morrison et al (1994) have argued that the NDP government shifted its political ground to:
identifying with and even reinforcing the "welfare fraudw hys teria which represents the mos t overt component of the new anti-welf are sentimentw (p.7) . 80
As Morrison and Pearce (1995) point out, the Consenrative policies "eagerly took upV1 (p.5) rather than initiated criminalization approachedg.
Governing Heterosemial Etelationships
In 1986, as a result of a legal challenge to welfare regulations regarding spousal relationships , David Petetson ' s
Liberal govemment announced its intention to institute changes even before the Social Assistance Review Committee (SA=) had written its final report. SARC was requested to make recomendations which would allow the Minis try to "move away from intrusive investigations into private conduct, towards a system which looks at the objective needs of sole support parentsv1 (MCSS, 1986) . The Ministry proposed that " [s1 ocial and familial elementsvvwould be assessed but that it would no longer
"investigate the sexual and conjugal aspects of the relationshipn.
The Commi ttee recommended that social welfare legislation be brought closer in line with family law by instituting a three-year waiting period before deeming other-sex cohabitants to be spouses. SAX was critical of past efforts to establish whether or not sole support parents were in a spousal relationship : Tohabitation involves not only living in the same residence but also living together in a rconjugalv relationship.
The government cannot investigate such matters without invading family priva~y'~(p. 5) . Martin (1992) argues that even af ter the change in the waiting period from one to three years, the investigation process still involved intrusions into recipients' privacy (p. 62, footnote 18) .
It is important to note that Transitions argued that for the purposes of social welfare regulations CO-habitants should include not only heterosexual couples:
Our recomended approach ideally should apply to al1 cases in which a recipient takes up residence with another person. It should not matter whether the household consists of two persons of the opposite sex in a conjugal relationship, two persons of the sarne sex in a similar arrangement, two recipients who have corne together to share expenses, two siblings who reside in the same apartment, or a disabled adult who resides in the home of his parents (SARC, 1987b, p. 10).
After the three-year waiting period was instituted few suggestions were made regarding spouses between 1987 to 1995, although different strategies were being proposed for other social assis tance recipients . Back on Track, the Advisory
Grouprs first report to the NDP government, had recommended that couples receiving social assistance should receive double the single rate in order to avoid "discourag [hg] the formation of family relationships" (1991, p. 87) . Time for Action suggested that llall adult persons should be treated as individuals except where they are living with a spouse who is legally obligated to support themrl with exceptions for '*hardship situations'' (1992,
Back on Track (1991), also made a reconimendation would have instituted dependence within same-sex relationships:
same-sex couples should be treated the same way as those of the opposite sex for the purpose of determining the benef it for social assistance. However, the issue of parity in the treatment of same- sex couples in social assistance cannot be dealt with until the whole issue of support obligations for same- sex couples is resolved in the Family Law Act ... The Minister of Cormunity and Social Services should press the Attorney General to implernent changes in the Family Law Act to extend laws relating to support obligations for couples of the same sex (1991, p.87).
However, The for Action, Advisory Group's final report, dropped any mention of same-sex relationships.
Like many other policy papers, Time for Action (1992) suggested that the "social assistance sys tem mus t respect the integrity of family life, as well as the needs of individualsw
(1992, p. 38) . Except for families which "cease to functionw and in which there is abuse, "the system should support and empower familiesr' (p.38) . The Advisory Group charges that:
The system now discriminates against families. Married couples receive less support than two single adults living together; adult children in need cannot get support unless they leave home; and wives and children cannot get assistance if the husband is found ineligible, irrespective of their need (1992, p. 38-91 .
Time for Action was somewhat incorrect here. It was net only married couples who got less than two single adults; other- sex CO-residents who had been living together for more than three years, and conunon-law couples who had a child also received lower benefits than two single adul ts . It is interesting that the Advisory Group focussed on this as discrimination against married couples, when the more significant distinction was between heterosexual couples and same-sex couples.
Several feminist scholars have analyzed the implications of the spouse-in-the-house rule for gender relations and the regulation of women 's semrality (Leighton, 1987 ; Little,
1994a,b; Haddad, 1985, cited in Leighton & ~ittle;Haddad, 1986, cited in Leighton) . Leighton (1987) argues that the various forms of this rule "seek to perpetuate a mode1 of woman and family that requires sexual exclusivity in return for economic support" (p.325) . Drawing upon an interpretation of the development of social welfare programs as representing a shift to state foms of patriarchgO, Leighton suggests that:
the sexual exclusivity required of the wife in a traditional patriarchal rnarriage, which thereby guarantees economic support, is reproduced with the state then assuming the husbandvs economic role. Where a woman is viewed as having formed a potentially sexually exclusive relationship with a man, the state will withdraw, thereby transferring the economic burden that flows from the sexual relation to this new source of support (1987, p.327) . 84
Little s argument is somewhat different . Within an analysis of different forms of moral regulation of single mothers through social welfare, she says that recipients face a system which establishes a "hierarchy of deservedness" among widows, deserted wives and mothers who have not married. Little documents the historical and current forms of scrutiny of the sexual activities of single mothers who receive social assistance. If there were allegations that a recipient was "net living as a single personw, a visit from a welfare worker could include the surveillance of bathrooms, kitchens and hall closets
(1994b). Both Leighton and Little argue that the various welfare mles regarding spousal relationships have been the late twentieth century versions of the early twentieth century effort to ensure that llmotherl s allowance" was only directed to women who could show that they were "fit and proper personsu; Little quotes a senior Ministry official who states that : "Historically we got rid of the fit mother rule and we didn l t have anything in its place to reflect societal values. 'Nat living as a single person' took care of the problemw (1994a, p.368).
Diane Martin (1995) suggests that while prosecutions for welfare faud in Toronto are largely for duplicate applications os undeclared earnings, the most significant reason for prosecution in the rest of the province is because of an 85
undiscloseci llspouse in the house", and female welfare recipients
are charged but not their male cohabitants (Martin, 1992, pp.
60,74,90). Prison sentences are often imposed, even when the
recipients care for several children and have us& the money to
pay for their needs (p.68). Thus, outside of Toronto, the
crirninalization of welfare recipients intersects with sexual
regulation, This sheds new light on the significance for the
regulation of sexuality of Tsubouchi *s l1snitch liner' ai& at
catching welfare %busersl~, and returning single mothers to a
situation in which their sexual activities are subject to
regulation by their neighbours and acquaintances.
Governing Youth through Dependency on Parents
Regulations regarding teenage welfare went through even
fewer changes in the decade before the Comon Sense Revolution
than spousal rules. Transitions reiterated a ltprinciple for
reformn which has been central to policy on social assistance
for youth:
RESPECT FOR FAMILY LIFE The social assistance system must support and strengthen the integrity of family life while remaining sensitive to the needs of individual farnily members who may be at risk (SAX, 1988a, p.19).
The report suggested that the provision of direct financial support to 16- and 17-year-olds lrrequires balancing the 86 legitimate claims of parental authority against the older childls right to be treated as an independent personll (SAX,
1988a, p.20) . The report critiqued the existing policy as being based on "unguideci administrative discretionw, and noted that few "if any, resources are available to deal with the family problems that often underlie such a childls decision to leave"
(SARC, 1988a, p.20) . It also pointed out that the legal eqyality of children over 18 who live with their parents is not recognized by welfare regulations which only de- th- eligible for benefits if they leave home.
Transitions recommended that 18- to 20-year-old youth who were living with their parents should be eligible for welfare l'in their own right. It is wrong to force them ta leave the family and the support it may be providing "to receive ôn independent incorne" (1988a, p. 141) . SARC criticised the wide variation in practices between rnunicipali ties . The issues were seen to be "parental authority" and "protection of young persons who may be at risk, either within the family or out on their ownvl. It was recomended that since no lljustification existsm for deerning 16- and 17-year-olds automatically ineligible, these young people llshould be eligible for social assistance, subject to a special approach to opportunityw (SARC, 1988a, p.141). It was recommended that youth agencies be contracted to deliver support and counselling to help 16- and 17-year-olds with family
crises, housing, health, education and other issues. The SARC
report draws on a Covenant House research study to argue that
"many young people are vulnerable and at great physical riskWat home and "on the streetVr (p.218) . Transitions suggested that the majority of 16- and 17-year-olds who apply for social assistance have experienced a "major family crisis*':
In our opinion, the prospects for family reconciliation will be greater if assistance is available than if it is denied. On the other hand, few 16- and 17-year-olds have the same capacity for reasoned judgernent as most adults. We do not want: to encourage young people to leave home earlier than they otherwise would if they are not at risk . . . Young people who experience a family crisis are more vulnerable to outside influences than other youth . They may fa11 more easily into involvement in illegal or illicit activities ... planning and counselling must be provided to young applicants as soon as possible.,. The grace period before a sanction may be applied for failuse to accept this offer of help should be shorter than for others; a one-month (or shorter) period may be appropriate (p.235-6) .
The reference to llillegal or illici tVVactivi ties suggests that moral regulation, including the regulation of sexuali ty, was constituted as central to social assistance policies regarding youth.
Tïme for Action (1992), the report of the Advisory Group on
New Social Assistance Legislation, made several recommendations to the NDP government concerning youth and social assis tance.
It suggested a new approach to 18- to 20-year-olds living with their parents; they should be eligible for assistance if their
parents were already receiving social assistance or if an
assessment of parental income demonstrates ne&" (1992, p. 4 6).
The ahwas to encourage, but not require school attendance and
to end a regulation which may have acted as "an incentive for young people to leave home before they are readyw (1992, p. 45) .
The Aàvisory Group critiqueci the welfare system for deeming
16- and 17-year-olds ineligible barring *fexceptional
circums tances :
There are no regulatory criteria for making such a decision. Many young people are simply turned away from local welfare offices as soon as they Say how old they are. Some do not go back home because the conditions at home are intolerable for them; instead they head for the streets. We find [this] unacceptable ... (1992, p.44).
TYPe for Action recommended that such young people ' s circumstances be investigated.
It may be that the young person is simply rebelling from parents who are trying to set some seasonable limits on behaviour. But it may also be that the young person is being abused. . . (p.44) .
However , Time for Action made no recommendations concerning the criteria for such an investigation.
Despite the recomendations of the SARC report and the
Advisosy Group, no new policies were announced by any of the three dif ferent Ministers for Communi ty and Social Services during the NDP ' s tem in office or in the ministry ' s white paper on social assistance reform, Turning Point (MCSS , 1993) .
However, Minister Silipols responses to attacks on teen welfare by Mike Harris suggest some continuities between the Common
Sense Revolution and the previous governmentls thinking:
We have to.. . strike the kind of balance I hope we would al1 support ... to continue to provide support in those instances where there is abuse or other legitimate reasons for the young person leaving home but to also make it clear that we will not support young people simply leaving home, and becoming automatically eligible for social assistance." (Bnsard, 29 March 1994, p.5231) .
Indeed, Silipo latex conceded that Vhere is some tightening up of the rules.. . that we need to dow (Hansard, 12
Conclusion
In the past decade the leading strategy in governing
Ontario welfare recipients has shifted from problematizing poverty to attacking the problem of dependency, in particular, dependence upon the state. 1 found that this has been a highly contested development which did not begin with the election of a Conservative government in 1995, but with an earlier and signif icant reformulation of welfare policy during the NDP period in power in which recipients of welfare began to be problematized more than lvpovertyw, "the economyw or l'unemploymentw. This change also represented a shift from 90
social explanations of people's lack of financial means and of
the welfare caseload, to explanations which looked to individual deviance, such as 'labuse of the systemW1,or individual moral and psychological pathologies, such as lvdependency'F. This form of dependency is argued to have been state-induced, that is, it has been created and maintained by welfare progranm. Contrary to some left critics of the Harris government who are more sanguine about the NDP record (Leduc Brome, 1997; ~oscovitch,1997), 1 argue that the Comnon Sense Revolution marks the culmination and intensification of a series of policy changes, rather than an abrupt reversal.
F'eminist scholars of social policy and welfare states have developed important analyses of the implications of dependence or dependency for gender relations. Some have claimed that welfare programs have represented a shift for women from private dependence, upon fathers and husbands , to pub1 ic dependence, upon the state (Hernes, 1984; Siim, 1990). Others have argued that the notion of dependence obscures the domestic labour of women engaged in child rearing or elder care and accepts that only waged labour is W1workll (Evans, 1996; Fraser and Gordon,
1994) . Fraser and Gordon l s (1994) genealogy of lldependencyvl points to associations with a feminized moral and psychological deviance in pst-indus trial debates about llwelfare dependency" . 91
An anti-dependency discourse has gained ground over recent years
in the US. In this chapter 1 showed how evidence of it can be
found in policy documents from the last years of the Rae
government before being wholeheartedly adopted by the
Consenrative par- during and after the 1995 provincial
election. Critiques of welfare dependency draw on notions of
"individual initiativel* and "responsibilityw , and technologies
deployed in welfare programs over recent years have been
frequently coercive, deploying the sovereign power of the state
to criminalize recipients.
A focus on sexuality shows that the shift from poverty to
dependency is only one part of the picture. Under the Common
Sense Revolution what is most under attack is one particular
form of dependency, that of adults on the state. Coercive
technologies are being deployed in the promotion of non-state
fonns of dependency, within the heterosexual couple and between
parents and their teenage children. Under the Common Sense
Revolution these are called Vraditional forms of support1'. As
Linda Gordon points out, it is contradictory that "the rhetoric
that welfare represents deplorable 'dependencet, while womenls
subordination to husbands is not registered as unseemlyv (1990, p.14).
In this chapter 1 argued that welfare rules introduced 92 under Mike Harris entailed changes in gender relations, and in particular, the renewed promotion of dependency within heterosexual relations (that is, the economic dependence of women upon men) . This takes place af ter decades of feminist-led changes and challenges to the subordinate position of women in heterosexual relationships. These are numerous and wide-ranging but include more liberal legisla tion regarding separation and divorce, and the take-up of these provisions by women intent upon leaving unsatisfactory marriages, resistance against various forms of violence against women, including wife assault, sexual assault, and date rape, and greater reproductive rights.
Margaret Little has done important historical work analyzing the moral regulation of Ontario women on Mothersv Allowance (1994a,b). As she points out, strategies for governing poor women include efforts to constitute certain sexual activities and relationships as moral/immoral or legi timate/illegitirnate. 1 would argue that similar contemporary efforts are not simply aimed at discouraging women from being sexually active outside of marriage or common-law relationships , but that they are also centrally concerned wi th governing the forms of heterosexuality. The testimony of the women who launched a court challenge to the new welfare rules regarding spouses demonstrated some of the strategies deployed 93 by women who want to retain financial independence within heterosexual relationships. In a period in which previausly dominant forms of heterosexuali ty have been deeply contested
from within and without, these spousal regulations attempt to
re-assert a version of heterosexuality in which womenls economic dependency is central. At the same time, the non-recogni tion of
same-sex relationships in welfare regulations governs lesbian and gay relationships through exclusion, although gay and
lesbian communi ties have also developed alternative s trategies for governing partnerships.
Policies regarding social assistance intersect with the regulation of sexuality in highly complex ways. At one level
the spouse-in-the-house rule is concerneci with determining which applicants are already dependen t upon O ther individuals ; those people should not be able to become dependent upon the state.
However, this search for dependency between individuals is predicated upon an assumption that dependency will and should emerge as a result of (hetero)sexual relations rather than as a result of other relations between adul ts . The questionnaires administered by welfare workers attempt to determine who has a
vl~p~~~ewnot who has a Vriendl*, or even who has a "brotherl*.
Dependency is not enjoined between adult members of the same family, such as siblings. A female applicant may live with her 94 brother and still be eligible for social assistance since CO- residents who are related by blood are not be required to prove that they are not spouses, and are tharefore not required to prove that the applicant is not dependent upon the other sibling5'.
In this chapter I have not argued that the sexual regulation of single mothers and teenagers is the goal of Mike
Harris's promotion of non-state "traditional forms of support".
Instead 1 have attempted to show these policies are implicated in sexual regulation. 1 have argued that it is inadequate to theorize such programs as "family policies", as this category renders semial regulation invisible. By subswning sexuality within "the familyu, a number of questions relevant to social policy are obscured including , how particular programs contribute to hetero-normativi ty and the exclusion of lesbian and gay sexualities, and also how certain forms of heterosexuality, such as womenls economic dependence upon their male partners, are promoted. I have argued that the re- introduction of the spouse-in-the-house rule for welfare recipients is an example of these processes.
My analysis has also shown the links between welfare rules and the regulation of youth sexuality. Some evidence of this is provided by critics of teen welfare and policy makers who fear 95 that autonomous access to income security from the state will open the door to youth engaging in sexual activities that have no t been authorized by their parents. Another form of intersection is suggested by the work of activists and researchers who have assert that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth form a significant proportion of youth "on the street" and that restrictive eligibility cri teria contribute to the subordination of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth. The new welfare rules for
16- and 17-year-olds introduced by the Harris government are part of a strategy of prornoting what, under the Comon Sense
Revolution, has been ted"traditional forms of supportn, in this case the dependence of teenagers upon their parents. Like the spouse-in-the-house rule, this form of non-state dependency is contested, but an examination of political debate about the policy reveals a wider consensus endorsing teenagers' dependence on their parents. The administration of the spouse-in-the-house rule requires that applicants be questioned about whether they have a spousal, that is, a sexual, relationship. The rules regarding welfare for teenagers are different. They do not regulate youth sexuality per se, but they do attempt to regulate you th independence, which has many implications for young people, one of which is the regulation of their sexualities.
The strategy of promoting economic dependency among teenagers 96 entails the regulation of other forms of independence regarding their education , social relations and recreational activities .
Although 1 would not argue that this is the stated aim of the policy, young people ' s sexual activi ties and sema1 identities are regulated through the regulation of their access to independent sources of income £rom the state. The analysis developed by lesbian and gay activists about the importance of access to social assistance for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth provides important evidence of this.
There are significant differences in how the regulation of sexuality intersects with welfare policies towards single mothers and how it intersects with rules regarding teenage applicants for welfare. In the first case the governing of dependence is intertwined with the regulation of (heterosexual) spouses, that is sexual relationships. In the case of youth, social assistance rules govern youth sexuality at a greater wdistancegl(Rose and Miller, 1992) , What is being contested with these policies is not youth sexuality per se, but who has the authority to govern youth sexuality. The new rules attempt to maintain, or reinstate, "the familyV1as the site which has the authority to govern youth sexuality . In this chapter 1 show how one source of alternative strategies for governing youth sexualiw Mierge from lesbian and gay communities, particularly 97 with their growing claims to speak on behalf of youth who are exploring lesbian or gay sexual identi ties . Parental authority over youth sexuality has also been long under challenge from different grocps of professionals, social workers, teachers and safer sex educators . The rnembership of these professionai groups sometimes overlaps with gay conmiuni ties , with feminist advocates of abortion rights, and with others who promote alternative s trategies regarding the regulation of sermality.
In the next chapter, on street youth, I discuss the growing influence of ham reduction strategies in social work with youth; these strategies eschew efforts to tlprotectw or wrescuewl youth from sexual and recreational activities that may be illegal and that were formerly seen as illicit. Roth community and professional strategies for governing sexuality represent challenges to the parental authority. Limitations on teenagers ' access to social assistance strengthens "the familyVr as the primary site for the governance of youth, including the governance of their sexuality. Chapter 2
ENDNOTE S
1. See the following news reports from the Globe & Mail, ''Tory 'workfarel plans alters consensus. New Democrats, Liberals agree only on need to reform Ontario's welfare system", May 20, 1995; "McLeod adds wrinkle to welfare. Penalty plan called mandatory opportunity for able-bodied but idle recipients", May 22, 1995; "Ontario's party navigators holding to their courses. No dramatic changes likely in campaign", May 23, 1995, 'Wacky the word of choice as leaders peel off the gloves. Liberals try to protect slim lead by taking aim at Harrisr1,May 25, 1995; "Tories get a boost £rom Bay Street. 'Neck and neckl with Liberals as more than 100 executives endorse Harris platf~rm'~,and, "'People are very upset about politiciansl", May 27, 1995; "Tory Leader rising on wave of voter anger. Mike Harris has transformed hirnself from an Archie Bunker fixture into a premier-in-waiting", June 2, 1995; Peter Cook, "The New Zealand of the North?", June 3, 1995, "Ontario electorate leaning to the right, final poll suggests", June 8, 1995. 2. See "Welfare benefits cut 21.6%. Social activists warn that lower rates will force the poor ont0 the streetsl', "Ontario Tories slash spending by $1.+billion. ~rovince'spoor take single largest hit of reduction package", and Analysts cheer as Ontario joins war on deficits. $1.9-billion slash first step on long campaign to eliminate 48.7-billion in red ink", al1 from the Globe and Mail, on July 22, 1995.
3. "Ontario Tories crack whip in welfare. Latest measures include cheater hot line, home inspections and cuts to shelter allowances", Globe and Mail, August 24, 1995, p.A7.
4. "Tories' axe swings again. $13 million more cuts to services helping the needy", Toronto Star, October 5,1995, pp.Al and 1136. 5. "Ontario Tories crack whip on welfarel1, Globe and Mail, August 24, 1995, p.A7.
6. The language of "dependencyW can also be found in the report of the (Inter-provincial) Ministerial Council on Social Poiicy Reform and Renewal (1995) which states that "dependence on passive incorne support payments is on the rise" (p.2). This joint staternent by provincial ministers of social services declares that "Canadians value self-reliance, and collectively share compassion for others. Respect for the role of the family and other core values such as freedom, equality, fiscal responsibility, and a democratic approach" (p.4) . Under this moral regirne "fiscal responsibility" are elevated to the same level as the traditional liberal values of democracy, freedom and equality. 7. Ian Morrison's work for the Ontario Social Safety Network (OSSN) indicates that there is an even greater focus upon anti- fraud strategies in Bill 142, the Social Assistance Reforrn Act (SARA) introduced in the legislature summer 1997. SARA would authorize the province and municipalities to set up "fraud control units" to "investigate the eligibility of present and past recipients" ("Welfare reform and welfare fraud. The real i~sues",a paper in the information package on Bill 142 prepared by the OSSN, August 23, 1997, p.5) . 8. See, for example, the 1995 Cornmuni ty Agency Survey. Metropolitan Toronto (Social Planning Council et al) which examined the impact of provincial cuts on agencies; Tracking Impacts. Who's Tracking What (and How to get it!). A Directory (Tracking Impacts Coalition, 1996); Workfare Watch, and Workfare Watch Bulletin, (Social Planning Council & Ontario Social Safety Network); Fact Sheet on Impact of Funding Cuts on Poor (and five other Fact Sheets) (Ontario Association of Social Workers, 1996) ; and Ontario's Welfare Rate Cuts. An Anniversary Report (Ontario Social Safety Network, 1996); and most recently, the Ontario Social Safety Networkfs information package on Bill 142, the Social Assistance Reform Act (SARA) introduced in the legislature Summer 1997 (August 23, 1997). See also reports on the organizing campaigns of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, for example, "John Clarke 's unholy war. Depending on who you ask, the leader of the province's main antipoverty group is either hot air or the best hope for Ontario's dispossessedt', (by Gerald Hannon, Now, March 7-13, 1996, pp. 18 and 22), and an article by John Clarke in Open for Business. Closed to People. Mike Harris's Ontario (1997). 9. See the affidavit filed by Kevin Constante (Assistant Deputy Minister, Ministry of Community and Social Services) in the court case against the changes to welfare: Falkiner [et al] v. Attorney General of Ontario, (April 16, 1995) Ontario Court (General Division) Divisional Court (Court File No. 810/95) . See also Constante's cross-examination in the same court file. 10. See Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, (MCSS), "Memorandum to Area Managers [et al] . Re: Residing With a Spouse: New Rules for Determining Spousal Status (FBA and GWA). Effective October 1, 19951f, (Sept, 29 1995), and attachent, "Residing with a Spouse: New Rules for Determining Spousal Status. Lead: Cheryl Gorman" (October 1995) . [Filed in Falkiner v. Attorney General]. See also, "Welfare crackdown targets housemates. Sharing a TV could lead to a loss of benefits", Toronto Star, October 21, 1995, and Morrison and Pearce (1995).
21. An opposition politician attempted to embarras Minister Tsubouchi by forcing him to confirm that the new spousal regulations applied only to heterosexual couples (See M. Brown (MPP) , Hansard, 7 February 1995, p. E-169) . 12. Al1 applicants and recipients of social assistance, not just single mothers, may be subject to the "spouse in the house" rule. For example, an Vfemployablel'applicant who does not have a child would be unlikely to meet the "person in need" criteria of the regulations if he or she had an employed spouse. The director of the Clinic Resource Office for the legal aid clinics informed me that it was decided to bring the legal challenge to the new regulations on behalf of single mothers rather than other applicants/recipients for political as well as practical reasons. Ian Morrison said that mothers form a significant proportion of the total caseload (see below) and their benefits support children as well as themselves, meaning that a deemed spouse would be expected to support the children also. Single mothers who are declared ineligible also suffer a greater loss than other recipients because their benefits include extra privileges SUC~ as higher allowances, the lack of a requirement to do job searches, and rules which permit them to enter full-time education (Morrison, persona1 communication, July 18, 1996) . 13. See Constanters affidavit, and the following news reports: "Mothersr rights were violated, lawyer saysV1,Globe and Mail, June 11, 1996, "Welfare mothers hurt by new 'spouse' definition, court told", Globe and Mail, June 12, 1996, and "Women hit hardest by welfare rule, court hears", Toronto Star, June Il, 1996. 14. According to the Assistant Deputy Minister's affidavit, al1 provinces except Quebec and Saskatchewan determine spousal status for welfare eligibility by considering the quality of the relationship between other-sex co-residents, and only Quebec and Saskatchewan allow l-year grace periods. 15. See Constante's af f idavit, and "Province de fends spouse-in- house rule. Ends 'favoured treatment' for unrnarried", Globe and Mail, June 14, 1996.
16. MCSS, "Memorandum to Area Managers [et al]. Re: Residing With a Spouse: New Rules for Determining Spousal Status (FBA and GWA). Effective October 1, 1995", (Sept. 29 1995), and attachent, "Residing with a Spouse: New Rules for Determining Spousal Status. Lead: Cheryl Gorman" (October 1995) . [Filed in Falkiner v. Attorney General]. The quote is from the attachment, p.2.
17. See, Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Metro Community Services, "Determination of Spousal statu^^^, [questionnaire] (n.d, c,1995) . 18. MCSS, "Residing With a Spouse. Provincial Social Assistance Training", [staff training document]. [Filed as Exhibit 13 to the "Affidavit" of K. Constante. (16 April 1996). Ontario Court (General Division) Divisional Court. Court File No. 810/95.1 (October 19%) , p. 33. 19. See Constante's affidavit, p.2, and Appendix B to the latter, "Provincial Spousal Definitions for Common Law Spouses. Obligations in Family Law and Social Assistance1' (a table prepared by MCSS) . 20. Note that the Ministryls category "case" focusses on family heads, and single youth and adults. Such statistics under- represent the large number of dependent children who are counted among the "beneficiaries" of social assistance. 21. See affidavit of Robert Fulton (a researcher), p.3. 22. See affidavit of Nancy Vander Plaats (a social services manager) , p. 12. 23. See the affidavits of Cadieux, Falkiner, Johnston, 1995, and Sears in the court file, 24. Social policy often categorizes youth with children. For example, the interprovincial report on policy reform argues that social policy "rnust ensure the protection and development of children and youth in a healthy, safe and nurturing environment" (Ministerial Council, 1995, p.6), suggesting that youth are expected to be dependent rather than independent. 25. See Scott (1993) regarding welfare legislation, children's legal rights, the similarities between parental custody of children and property ownership, and the limits to children's protection from assault "using reasonable force for the purpose of correction" (p.245). 26. See Ellsworth, Morrison et al (1994) regarding the Tory and media attacks on teen welfare (p. 17 and footnotes 57 and 58). They note that the Social Assistance Review Board (SARB) and legal clinics were criticised for helping youth to make appeals and to receive interim assistance pending SARB's decisions. 27. See 'Teen-agers a prime target for Harris assistance cuts. Social workers fear ending of aid for youth fleeing home will condemn them to the streets--or worse", Globe and Mail, July 14, 1995.
28. MCSS, Communications and Marketing Branch, "News Release. Governrnent Combats Fraud and Tightens Welfare Rulesf1 (August 23 1995) [unpaginated]. Ministry statistics made public through the court challenge to the new spousal regulations indicated that in May 1995 there were 28,542 General Welfare Assistance lrcases"(i .e . not beneficiaries) between the ages of 16-19, comprising 8 percent of a total of 349,500 cases. Of these, 13,411 were classed as unemployed, 10,542 as students (i.e. in high school), and 3,401 as single parents (See MCSS, "GWA Caseload: Age of Head by Case Class. May 1995 Estimates", [Exhibit 2 of Affidavit of K. Constante]) . 29. MCSS, "Eligibility and Entitlement Initiatives. October 1995 Changes. 16 and 17 Year Olds. Provincial Social Assistance Training" [staff training document] , p. 90. 30. Ellsworth, Morrison et al (1995, p.22, footnote 76) touch on the existence of various intersections between social assistance and 'family violencef including regarding 16- and 17-year-old applicants and recipients. 31. MCSS, "Eligibility and Entitlement Initiatives. October 1995 Changes. 16 and 17 Year Olds. Provincial Social Assistance Training" [staff training document] p.92.
32. P. Preston (MW-PC), Hansard, 6 February 1996, p .E-138.
33. "Fraud line, homevisits part of crackdown", Toronto Star, August 24, 1995, p. A13. 34. "Teen-agers a prime target for Harris assistance cuts", Globe and Mail, July 14, 1995, p. Ag. 35. Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, Metro Community Services, [Memorandum] "To: Community Services and Housing Committee. From: General Manager, Social Services Division. Subject: General Welfare Assistance Regulation Changes", (December 4, 1995) p.3. 36. Justice for Children and Youth (JCY) is a legal aid clinic which provides legal representation, education, and advocacy regarding legislation on behalf of children and youth under the age of 18. It was founded by and remains part of the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law. The board of JCY has a Youth Advisory Committee of young people who advise the Board and initiate other work.
37. See the video produced by the Youth Advisory Cormittee of Justice for Children and Youth, "Bad Cut" (n.d. c.1996). 38. The arbitrariness of being subject to the discretion of managers and front-line staff in different municipalities across the province is shown in KY'S reports of youth being rejected over the phone by some personnel, while a welfare worker 1 interviewed stated that the practice in Metro Toronto was to approve the applications of youth who had been assessed by an agency as coming from an abusive home (Miller, 1996).
39. See "Submission of the Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law", [mimeo], May 1996.
40. Justice for Children and Youth have had some success in appealing the restrictive welfare rules to the social Assistance Review Board and to the courts. See, for example, a news report about one case, "Welfare barriers biased against teens, board says" (Toronto Star, June 18, 1996, p.A8).
41. "Teen-agers a prime target for Harris assistance cuts", Globe and Mail, July 14, 1995, p.Ag. 42. "Teen-agers a prime target for Harris assistance cuts", Globe and Mail, July 14, 1995, p.Ag. 43. See the debate about panhandlers on Torontors Church Street, "Pesky panhandlers on Churchw (Xtra, Sept. 29, 19951, and "Poor stereotypes" ( [Letter to the editor] Xtra, Nov. 10, 1995) . Sec also "When no place is home. Homeless gays -- we are everywhere. Yes, even where we'd rather not befl (Genre, May 19931, and "These so-called lives. Perhaps homophobia isnlt the biggest problern f aced by lesbian youth. Maybe it s paying the rent" (Girlfriends, May/June 1997). Regarding poverty among lesbians and gay men more generally, see Poverty: Lesbians and Gay Men a report published by the Combat Poverty Agency in Ireland (GLEN and Nexus, 1995). There is a growing body of literature on homeless youth and HIV; see, for example, English (lggl), Kruks (lgW), and Luna (1991). 44. For critical analyses of "empowerment" as a strategy for governing people, see Baistow (1995) and Cruikshank (1993, 1994) . 45. MCSS, "Managing Social Assistance in Ontario. Finding the Problems and Fixing Them", (October 1994) . 46. Ellsworth, Morrison et al (1994) and Pemberton (1990) point out that based on the cases of those convicted of welfare fraud, the figures suggest that the financial costs are a very small percentage of the total amount spent on welfare benefits. However, while Ellsworth, Morrison et al argue that anti-fraud campaigns lead to increased policing, stigmatization and abuse of welfare recipients in Ontario, Pemberton disputes the success of state "surveillance and pacification". Drawing on an analysis of the situation in Australia to test Foucauldian concepts such as "discipline", Pemberton suggests that since personnel charged with eliminating fraud are overworked and sometimes inefficient then the number of prosecutions cannot represent the true extent of fraud and thus such "disciplinary technologies", as he terms them, are not effective. Pemberton does not examine other impacts of increased surveillance of welfare recipients. 47. Pemberton (1990) points out that focussing upon welfare fraud by recipients ignores the savings made by the state from the failure of social welfare programs to encourage people to apply for al1 the benefits to which they may be entitled, and the resultant financial losses and hardship suffered by those people. Pinding the Problems and Fixing Them refers to instances of the Ministry "helping ... many individuals who are legitirnately collecting social assistance" (1994,p.3). It turns out that those are recipients who are discovered to be eligible for income from other sources, such as the Canada Pension Plan, Unemployment Insurance and Workersf Compensation. The Ministry also applauds its own success in reducing the costs of "underpayments" to recipients by making retroactive payments for one month only. 48. Paul Leduc Brome (1997) said, "To its credit, the Rae goverment did not slash welfare benefits or reduce eligibility; on the contrary, it raised benefits, despite receiving less money from Ottawav (1997, p.44). Allan Moscovitch reported that the basic needs allowance was increased by 7 percent and the maximum shelter amount by 10 percent in 1991, by 2 and 3 percent respectively in 1992 and by 1 and 1 percent in 1993 (1997, p.82). 49. At different points during the NDP goverment, leaks of policy documents suggested that cuts in welfare rates and punitive measures were under consideration; several times community groups were forced to immediate campaigns to prevent these developments (Little, 1994; Ehring & Roberts, 1993, cited in Little; Star, January 29,1993, cited in Little; Star, March 21,94,p.A4, cited in Ellsworth, Morrison et al, 1994) . Ehring & Roberts and Ellsworth, Morrison et al suggest that several cabinet members were in favour of cuts and that they had shown "increasing public and private hostility toward social assistance" (Ellsworth, Morrison et al, 1994,p. 8), and that members of the NDP Cabinet wanted to reduce the permitted cohabitation period before recipients were deemed spouses from three years to one year and to require single parents to seek work (p.21). 50. For an analysis that problematizes welfare states as "public dependence" for women, see Borchorst & Siim (1987) and Siim (1990).
51. Although an adult child returning to live in her or his parents' home would be required by welfare officiais to prove that he or she was actually paying rent or room and board. Thanks to Elinor Mahoney, a community legal worker with the Parkdale Community Legal Clinic, for information about these details regarding welfare rules (personal communication, August 11, 1997). Chapter 3
Inventing Street Youth: From Protecting "Easy Victimsw
To Teaching VrRiskF&ductionvr
In this chapter 1 will analyze changing strategies for working with homeless youth in Toronto. I will argue that the emergence in the 1970s of agencies specifically focussed on this group of people not only signalled a new technique of "street outreachVr,but that it also constituted a new group of people as clients, that is, "street youthw, a group who were not adults, not children, and not juvenile delinquents. The invention of street youth, and shifts in ways of working with them have been intertwined with strategies of moral and sexual regulation, from firstiy attempting to protect youth from becoming "easy victimswv of the sex-trade and, implicitly, homosexuality, ta the present, when many semices focus upon teaching youth to reduce the risks they are exposed to Erom drugs, HIV and prostitution. As has been shown by Castel's (1991) and other Foucauldian work on
"risk-based technologies of powerm (OvMalley, 1992, p.252), risk-reduction strategies have introduced new modes of surveillance of populations. 1 argue that, although there has 107 not been a total or linear development from one of these strategies to another, harm reduction has become so prevalent that it was even recognised in a written protocol signed in 1993 by the largest child welfare services in Toronto. Shifts in sexual regulation led to this Protocol also agreeing that child welfare and street youth agencies would recognize and meet the needs of homeless youth who were lesbian, gay and bisexual.
In this chapter I also argue that sexual regulation was not the underlying cause of the Harris governmentrs sharp cuts in
1995 in funding for the street youth sector. 1 suggest that the cuts were less of an attack upon street youth agencies (let alone being aimed at queer youth in particular) and more the resul t of changing strategies for governing voluntary social service agencies in general, which had begun to emerge during the NDP periad in power. At the same time, funding is made available for the prevention of Hm arnong street youth, who have been constituted as a "high-risk population" for HIV infection
(and transmission) .
In this chapter 1 will discuss in tum three key moments in the recent history of street youth services in Toronto: the founding of the Downtown Youth Centre in 1978, the opening of a
Covenant House shelter in 1982, and the signing in 1993 of a
Protocol between child welfare agencies and key street youth 108 services in the city. The first section focusses upon development in the 1970s and early 1980s; in the following section 1 examine concomitant changes in child welfare strategies with homeless youth and the development of a new consensus among key agencies . The final section situates these developments in the context of policy changes at the level of the provincial govenunent, and I look at the implications of changes in funding and efforts to govern voluntary social service agencies.
Development of Services for "Street Youthvv
In this section 1 will discuss two significant developments in the recent history of services for street youth in Toronto, the founding of the Downtown Youth Centre in 1978 and the opening of the Covenant House shelter in 1982'. 1 will argue that street outreach and other services specifically directed at street youth were not only techniques in a new strategy for social work with a particular group of people, but that they also helped to constitute lvstreetyouthvv as a new and specific
"population" or set of clients. The new category lVstreetyouthw' emphasises that such people are not adults, not children, and not juvenile delinquents . Older strategies , such as senrices 109
for homeless people of al1 ages, child protection, and policinq,
came to be viewed as retrogressive and unimaginative, and older
populations, such as transient youthvl and "runaways" became
less prominent. The expansion of street youth services in
Toronto signalled the decline of strategies which drew on
sovereign power and punishment, and gave primacy to strategies which constituted street youth, including those under 16 years, as self-governing subjects.
In this section I will also discuss the ways in which moral
regulation and issues related to sexuality intersect with these developments in services for street youth. 1 will argue that
the creation of street youth services was closely tied to anxieties about pros ti tution2 and homosexuality and the formation of particular ethical subjectivities arnong youth who are not under parental authority. This is shown, for example, in the creation of the Eirst "street youth agencytv following the 1977 murder of Emanuel ~aques', and in the establishment by the
Catholic Church of a shelter for homeless youth four years later as a result of Cardinal Carter's disquiet at the moral issues raised by the number of youth who were visible on the streets around his office on Church Street.
The Salvation Army and the Yonge Street Mission had long offered services to homeless people of al1 ages in Toronto, incorporating evangelical Chris tianity into their work . The municipal governmen t provided hos tels such as Robertson House and Seaton House for homeless adults. These agencies did not daw on and constitute the category "street youthw. In a brief history of "street workm in Toronto Graham Vardy (a former manager at Youthlink-Inner City) writes that in the late 1960s and early 1970s the Addiction Research Foundation %onducted outreach to assist people coming down on bad acid tripsw4. But this work, known as the Madison Project, was seen as focussing on the largely middle-class hippie youth of Yorkville and
Etochdale. Street Haven at the Crossroads had been working with homeless and poor wornen oves the age of 18 since 1965. Stop 86 had been established by the YWCA in 1970 to help young women who were in crisis or homeless; they did not do street outreach.
Graham Vardyvs history describes these existing agencies as not being waccessible to the populationft. They did not do street outreach social work focussed on homeless or poor youth, and some of them had a religious agenda. Advocates of street outreach came to see the previous social work strategies with youth as inadequate:
At that point there wasnvt anybody actively out on the street engaging young people. With due respect ... the Yonge Street Mission at that time was very much centred on an older population, predominantly male homeless people, and presented no kind of attraction to young people, and the Salvation Army.. . young people didnlt view them as relevant to their situation and therefore they accessed them for practical things like a sandwich and stuff, but because! there was another agenda. . . there really wasn ' t a strong connection in the broades t sense ('Wiebew, Interview, 1996)
Young people used these agencies for food and other survival needs, but, according to "Wiebel' they were not
"attracted" to engaging in other ways with the agencies, perhaps because they had "another agendan, that is, a religious one-
"Wieben suggests that services should have a greater connection with homeless youth than simply providing them with food or shel ter. "Wiebe ' sw description also implies that dif ferences between homeless adults and homeless youth are so great that the same agencies cannot adequately serve them. In this early period, the needs of young people were being constituted as more than, or other than, poverty, unemployment or lack of affordable housing, due to their previous or ongoing victimization6.
In 1978 a new agency called the Downtown Youth Centre was established with funding from the Municipality of Metro Toronto and the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The then
Associate Deputy Minister of MCSS, George Thomson, and his
Minister, Keith ort ton' , decided that the province would off er financial support to the project . This decision was made despite dsgi-ngs that Thomson expressed about the project; he wrote to Norton that he had "some concerns about the validity of the suggested approach and [felt] there is some evidence to suggest that the problems of Yonge St. cannot be solved in this waylw0. The available documents do not provide details of
Thomsonls concerns; in the following pages we shall see that
Vhe suggested approachw was street outreach to youth and a drop-in centre.
The idea for the Downtown Youth Centre resulted from a series of meetings between City of Toronto poli ticians , the
Yonge St. Revitalization Program, staff from the Metro
Department of Social Services and representatives of agencies working with youthg. The written proposal for the project located an urgent need for a new service within the context of what were called "particular problems in the downtown coregl. It argued that :
Rarely have we seen such concern and unanimous support for a new social service among the agencies/ organizations involved. Aithough we do not think such a senrice would solve al1 the problems of Yonge St.'s youth, we hope to provide an alternative for those who want a change in their lives, and for those who have yet to be drawn into the illegal activities that abound on the streetlO.
Historical developrnents which had led to these pr0bh.m~ were discussed in background material provided with the proposal. The growth in the numbers of young people on Yonge
Street was seen as separate from, but coinciding with, the intensification of the sex trade in the area:
The clean up of Yorkville swelled the ranks of youth on the llStripll. During the same time period, a few entrepreneurs started building up the body rub business. Yonge St. fast became Torontols centre for 'bex for hire". The sleazy operation of the body rub parlours encouraged a comunity of criminals to establish itself. Yonge St. became tougher. Street walkers and their pimps, drug dealers and thugs became more prevalent on the strip'l.
A description was also provided of different groups of
young people who were believed to be spending time on Yonge
Street:
There are of course a number of different types of young people who have become part of the "street scene" downtown, with al1 of the illicit activities taking place there, Many young people first becarne involved as voyeurs, drawn into the action either through curiosity or coercion. Such young people range from downtown kids, to young people from the suburbs, and especially during the summer, a large number of out of town kids just drifting through Toronto. The principal problem for young people in the downtown core has been their vuherability to many of the activities taking place there, It appears that they have become easy victims to other persons involved in prostitution, drugs , alcohol, etc. ".
Young people who are homeless or who spend their time on
downtown s treets were seen as potentially ffvulnerablem and Iveasy
victimsVvof "other peoplem, whether adults or other youth, who
would introduce them to the sex trade and to recreational
activities which raised moral concerns,
Despite having provided this analysis of the categories of young people on "the Striprl the proposa1 suggested that there was a lack of information about these youth:
There are no adequate data to describe exactly who these young people are, where they corne from and what their problems are. Nor are there any facilities currently located in the Yonge Street area to provide outreach and services to these young people.
It was argueci that these gaps should be remedied by opening a centre for these youth, which would tlboth gather data on the
Young people involved in the street scene, and offer an outreach, counselling and referral servicew. Thus it would meet both social service and research goals.
The new Centre was envisioned as providing services that would work with teenagers as distinct frorn adults, and would treat them as neither children nor delinquents. The proposa1 suggested that the practice of using the police to respond to the problems on Yonge Street had been not only ineffective, but had served to create problems for a group of young people who were seen as often being vulnerable:
The Yonge St. "clean upl' has done very little for the young people on the Strip. The communityls dentand for stepped up police activity made the street kids feel more harassed than before and present laws make law enforcement an ineffective solution to this probl a... Not al1 of these people are criminals, most are just "hangers-on "... Yonge St. has always been attraction to out-of-town newcomers to the City - youngsters who often do not know where or how to find accommodation, food or jobs ... many are lonely, scared and sometimes addicted to alcohol or drugsu.
Other techniques were suggested as offering a greater chance of success in moral regulation and in protecting youth from the dangers revealed by the Jaques murder: a drop-in centre in which youth could choose non-directive winformationw or
'%upportW, and social work techniques of inviting young people to become clients by seeking them out in the milieu in which they spent their time. Such methods would be "ways to enable these young people to help themselves , 'l
It was felt that the kids needed a secure place where they could rest, talk and begin to sort out their lives. A place where they could acquise the skills and information that would allow them to escape the trap they had fallen into ... or were about to fa11 into. A space where they could obtain trust, support, and sometimes a push in the right direction. Most people at the meeting agreed that the street youth would not be flocking to this Centre, and that there is probably little anyone can do about the "hard-corevramong them. However, we felt that an effort has to be made to establish contact with the youth on Yonge St. on their own turf14.
A detaileci "mode1 of service" was developed for the proposed Downtown Youth Centre; this drew on the central tenets of "street outrea~h~~social work as it was developed in the US. and Canada in the 1970s. These included meeting immediate material and emotional needs , encouraging vlselE-help", and attempting to develop new ways to influence youth, who were seen as alienated and rebellious, by minimizing the social and cultural dis tance between staff and clients.
The key to the service is the ability to give information, referral and some follow-up service on what appears to be the primary needs : money, food and accommodation, and in the long run - jobs. The service must provide crisis intervention, support counselling, legal assistance and basic heal th care information. The service needs to promote the concept of self-help and youth helping each other ... The street worker(s) mus t . . . have a qif t for meeting the street kids on their own tems . . .lS.
The Downtown Youth Centre started operations in November
1978; it closed in September 1979. The following year Huntley
Youth Services was invited by ComSoc and Metro to initiate a similar street outreach program for youth and Inner City Youth was created. It continues to provide a drop-in centre to this
These developments in Toronto took place in a context in which the sexuality of homeless youth or youth who spent time around Yonge Street was already highly contested. In the early
1970s there were stniggles over the Yonge Street pedestrian mal1 when its bars and street li£e became a mecca for young people across the country. The proposa1 for the Downtown Youth Centre made frequent reference to the W1vulnerability'vof young people to WvillicitactivitiesW1 such as prostitution and drug use on the
Yonge "street scenew. The accounts of social workers who have long been involved in youth services in Toronto suggest that the impetus for new techniques of street outreach emerged not only from general concerns about youth on Yonge St. but also as a response to the sex trade on Yonge Street and to a specific 117 event which had taken place the year before the Downtown Youth
Centre was proposed. In August 1977 a twelve-year-old boy,
Emanuel Jaques, was raped and murdered by three men above a
Yonge Street sex shop; this precipitated a political and media uproar which led to renewed support for efforts to "Clean-Up
Yonge Streetvf, to police campaigns against prostitution in several cities across the country, and to popular, media and police attacks upon h~mosexuali~~.In the following quotations three senior managers of youth services state that this event was the catalyst that led directly to the development of a new approach to working with youth on city streets.
Inner City started after the Emanuel Jaques murder. . . There was a very hasty and political response to his murder, which occurred at the same time as the "Clean Up Yonge Street1' fenrour. And then when he was killed ... Metro set up this service ... called the Downtown Youth Centre, which folded within a year because it was just beset with financial and administrative dif ficulties , i t was thrown together , and it wasnlt clear what they were doing ... people at ComSoc and Metro still wanted to continue i t and they [later] approached Huntley [Youth Services] to sponsor it (lvJonesw, Interview, 1996") .
Inner City started as a direct result of the Emanuel Jaques murder and the concern of the population and the politicians that Yonge Street needed to be Ircleaned upl1 (lX.ingtl, Interview, I996l9).
In Toronto the whole movement to respond to the needs of homeless young people began with a murder, the rape and murder of a 12-year-old boy, Emanuel Jaques, in 1977. .. the brutality of the murder, the fact that it was a young person, the fact that he was described in the media as a shoe-shine boy, but the truth was that 118
he was in the sex-trade (llWiebe",Interview, 1996)'~.
Five years aiter Inner City Youth opened, a new agency that
focussed on young prostitutes was established as a result of
lobbying by a network of street youth workers (VonesVv,
Interview, 1996) . Street Outreach Services (SOS) was created in
1985 under the auspices of Anglican Houses; the first manager
being a former staff petson at Inner City Youth. The vast
majority of SOS's clients have been male youth who work in the
sex trade and who identify as gay or bisexual. Although the
agency has a reputation for being gay positive and has openly
gay and lesbian staff, that information is not part of its
public self-description.
The opening of Covenant House, a shelter for youth, in
1982, marked another shift in responses to young people on the
streets2'. Covenant House was a Catholic organization from New
York. Before its arrival, the Catholic Church in Toronto had been a strong supporter of the Clean-Up Yonge Street campaign2', and of efforts to develop senrices for street youth* The Church
responded positively to a plan to control the sex trade on Yonge
Street which had been released in the summer of 1977, shortly before the Jaques murder. "Act Now on Seeds of Decay in Yonge
Strip - Archdioce~e~~was the headline in the Catholic ~egistel~.
A few weeks later the same newspaper complained that "Pupils 119 tell of vice, sin on Toronto's Yonge St. ", and reported that boys at St. Michaells Choir School had been propositioned by prostitutes on Yonge Street during their lunch breaks. Father
Brad Massman, Director of the Archdiocese Office of Social
Action spoke at a public meeting about the Church 's concern that
%ex shops and pornographie books tores are destroying oro on totv24.
Following the murder of Emanuel Jaques early in August
1977, the Catholic Register continued to express the Catholic
Churchws concern with moral regulation when it railed that "The
Community Let it HappenV1, quoting a Church official who said that "a permissive climate [had been allowed] to grow and fester to produce this kind of tragedyW2'. The newspaper reported that
Jaques had been the "victim of a homosexual orgy", and stated that "absent from the funeral proceedings was any of the rage roused in Torontonians against homosexuality and the Yonge
Street sex shops expressed earlier in a march on City Hall". It appeared that the Catholic Church approved of, and contributed to, efforts to use the Jaques murder to attack homosexuality and the local gay community.
The following summer the Catholic Register reported favourably on Metro Council ' s proposal to establish the Downtown
Youth Centre. The paper quoted Father Joe Macdonald, a priest who worked on Yonge Street as saying that there was "a definite need for a further Christian presence to young people on
Toronto's Yonge St. strip... to help the young people who have
becorna 'easy victims ' of the prostitution and drug scene2'. The
language concerning youth vulnerability to the sex and hg
trades was similar to that of the Metro proposal for the
Downtown Youth Centre. Father Macdonald suggested that the
Catholic Church could work in ways that would go beyond the goals of that Centre:
This is an area where Christians and the Church have a real role to fill. The need for aid in a crisis is quite clear, but a lot more needs to be done in talking to these kids and helping them work out their problems2'.
Three years later, in 1981, Cardinal Carter, the head of the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, announced that Father Bruce
Ritter from Covenant House-New York had been invited to start what was then known as an 'Vnder 21 Programl' in ~oronto~'. Its aims were strikingly similar ta those of the Downtown Youth
Centre, and constituted the youth not as children needing sovereign power or pastoral care, but as self-governing.
Ritter said the first goal "will be to provide immediate access to food, shelter, medical care, clothing and other concrete services so desperately needed by street kidsm... But the longer term goal ... will be "to help youngsters take the giant step from the street back to a more positively-directed lifestyle, whether it's a return to the family, placement for a more longer-tem shelter, or preparation for independent livingn29. The Archdiocese planned to contribute three-quarters of the required annual budget, and had rented a building for the shelter30. It was reported by the Catholic Register that when
Father Ritter had begun his work in New York with Yroubled teenagerst1 no agencies were working with "young prosti tutes, hustlers and street kidsw in that cityls "prostitution and pornography-plagued Times ~quare"". Ri tter told the Toronto newspaper that:
There are no mysteries about why kids are on the street.. . Ail around us we can see the evidence of a disintegration in family life, a general decline in respect for structure and authority, and the relaxation of sema1 mores. Kids who wind up on the street often have families who are struggling with the additional burden of the cmshing cycle of poverty , or alcoholism, drug use and physical or semal abuse. At the same time, a trend toward sexploitation of children in advertising and the tremendous growth of the sex industry has made it possible for homeless kids to support themselves by prostitution and other street hustling. . .32.
Thus Covenant House viewed its work as being centrally concerned with issues related to moral regulation and sexuality, in particular youth prostitution. As a senior manager who has been closely associated with Covenant House put it,
You need an irmnediate sanctuary [for youth] in the tenderloin district of any major urban centre (TrvineW, Interview, 1996)33.
This manager argued that the establishment of the shelter had been a persona1 project of the Archbishop, rather than having emerged from Catholic agencies or the diocesan conrimittees usually entrusted with social service issues. In particular, it was the result of the Archbishopls office being located on a
Toronto s treet which , in different yet overlapping sections, was associateci with the gay communi ty and with street prostitution.
Given Father Bruce Ritter's focus upon youth prostitution in New
York, Covenant House was an agency that could be trusted to address the Archbishop's concerns, which were about moral issues, including prostitution, and implicitly also about homosexuali ty :
Covenant House came about solely through the persona1 interest of Cardinal Carter.,. Because the Archdiocese offices were downtown, right around Church Street, he spent a lot of his tirne downtown. He just became very disturbed and concerned by the visibility of what he perceived as a problem, seemingly a large number of homeless drifting youth who didn't seem to belong anywhere, a lot of them prostituting, involved in drugs , etcetera. He initially asked Catholic Charities, the allocations amof the Archdiocese for social services. . . to examine the problem. They did, produced a report,.. which acknowledged a need for a service, but 1 think ... grossly underestimated the size of the problem, if you look at what happened very shortly thereafter. They were proposing a very modest shelter to add more support, especially in the downtown core, for street kids. Meanwhile Cardinal Carter met Ritter,. . and asked him to visit Toronto and to take a look at the scene himself and to advise the Cardinal... He was determined he was doing something about this problem. The end result of that relationship between those two men was that Cardinal Carter decided that Covenant House had the right kind of program for the probl m... that he believed to be much larger and more serious than people were recognising. . . (lrIrvinen, Interview, 1996) " . 123
The emphasis upon Father BNC~ Etitterrs commïtment to helping prosti tutes and upon the Cardinal ' s persona1 trust in him must have caused later embarrassrnent for the Catholic
Archdiocese and Covenant House-Toronto. In 1981, Cardinal
Carter praised Father Ritter as "a man of visionary c~mnitment~~~~.In 1990, it was reporteci that Ritter had resigned as director of Covenant House headquarters in New York after allegations that he had a relationship with a male prostitute who had later been provided with a new identity under the name of a deceased former client of Covenant ous se".
In 1981, those who cunimized the significance of the problem that Covenant House had ben established to address were located not only within the Catholic Church but were also outside the Church, among social workers who worked in youth agencies and child welfare services. As the following quotations suggest, the arriva1 of Covenant House precipitated considerable controversy within professional circles in Toronto.
There were debates about Covenant House even before it arrived... There was a debate about whether or not in fact we had a street youth problem in Toronto. The service provider group at the time -- child welfare , childrenwsmental health centres, organizations that had ben senring youth in one way or another for years -- they were of the opinion that there wasnlt a substantial street youth problem in Toronto. People were of the view that the kids you saw hanging around the Eaton Centre and so Eorth were what you called "weekendersn, they really did have homes and were just attracted to the big city for a weekend lark. And then the other view was that even if there were some kids involved in street activity they were kids who were being adequately supported by the services at the time. In other words there wasnvt recognition of the need for a youth shelter... (Irvine, Interview, 1996). However , supporters of Covenant House fel t vindicated by the large number of young people who carne to stay at the shelter:
When the shelter firs t opened in 1982 [ . . . 1 i t was overwhelmed Eran day one... the number of street youth arriving were in the vicinity of 60 to 70 youth a night (Trvinel', Interview, 1996) .
Like the Downtown Youth Centre, and its successor, Inner
City Youth, Covenant House constituted the young people with whom it worked as "street youthw. Both agencies, and the many other services for street youth that sprang up in Toronto during the 1980s and early 1990s, developed strategies for working with youth that were different from those of the police and child welfare- Throughout this analysis 1 have described the mode1 of social work practice currently prevalent in street youth services as an approach which constitutes youth as self- regulating. The following quotation is a description of this approach :
men you work with a street population you learn that some kids have to go through a maturational process and its important to let them make their own decisions . Sometirnes that means letting them fail time and time again but always being there for them when they want to try to come back. And at some point, many of these youth are reaciy to make their decision to get off the street, but it may have taken them two to three years or sometimes longer, and you just hope that in the micidie there they don1t become a victim of the street and either permanently enmeshed in it, or killed or dead of a drug overdose or whatever (wIrvinew, Interview, 1996) .
The account below from "N. King" shows that some pactitioners of this mode1 have come to describe it as a Visk reductionvl approach, drawing upon a discourse from the field of alcohol and drug use (OIMalley, 1996) .
These agencies had a very different philosophical approach from the childrenls aid societies .... Covenant House, Evergreen, and Inner City vesy quickly developed risk reduction in working with youth, as opposed to the intrusive childrenls aid approach. They would Say things like, "If you are overly intrusive, what youlre going to do is drive these youth underground far from any helping agency, because part of the reason these youth are on the street is because theylve lost trust with adults, partly because adults have abused and exploited themw. . . (qlKingll, Interview, 1996).
A New Consensus on Street Youth
Traditionally child protection strategies had cons ti tuted homeless young people as "transients" or "runawaysvl who required pastoral care or the exercise of sovereign power, as the following account from a manager in child welfare describes:
From a childrenvs aid perspective, we hadnlt labelled what we now cal1 street youth as "street youthrvuntil relatively recently. They were considered "runawaysW or "transients". Until the early 1980s our objective was to return these transients from our jurisdiction as soon as we could back home to whatever jurisdiction they would come from. And we would go so far as to put them on the plane or the bus to wherever they had corne from.,. So it was always trying to get rià of the kids from Our jurisdiction, they were always seen as transients . [ . . . It was J rather unsophisticated, we didnft know what we know now. What about those youth who came from Metro? Well, we would obviously take responsibility for them and we would treat them like any other youth who was running away. So we would tw to understand why they were running, we would try to return them home if that was feasible, and if not we would take them into care. ("Kingv1, Interview, 1996) .
Thus previous strategies for dealing with youth who spent time on downtown streets came to be seen as lrunsophisticatedlv, and as lacking the benefit of present knowledge. Previous strategies had treated those youth as "children in need of protectionw, which led to their apprehension in Toronto under child welfare legislation and often their return to the child welfare jurisdiction of their parents. Similarly, previous child welfare responses to youth pros ti tutes in Toronto emphasised their status as minors. From the perspective of present-day practices, these previous strategies are problematized in the account below; they are seen as llpunitivefl and "bizarre" :
In the early 1980s there was an increasing concern about the number of juvenile prostitutes on the streets ... they became very visible... and it became a social issue, and it was realised that many of these young women and young men were totally invisible to mainstream service providers. . . There was a perception that these women were really at risk, because they were young, and they were out on the street hooking ... The response, itvsvery strange to think of it now, even though it was only ten or twelve years ago, the response was very punitive ... The workers would persuade the young people to come to [a residence] , and the youth were told the door were locked. It was said that the doors werenvt actually locked, because that would be in contravention of the new [Young Offenders] Act ... But workers would take the youthvs clothes away, and they would have to walk around the house in pyjamas, and they would stand in front of the doorway so they couldnvt leave.. . It al1 seems very bizarre. But 1 think the value at the time was that these children -- thatls how they were understood -- don' t know what theylre doing, theyvre too young to make responsible decisions, we have to Save them from themselves, and when theyvre in [the residence] they really like it, it really gives them security)' (vlKingll, Interview, 1996) .
Child welfare agencies were operating in this fashion in the 1980s, at a time when the new services for street youth had established alternative approaches to working with young people on the street or in the sex trade. During this period new knowledges about street youth had also developed; they were now seen as not only vulnerable (as they were constituted in the plans for the Downtown Youth Centre and for Covenant House) but as already victimized. It became a common understanding that the presence of youth on the street was largely vlcausedlvby abuse in their families.
At the same time what had developed were a number of agencies who were really beginning to address the same issue in a different way. We now know that the youth come downtown because theyvre troubled youth or abused youth, theylre not abused downtowri but in the suburbs ("Kingw, Interview, 1996) Feminism also played a significant role in this shift in how children and youth, including street youth, were constituted by service providers. From the early 19809, feminists leading the Metro Toronto Special Committee on Child Abuse drew on the subjugated knowledge of those who had been sexually abused in childhood to create new fonns of professional knowledge that permeated social and health services in Toronto, including child welfare and the new street youth agencies3'.
In child welfare, we knew nothing about child semial abuse. It was knowledge that at that time was confined to the feminist community, and the Special Conuni ttee brought that knowledge and analysis out of the closet and into the mainstream. . . They made us al1 aware, professionals and lay people alike, that it isnft Yonge Street that is the danger to kids, it isnft gay men who are the danger to kids, the danger to kids cames from within their own families and their own parents. It's very important not to underestimate the influence of that shift of the knowledge of sexual abuse out of the feminist community into the mainstream, because it affects how we generally began to view these issues, how we view prostitution, how we view runaway youth, how we recognised that youth were on the street because they were sexually abused (lWïngff, Interview, 1996) .
Since child welfare agencies are legally required to take particular actions when they encounter a %hild in need of protection1*, they face 1imitations in their abili ty to incorporate a risk reduction approach in their front-line work with young people. Throughout the 1980s the category of "street youthw, and the strategy of harm reduction became increasingly influential at the same time as growing numbers of street youth were making contact with and becoming clients of street youth agencies .
Then some people in childrenvs aid societies began to feel that their own position was wrong, that it was intrusive, paternalistic, controlling, it wasn't meeting the needs of street you th... And it made more sense to use more of a harm reduction, risk reduction mode1 . . . ("King", Interview, 1996) .
In the 1990s child welfare agencies in Toronto decided to end their contestation of these emerging approaches and work together with street youth agencies to develop a new consensus.
The following account from a senior manager in child welfare describes some of these developments:
Youth still saw [child welfare] as the baby-snatchers, as the ones with the arrest warrant in the back pocket ... Youth on the street see street agencies as part of their support network and they would use them to get material support, as places to hang out, and to pet non-directive supportive counselling . . . Basicaily the philosophy of these agencies was: "We can't tell these youth what to do, because theyvre not going to be told anymore. Thatvs why theylre on the streets in part, because every other option has Eailed for them- The street is the only place they feel safe, itls their family,.. We have to help these youth understand their situation, to look at the options open to them and let them know the ramifications of those options. But they have to choose which way theylre going to go".,. Change can only happen incrementally over time, youvre not going to rescue these youth overnight (TCingVv,Interview, 1996).
In August 1993 an agreement was reached between child welfare authorities in Toronto and key s treet-youth agencies regarding the care of mhomeless and runaway youth under sixteen
years of agewgg. Signalling the new primacy of neo-liberal risk
reduction strategies, the Interagency Protocol connnitted
the signatory agencies to a shared philosophy and a coordinated strategy of service delivery to these high risk and vulnerable young people. This response is based on sebuilding a youthls trust in caring adults and helping professionals in order that the youth becomes able to make safe and responsible decisions about his or her life. Etigid expectations aimed at controlling behaviours are minimized in favour of ones that operate with the infomed and willing participation of the youth. 1 t facilitates a youth's right to access and receive support from a broad range of services designed to meet the needs of that individual young per~on'~.
The Interagency Protocol cited research which indicates
that many street youth have been thrown out of their parental homes, and that a large proportion of those who have run away were not simply seeking excitement but were escaping from abuse or other family problems4'. It also drew on research which suggests other understandings of the reasons for young people's presence on downtown streets . These studies posit that
wdisclosure to parents of a lesbian or gay identity has been found to place a young person at risk for rejection and abuse by family membersvV (p.7) .
The Protocol suggested that three groups form a significant proportion of "s treet-involved y~uth"'~,of which one group is lesbian, gay and bisexual youth. Citations are provided to a Toronto study which found that 18 percent of street youth
identified themselves to a researcher as lesbian, gay or
bisexual, and US. findings of up to 40 percent of street youth
being composed of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people43. The
other two groups which the Protocol argued were significant
among street youth in Toronto were aboriginal youth, and youth
who have absconded from child protection or young offender
facili ties . Al though the Interagency Commi ttee which developed
the Protocol was led by child protection agencies, it drew on
critical analyses of the experiences of aboriginal and other
children and youth while in the case of child welfare.
It is interesting to note that despite this broader understanding of the reasons for young people's presence on downtown street, the Interagency Protocol ' s discussion is s till narrow in its focus. Unlike, for example, the work of activists and policy-makers who specialise in housing issues, the Protocol did not mention lack of affordable housing as a reason for the nimiber of youth who are homeless or on the street. In contrast, a report Prom the City of Toronto Neighbourhoods Cornmittee said:
More youth and young children are living on the streets as a result of family violence or lack of adequate shelter... Many landlords express an unwillingness to house youth especially those on social assi~tance'~.
Experts in youth unemployment would undoubtedly provide another set of explanations . A related analysis of the situation of homeless youth argues that it may not be inappropriate to separate homeless adults and "street youthv' as they share more similarities than ciifferences, similarities which arise out of poverty, hunger and lack of shelter (McCarthy and Kagan, 1992).
The Interagency Protocol included an agreement that the participating agencies would work with young people through whichever agency the youth had chosen, rather than solely through the legal authority of child protection services.
Interventions by prof essionals would treat youth as self- governing in vvdeterminingtheir own case/service planrv and aimed to educate them about choices they could make to reduce risks they were exposed to. The Protocolvs goals were:
To provide these youth with information, support and guidance regarding safer alternatives and options to living on the street so that they may make informed choices and decisions about their futures on or beyond the street ... To reduce the physical and emotional health and safety risks faced by these youth. To increase the ability of these youth to make safe and positive decisions about their lives and to reduce the risks they face as long as they remain on the street. . .".
This is strong evidence that the Protocol signalled a new consensus about the primacy of risk reduction strategies in social work with street youth. This approach continued throughout the report; at one point it stated explicitly that the relation between a social worker or counsellor and a young
person :
neeüs to be non-judgemental and non-authoritarian and established on the basis of voluntary participation by the you th... Strategies to protect these youth will be based on risk reduction, constructive alternatives and practical assistance. They will be tailored to the needs of an individual youth based on what is effective, or likely to be effective, and appropriate in the circumstances (p.15).
The Interagency Protocol also argued that "survival
concerns are paramount for youth on the streetfl, and what it
called vincome-producing activitics" may include prostitution,
thef t and begging (p. 10) , In contrast to the discourse
the founding the Downtown Youth Centre and
Covenant House, the Protocol was not concerned with lamenting
the of children and youth
relation to prostitution and pornography, but rather with
understanding their economic reasons for pursuing this line of
work and reducing the llriskslv to which street youth may be exposed through their participation in "sumival sexw or other activi ties
Unlike the original proposa1 for the Downtown Youth Centre and Father Bruce Ritter's analysis of street youth, the Protocol drew on new understandings of social diversity regarding aboriginal people, ethnicity , and sexual orientation :
Programs and services will be delivered to aboriginal youth in a manner that recognizes, values and respects their culture, heritage and traditions . . . [and] in ways that are sensitive to the racial, ethnic, religious and cul tua1 values and linguistic diversi ty of the client population.. . [and] in such a way that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, even though they many not choose to be open about their identity, receive validation and support, along with information and services that are sensitive ta their needs (pp. 18-20) .
This explicit and official recognition of the needs of lesbian, gay, and bisexual homeless and runaway youth by street outreach and child welfare agencies was an important development in Toronto. Since Street Outreach Services-Anglican Houses focusses their work on young male prostitutes there has been an understanding among service providers that mos t of SOS ' s clients are gay and bisexual male youth, but this is not formally recognised in the agencywsmandate. An important -- but failed
-- effort ta gain official recognition for the situation of gay street youth was made in 1975 when a group called Tri-Aid
"applied for a licence ta open a group home in Toronto for gay street youth. The licence was denied initially and at subsequent appeals" (Schneider, 1988, p. 8) " . Some services for lesbian, gay and bisexual youth had been established in Toronto. But the
Protocol was particularly important, firstly in that it concerned street youth, and secondly because it represented a consensus among key agencies, including religious organizations like Covenant House, Catholic ChildrenwsAid and Jewish Family and Child Services.
In different ways, the three events that have been discussed here intersect with issues related to sexuality: the establishment of the Downtown Youth ~entre/InnerCity Youth, the arriva1 of Covenant House in Toronto, and the signing of the
Interagency Protocol. The first two were concerned with prostitution among youth and emerged from popular and religious anxieties related to homosexuality, in contrast, the third development (i. e . the Pro toc01 ) recognised lesbian , gay and bisexual youth as potential clients whose needs should be met by street services.
Governing Agencies
In this final section 1 will turn to the Common Sense
Revolution and issues related to reductions in funding for street youth services and changing strategies in governing agencies. These changes have serious implications for the services available for street youth, including the large numbers of lesbian, gay and bisermal youth, as well as prostitutes, who make up this sector or young people. However, 1 show that it would be difficult to argue that the goal of these Harris cuts was to regulate the sexuality of street youth, On the contrary, these developments emerge from the provincial governmentls 136 efforts to govern voluntary social service agencies . New strategies for governing voluntary agencies did not suddenly emerge with the election of Mike Harris in 1995, they had also been a feature of the NDP period in power when voluntary agencies were criticised for their "rugged individualismn. The
Consenmtive government's cuts to youth agencies, while funding for HIV prevention was maintained, signalled a decline in the credibili ty of interventions closely identifid with 'vsocial welfarew and the increasing importance of neo-liberal strategies of risk reduction.
In October 1995 the Harris governrnent eliminated $772 million from the provincial government budget4', and of this the
Ministry of Comminity and Social Services lost $127 million. In the period following the announcement it emerged that a number of agencies that worked with street youth had lost al1 or a large proportion of the dollars when an MCSS transfer program entitled Tommunity Youth Supportwvwas eliminated. For Street
Outreach Services the loss of Comunity Youth Support dollars amounted to 87 percent of the agency ' s b~dget'~.Youthlink-Inner
City lost 22 percent of its funding. Turning Point Youth
Services lost 25 percent of its funding and closed its 'vday program" (which was similar to Inner City's "drop-in centret1) and restricted its shelter to homeless youth who were under 19 years of age.
These cuts had a serious impact on the availability of
services, and on street youth themselves, many of whom at the
sania time were dealing with the cuts and restrictions in social
assis tance described in the previous chapter5'. An unexpected
result of the severe reductions in funding from the Comunity
and Social Services Ministry was that it brought a number of
issues to the surface. For example, money for HIV prevention among street youth had become essential for these agencies5', and agencies which were funded by the state were now more financially vulnerable than agencies supported by religious organizations. A senior manager of a youth agency offered this description of some of these developments.
From ComSoc a major source of funding had been the Comunity Youth Support Program. It was not specifically for street youth, but street youth services were eligible for it. When they cut Comunity Youth Support, that cut programs for street youth . . . The services for street youth were left with Metro funding and Ministry of Health funding for AIDS prevention which we can use for street workers who do AIDS prevention. . . AIDS prevention rnoney has become very significant, we're hoping it will continue.. . it makes sense that it would continue, given that itvs such a vulnerable population, but you never know in this environment (fvHughesfv,Intenriew , 1996'~) .
From the late 1980s, agencies doing street outreach to youth had ben able draw on new sources of funding by developing programs that would be eligible to receive money for HIV prevention. Below are the observations of two managerss3:
In the mid-1980s youth services were still in denial that youth were engaged in prostitution, drug use, having multiple sex partners, al1 of those high risk factors. Since then HXV prevention and sex education have become central to several agenciesl work with street youth ("Jones", Interview, 1996).
HIV came along and our staff team doubled in a blink of an eye ... It accelerated and expanded a lot of our work and took us in directions that none of us saw ourselves going in until then (llWiebeV1, Interview, 1996).
In the case of an agency like Inner City, the growth of funding from AIDS programs meant that a cut in other resources led to reliance on AIDS funding in order to continue street outreach. For Street outreach Services, the loss of funding from the provincial Ministry of Social Services would have led to closure of the agency if the AIDS Bureau of the provincial
Ministry of Health had not stepped in and provided the funds needed ta survive. ft appears that some street youth agencies have grown as a result of the ways street youth have been constructed as "at riskW'for HIV infection, while the very existence of other agencies was in jeopardy without these funds from the provinceH.
SOS lost 85 percent of their funding. Theylre surviving now because the AIDS Bureau came by and rescued them ('*WiebelI, Interview, 1996) .
In contrast, services which receive only a small proportion of their funding from state bodies are protected from shifts in policies on the part of provincial ministries. For example, church-funded agencies have the capacity to survive changes in state-genera ted strategies :
Covenant House is probably one of the most successful fundraisers in the country. . . itvs also one of the most successful agencies in the country from a resource point of view because itls achieved. . . the ideal, a broad fundraising base. It gets some support from the Church, it gets sorne support from the government, and it gets some support from Covenant House International, and its prima- funds it raises itself. That doesnlt exist in most services, and it has protected it from the impact of things like the Harris cuts, or anything else that may happen wi th the government (wIrvinew, Interview, 1996).
When you look at the youth [agency] scene. You've got groups like Covenant House and Evergreen [of the Yonge St. Mission], which are funded from church-based moneys , which operate totally independently . And if al1 this [state] funding were to evaporate tornorrow they would still be there, doing what they do. 1'm respectful of things they do that 1 think are important, but 1 Ive some concerns about the things they don ' t do, or can t do. But the most vulnerable groups are the ones that are publicly funded (ltWiebew, interview, 1996)".
The issues that church-funded agencies like Covenant House are not able to include in their work with street youth are related to sexuality and reproduction, such as providing condoms for birth control or HIV prevention and referrals for abortions.
A senior manager who has been closely associated with Covenant
House argues that those policies are chosen by the agency rather than being imposed by the Catholic Church.
Covenant House is a Roman Catholic agency by choice ... And other than having to live within the prohibition on procuring abortions for kids, the Church does not interfere in any way with the services of Covenant House ... The Church proper does not interfere in the life of that agency. The Church funds it and they are accountable for, in some measure, how they use their funds. But even that accountability is not onerous... It s far less onerous then the accountability thatvs required by the government. . . It s other sources of funding that are more interfering than the Church ("IrvineW, Interview, 1996) .
Anglican Houses is the parent organization of Street
Outreach Services. It does not appear to have the funding base of other church-supported agencies.
I would also argue that funding cuts to street youth agencies under the Common Sense Revolution are not aimed at governing street youth or even those particular types of agencies. The former Minister, David Tsubouchi's, statements suggest the importance of new strategies in governing the
"social services sys temw . Tsubouchi argued that "the existing system is costly, inefficient and full of duplicationw. Thus a
"principle that will guide our work is efficiency and rationalizations6. The then minister decried not only duplication among social services but the growth in the number of agencies during previous decades and their competitive relations with each other:
It is clear to many of us that we can no longer justify and afford the duplication and the territorial approach that has historically characterized the social service sector in this province; nor can we continue to support and fund the proliferation of agencies and service bureaucracies . . . We have to rationalize services between and among al1 levels of goverment, including those within our own governmen t . Reducing overhead and infrastructure in order to direct precious public funds towards the essential front-line services will improve services by ensuring people in need get the maximum frorn those services5'.
Similar points were made in the 1996 "Business Planw1of the
Ministry of Community and Social Services:
Another issue has been overlap and duplication. One good example is assessments of the tnie needs of applicants for social services. Users of the system are often assessed several times by different service providers. Elimination of this duplication will free up resources and allow investment in programs designed to prevent the need for more intrusive social services- Currently toa much is being spent on administration for about 3,000 social service agencies funded by the provinces. The ministry will reduce dollars spent on administration and apply those savings to direct services for people in need5'.
However, it is important ta note that these criticisms and
attempts to introduce new approaches to governing social
agencies were not an innovation of the Common Sense Revolution.
Similar efforts were undertaken during the NDP goverment, al though llconsultationw wi th wlcommunity partners Ir and
lwstakeholdersllwere also central elements in the NDP approachS9.
When Marion Boyd was Minister for Community and Social Services,
she identified a problem with what she called "rugged individualismw among agencies.
In a non-defensive manner, we must acknowledge that we have created individual service delivery mechanisms which provïde services within very loosely aggrega ted programs. These aggregated programs pose as systems but in fact are not yet systems at all, since they guarantee little consistency or equity to recipients across the province. . . If we are to transform these programs into genuine, effective and dynamic systems which really work to the benefit of our clients and the community, there are a number of actions we must take. We must encourage our community partners to move away from the rugged individualism which has created more than 7,000 separate transfer payment agencies , towards a sense of creative interdependence and integration focuseà on client need rather than agency turf'O.
NDP Ministers of Comunity and Social Services called for the "sestructuring" of social services, and they attempted to encourage voluntary agencies ta enter into vvpartnershipsvvwi th each other and with the ministry6':
We must work with our social service partners to restructure social services so they reflect a true network of interdependent agencies and organizations working together-. . We must encourage partnerships among service planners and providers ... Individual service providers will have to make the switch from planning and managing within the context of their am roles and delivery methods to more broadly defined client needs and accountability-driven outcornes and standards... Current funding arrangements do not encourage agencies to work together to enhance ef fectiveness or ef f iciency. . .62.
Res tructuring is about addressing the potential for realigning resources for supports and services within a community. Itls about developing new management skills to help us learn to live within our means and reinvesting in our communities and in the system as a hol le^^.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, agencies have also been self-cri tical of the historical development of the voluntary sector and have made efforts to regulate themselves, as the following account shows:
There was 15 years of tremendous growth.. . and the optics were, llTherelstoo many of you now, youlve gone over the top1I.. . The other thing about the growth , it wasnlt what I would cal1 a planful growth, it was more. . . different organizations with a vantage point doing their own thing. 1 would Say that in the past four years there1s been a whole lot more collaborative, interactive, and inter-agency work going on. . . [by] some people really connii tted to communi ty development . . . They buil t bridges and took dom walls ... It was no longer "good business" to have our own little organizations trying to function in isolation ("WiebeW, Interview, 1996).
The manager quoted below shows frustration with the IVrugged individualismn of street youth agencies:
There are continua1 turf wars between agencies about who should do what.. . And agencies change their senrices, end up duplicating each other and donlt corne to agreements about it (IVone~~~,Interview, 1996) .
Another manager agrees that voluntary agencies need to be less individualist and competi tive :
What welre going to have to do is find some ways to link up and do some programming.. . Welve linked UP with a lot of community agencies in the last four years, welve got a lot of partnerships with th- ('lruangl', Interview, 1996) .
Conclusion
In this chapter 1 have discussed three key developments in the history of street youth services: the establishment of the
Downtown Youth Centre, the arriva1 of Covenant House, and the 144 developent of an agreement between street outreach agencies and child welfare services. During the past two decades, street youth have been constituted as a distinct social category and strategies in working with them have shifted from policing and child protection to risk reduction. Forms of sexual segulation have also changed and youth are no longer seen as victims of prostitution or homosexuality but as being mers of gay comunities, or other minorities, or as choosing to work in the sex trade for financial reasons. Chapter 3
1. Regarding the earlier history of social work in Toronto see Pitsula (1979) and the chapters from Valverde (1991) on "The White Slavery Panic" and "The City as Moral Problem", which include discussions of social reform and social work related to homeless people and prostitutes in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Toronto. Nelson (1995) outlines how children's aid societies in mid-nineteenth-century New York were a response to large numbers of "vagrant", "idle and truant" children; Bacher and Hulchanski (1987) discuss Canadian policies regarding homeless people between 1900-1960; Valverde (1995a) analyses concerns about and responses to 'rdelinquency",morality and gender nonconformity among youth in post-World War II Toronto; while Felstiner (1965, 1966) sheds light on a precursor of "street outreach" techniques in "detached work" with working- class Toronto youth in the early 1960s.
2. Regarding prostitution in Canada see, for example, Brannigan and Fleischman (l989), Brock and Kinsman (1986) ; Lowrnan (1986; 1990; lWl), and Sullivan (1986). 3. My analysis focusses upon shifts in professional discourses and strategies in youth service provision. Regarding media and other discourses on the Jaques murder see Kinsman (1996) and Ng (1981). 4. See "Background and History to Street Work in Toronto" (19951, which was kindly provided to me by Youthlink Toronto. 5. "B. Wiebe" is the pseudonym for the manager of a youth-serving agency in Toronto. 1 use the term "youth-serving agency" to encompass agencies for street youth, other youth services and child welfare agencies and associations. A full list of interviewees is provided in the record of primary sources drawn upon for this thesis, after the appendices. 6. For an analysis which argues that horneless youth and adults have much in common, see McCarthy and Hagan (1992). 7. Keith Norton, the former Tory Cabinet Minister, was in the news in 1996 when he became the first openly gay man to be appointed Chair of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, an appointment made by the Harris goverment. See Xtra, Deceber 19, 8. Memo from Thomson to Norton, June 22, 1978, Archives of Ontario (RG 29-1, Acc, 17033, tf.81-455, Box 27). This memo has two attachments which appear to have originated in the Municipality of Metro Toronto; the first attachent is a draft merno from the Commissioner of Social Services to the Social Services and Housing Committee (n.d. but stamped received at MCSS June 15, 1978); the second attachment to Thomson's memo to Norton was entitled "Brief History" and although it was not printed on letterhead it has some of the sanie content as the Metro project proposal and probably originated in the Metro Department of Social Services. 9. "Principal agencies have involved the Metro Department of Social Services, the Downtown Churchworkers Association, the Youth Services Network, the Children's Aid Societies, 519 Church Street Community Centre, the YMCA and YWCA, Metro Toronto Police and the Board of Education". This process was begun in March 1978 by the Downtown Churchworkers Association which %ad conducted a survey of the youth on Yonge St. and felt there was a need for concerted action. In April, Barry Lyon of the Yonge St. Revitalization Prograrn asked Ward 6 Alderman Allan Sparrow to look into the problem of transient youth on Yonge St. Alderman Sparrow met with the Downtown Churchworkers Association..." (Brief History, p.2) . 10. See "Brief History" (n.d. p.7) which forrns an attachment to a memorandum from George H. Thomson, Associate Deputy Minister, Children's Services Division, to Keith C. Norton, Minister of Comrnunity and Social Services, regarding "Proposed Downtown Youth Service" (June, 22, 1978). Available in the Archives of Ontario (RG 29-1, Acc, 17033, tf.81-455, Box 27) .
11. "Brief History" p.9. 12. See an attachment to George H. Thomson's memo to Minister Keith C. Norton of June 22, 1978: "Draft. To: The Social Services and Housing Committee. Subject: Proposed Downtown Youth Service. Origin: Commissioner of Social Services [Metro Toronto]"[no date], p. 1. (Archives of Ontario, RG 29-1, Acc, 17033, tf -81-455, Box 27). Regarding historical work on other periods in which youth left their parental homes see, for exarnple Mitterauer (1992) on boys "j ourneying' in the Middle Ages and their "wanderlust' in nineteenth-century Europe, and Bacher and Hulchanski (1987) on struggles over "vagrancyw in the 1930s in Canada. 13. Brief History, op ci t, pp. 1-2. 14. Brief History, p.3. 15. Brief History, p.4. 16. Huntley Youth Services and a number of other youth services now make up an agency known as Youthlink. The parent agency was founded by the Big Sister Association in 1914. 17. Ng (1981) details irnmediate and widespread raids of sex shops and arrests of prostitutes, first in Toronto and then in other cities across Canada; a demonstration led by Portuguese community groups (Jaques' family had immigrated from Portugal) attacked homosexuality, as did newspaper columniçts and the judge sentencing the murderers; in Decernber 1977 charges were laid against the gay publication Body Politic and the following year the first police raid of a gay bathhouse took place (pp.1-2). Ng also discusses the Clean Up Yonge St. campaign, which had been building since the early 1970s, culminating with a report to City Council recommending measures to control the sex-trade. See also Kinsman (1996). 18. "O. Jones" is the pseudonym for a former manager of a youth- serving agency in Toronto. 19. "N. King" is the pseudonym for a manager of a youth-serving agency in Toronto.
20. In this sentence the interviewee, a manager of a youth agency, encapsulates some of the contested discourse on Jaques himself. In contrast to the predominant media image of Jaques as an "innocent' 'shoe-shine boy" (see Ng, l98l), another image of the 12-year-old boy as having "really" been a prostitute is put forward by some, including some social workers.
21. For further information on work at Covenant House-Toronto in its early years see a research study that was conducted with the full cooperation of the agency in 1984-5 : Adolescent Runaways. Causes and Consequences, by M.D. Janus (a Paulist priest), A. McCormack et al (1987)- 22. See Ng (1981), who reports: "After the massive crackdown of pornography and prostitution in August 1977 [after the Jaques murder], an anti-pornography church-politicians group was established, headed by the Roman Catholic archbishop in Toronto" (p.2) - 23. 25 June, 1977, p.1 24. Catholic Register, July 9, 1977, p.3. 25. August 13, 1977, p.1.
26. Catholic Register, July 15, 1978, p.7.
27. Catholic Register, July 15, 1978, p.7. Father Macdonald also argued that the closure of the body-rub shops on Yonge St. after the Jaques murder had made the sex-trade more, not less visible: "The wheeling and dealing on the sex market was probably there before, but now that most of the body rub shops are closed itls a lot more visible to the public" (Catholic Register, July 15, 1978, p.7).
28. See "Archdiocesan Initiative. Toronto to give Help to Street Kidslr (Catholic Register, October 24, 1981, p.3) .
29. Catholic Register, October 24, 1981, p.3. 30. The shelter was to be in a "converted 'new wave' nightclub near the Yonge St. strip, the mecca that draws runaway youth to Toronto with promises of glamour and excitement" (Catholic Register, October 24, 1981, p.3). The annual operating budget of the shelter would be $1.5 million, of which Covenant House-New York would contribute a projected 25 percent, and the balance would be provided by Sharelife, the Toronto Catholic fundraising organization.
31. October 24, 1981, p.3.
32. Catholic Register, October 24, 1981, p. 3) . The following year an editorial in the Catholic Register on "Youth in Crisis" drew on similar notions of family breakdown and moral decay: "A 1979 report indicated that Metro Toronto Police came into contact with over 7,500 runaways that year. They are victims of broken homes and an uncaring envir~nment~~.The editorial went on to discuss youth suicide and drug use and suggesting that, "when they needed guidance, we gave them permissiveness' (January 30, 1982). 33. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines "tenderloin" as US. slang for a district of a city where "vice and corruption" are prominent. "P. Irvine" is the pseudonym for the manager of a youth-serving agency in Toronto. 34. Regarding Cardinal Carter's persona1 role in the establishment of Covenant House, see also the one-page ''History of Covenant House Toronto" (rnimeo, n.d., available from Covenant House). This history indicates that Carter saw homeless and runaway "children every day from the windows of his archdiocese officesw. The quotations from this document and from the interview with Irvine are favourable about Carter's involvernent in the project. However, there were criticisms. Covenant House's interna1 study of its "Community Impact" (February 8, 1983) found that representatives of many other agencies referred to the shelter as "the 'Cardinal's pet projectt or the 'Cardinal's baby' [and] 'The situation was very political, the Cardinal used his influence to make it happen'" (p.13). 35. Catholic Register, October 24, 1981, p.3.
36. Globe and Mail, March 1, 1990, p.Al5.
37. N. King, the pseudonym for a senior manager with a child welfare agency, pointed out in an interview (1996) with me that broader shifts in child welfare strategies are significant to this history, but that these shifts could be contested from within or contradictory: One of the things you need to understand in this context is how child welfare has changed in that we have moved away radically from servicing youth and children in care towards more.. . caring for kids in their own families, [...] There was a very major change in 1984, with the Child and Farnily Services Act ... which introduced the notion of the llleast intrusive option Y.. which would rnean providing every alternative short of bringing that child into care. [... But] organizations don't always work in concert, and they didnlt then [regarding juvenile prostitutes], so the left hand didn' t know what the right hand was doing, so we as an agency were moving to a less intrusive and more supportive approach, but there were elements of the system that were taking an extremely intrusive approach. 38. On feminism and subjugated knowledge about child sexual abuse see Bell (1993).
39. The Interagency Committee consisted of representatives of the Childrenls Aid Society of Metro Toronto; Jewish Family and Child Services; Native Child and Family Services; Catholic Children's Aid Society; Evergreen-Yonge St. Mission; Covenant House; Youthlink-Inner City; the Ontario judiciary; the YMCA; and Street Outreach Services-Anglican Houses. 40. "Protocol regarding the Provision of services of Homeless and Runaway youth under sixteen years of agel' (1993), p.2. The protocol is available from the Childrenrs Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto.
41. For research on these issues see Janus et al (1987), Kufeldt and Burrows (l994), McCullagh and Greco (1990). See also the work of journalists such as Webber (1991). 42. The term "street-involved youth" has gained currency in recent years partly in order to include young people who are not currently homeless; sometimes called "curb kidsl', they "have strong identification and interaction with street youth ... They are at high risk of becoming street youthl' (Protocol, p.7) . 43. The Toronto estimate was made in an Addiction Research Foundation study (Smart et al, 1992). In the U.S. Kruks (1991) estimated 25-35 percent for Los Angeles, and the Orion Center estimated 40 percent for Seattle (1986). 44. Report No. 14, November 27, 1995, available in the Urban Affairs Library.
45. 'l Interagency Protocol", p. 5.
46. The continuing popular construction of street youth as vulnerable to sexual exploitation is not the focus of my work. It can be found in news reports (Globe and Mail, July 14, 1995, p.A7) and books such as Marlene Webber's Street Kids. The Tragedy of Canada's Runaways (lggl), which features a photo of what appears to be a young female prostitute on the cover. My analysis only concerns developments in Metro Toronto. In recent years London, Ontario has been the scene of a concerted effort by the police and social services to control prostitution among young males. The arrest of several male customers of these prostitutes has led to an extended struggle between local gay activists and the police chief, Julian Fantino (see numerous articles by Joseph Couture in Xtra in 1995, 1996 and 1997). See also recent political and social service strategies regarding youth and child prostitution in Alberta (Globe and Mail, February 8, 1997, p.3). 47. In recent years the Childrenrs Aid Society of Metro Toronto (CASMT) has established policies and programs in support of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, including a residential program. See the 1995 report of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth Project of CASMT, We Are Your Children Too. Accessible Child Welfare Services for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth, and "New gay home takes in kids. House rules specify no sex, no drugs", Xtra, May 9, 1996. 151
Globe and Mail, October 7, 1995, Al, 2; Toronto Star, October 1995, A6. Overall figures for the cuts, by program, can be found in a news release frorn the Premierls Press Office, "Ministry Reductions Released" (October 6, 1995, available from MCSS) which says "Community Youth Support - funding eliminated" (p.6). The 1995 Communi ty Agency Survey. Metropolitan Toronto is a report of a comprehensive study of the impact of the cuts on various sectors, it occasionally mentions youth services; the study was jointly sponsored by the Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto, Metro Community Services and the City of Toronto (1996). Details of the budgets of voluntary social service agencies are treated as confidential, even when they receive substantial public monies. These figures and details of program changes were provided by Graham Vardy (then Program Manager of Youthlink-Inner City) and Susan Miner, Executive Director of Street Outreach Services, at a meeting that 1 attended of the Coalition for Services for Lesbian and Gay Youth, October 30, 1995; these announcernents were recorded in the minutes of the meeting. See similar information in the Coalition's brief report Tracking the Impact of the Harris Cuts on LesBiGay Youth (November, 1995) . 50. Regarding the impact of the Harris cuts on homeless people generally, see City of Toronto Neighbourhoods Cornmittee l'Report No. 14" (November, 1995); a memo from the City of Toronto, Departments of Planning, Housing and Public Health to the Neighbourhoods Committee on "Tracking the Impact of Provincial Cuts" (February 29, 1996); and a report from the Metro Advisory Committee on Homeless and Socially Isolated Persons, "Evictions and Homelessness. Proposais for a Metropolitan Toronto Action Plan" (March, 1996). (These documents are available in the Urban Affairs Library) , Regarding news reports of increases in the number of homeless people, including youth see "Hostels full, beds crisis looms", Toronto Star, October 21, 1995, pA3; "$216,500 plan backed to help horneless", Toronto Star, November 16, 1995, p.A6; "Toronto homeless f locking to hostels", Globe and Mail, November 23, 1995, p.Al. Deaths among horneless people are reported in "Death on our streets" Toronto Star, February 2, 1996, p.Al; and murders of prostitutes in "2 transvestites gunned downfl,Toronto Star, May 22, 1996, p.A6; "Policinq increased after three slain", Globe and Mail, May 23, 1996, p.Al4. Concerning street youth protests and squatting as a result of cuts in funding see "Help is there for youths who are ready to accept itn, Globe and Mail, May 11, 1996, p-AlO; "Street kids find aIly, defender in marijuana-smoking a~tivist~~,Toronto Star, May 11, 1996, p.Al. 51. HIV infection is one of the issues that concerns professionals who deploy risk-reduction strategies with street youth. Expert knowledge on HIV and street youth has been developing for a number of years. See, for example, Athey, 1991; King et al, 1988; Radford et al, 1989. 52. "R. Hughes" is the pseudonym for a manager of a Toronto youth-serving agency. 53. A Youthlink-Inner City internal program history states that their HIV prevention work began in 1987. See Graham Vardy's "Chronology of Service and Program Development" (February, 1995 1 . 54. It is also true that another service for street youth, the Shout Clinic, was relatively unscathed by the provincial funding cuts in 1995 because most of its budget came from the Ministry of Health, rather than Community and Social Services. 55. An internal Covenant House study of the response of other agencies to the establishment of its shelter suggested that this critique of Covenant Housers autonomy from state funding pre- dated the funding cuts of the mid-1990s: "Respondents [suggested] that they and other agencies should have been consulted and their recommendations considered during the process cf program planning. That this did not occur had underscored for them the program's strong political and financial backing which they resent" ("Toronto Community Impact Study. Executive Sumrnary", January 31, 1983). In the "Final Report" on this research (February 8, 1983) it was reported that other agencies felt that "the amount of money that Under 21 was receiving through the Archdiocese and subsequently the Ministry, was felt to be exorbitant, particularly as compared to the smaller operating budgets of many of the other youth serving agencies ... one respondent ... [asked] 'How did they get so much money?'" (p.13)@ (Both documents are available from Covenant House) . 56. Tsubouchils speech to the Standing Committee on Estimates on 6 February 1996 (Hansard, 1996a, p.E-113).
57. Hansard, 6 February 1996, p.E-115.
58. This llBusinessPlanu is available from MCSS. See p.4. 59. See Minister Zanana Akandels speech to the Standing Committee on Estimates (12 February 1991) regarding lrprinciples of empowerment, consultation, CO-operation and accountability" (Hansard, p. E-58) . 60. See Boydrs speech to the Standing Committee on Estimates, 4 October 1992, (Hansard, p.E-357). 61. Regarding the different approaches of the NDP and the Cornmon Sense Revolution, the managers of two street youth agency said the following: At the province they donlt talk, they donrt ask for our opinion, they just said "That's it", "It's ail over "... There's a mean-spiritedness ... A significant thing about the NDP government was that they talked to everybody, they were very inclusive ("Wiebe", Interview, 1996) . There was an ability to access government structures to at least be heard ... and an understanding of some of the issues ... [Now] the government is not listening, we're not being able to meet with politicians who really understand what the issues are ("Vuangl', Interview, 1996) . ('T. Vuang" is the pçeudonym for the manager of a youth- serving agency in Toronto.) Another example was the Toronto Council for Children and Youth which was established as a sectoral planning body under the New Democratic government, only to lose Ministry support when the party in power changed: The initiative came from the Ministry, it was part of their policy that every area will have their own planning group of service providers, users and interested community members ... It has barely got started when the Ministry pulled al1 funding and wouldn' t come to any more meetings ("Hughes", Interview, 1996). 62. Boydls speech to the Standing Committee on Estimates on 6 October 1992 (Hansard, p. E-359) . 63. Silipols speech to the Standing Committee on Estimates on 13 September 1994 (Hansard, p. E-577) . Chapter 4
Governing l1Familyl1and "Sp~usal~~Etelationships
In this chapter 1 discuss competing strategies for governing 'lspousesfv and '.the familyn through a detailed examination of recent developments in Ontario concerning lesbian and gay relationships. 1 focus upon debates about Bill 167 and other Ontario statutes and examine the class implications of same-sex spousal recognition . 1 argue that although the
Conservative Party opposed Bill 167 in 1994, its record on lesbian and gay relationships since coming to power in 1995 has not been consistently hostile. The Barris goverment intervened to oppose equal recognition of lesbian and gay llspousesll in prominent court cases; at the same time it passed Bill 19, regarding health case, which quietly provided a definition of llpartnersll which could include same-sex couples. This success may only have been possible because recognition of lesbian and gay relationships was a minor element rather than the central goal of the legislation, permitting much of the political struggle to be avoided.
1 also suggest that class may become a more significant 155
social division among lesbians and gay men as advances in human
rights protection open social space to people who had fomerly
been criminalized and marginalized. Since these basic legal
rights have been won in Ontario, community organizations and
individual advocates have been fighting for recognition of same-
sex relationships. 1 argue that victories in this area, through
private welfare and state recognition, will increase class
divisions among lesbians and gay mer.. They will also introduce
into gay relationships the enforced dependence with which
heterosexual relationships have been and continue to be
regulated, and will draw couples and families into the
responsibilizing strategies of neo-liberalism,
Struggles to win legal or state recognition of lesbian and
gay relationships have been a key strand of lesbian and gay
politics in Ontario since the mid-1980s, with much attention
f ocussed upon individual court cases and cornplaints to the
Ontario Human Etights Commission. The initiative in these
struggles has rested less with provincial or local political
organizations fighting for lesbian and gay rights, and more with
individual lesbian and gay activists whose legal cases have then been supported by trade unions and by gay organizations. Karen
Andrews, and her union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees 156
(CUPE), led the first campaign in Ontario under the slogan 'We are Familyn (Andrews, 1989; Herman, 1990) . In 1988 Andrews was ultimately unsuccessful in her challenge to the exclusion of lesbian and gay couples and their children frorn the cheaper llfamilyn premiums paid to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan.
Since then a number of cases have moved through the courts, including Brian Mossop's case against the federal government for denying family bereavement leave to lesbian and gay employees, and Michael Leshner ' s successful and poli tically significant challenge to the exclusion of the partners of lesbian and gay provincial government employees f rom den ta1 , heal th and O ther employment benefitsl.
These efforts to win legal recognition and employee bene£i ts for same-sex relationships have not been without controversy within lesbian and gay communities. Since the time of the gay libration and womenqs Iiberation rnovements, in the early 19709, a significant current of thought among lesbian and gay male activists has been critical of developments which would mimic heterosexual marriages . Proponents of the struggle for relationship recognition have countered with the argument that gay and lesbian marriages would undermine and transform traditional forms of marriage. Many of these issues have been debated in the gay and lesbian popular press and in acaddc 157
publications; however, as Brenda Cossman has pointed out (1994,
1996), differences have been put aside or minimised during
moments when political victories seemed possible or homophobic
opposition gained an upper hand. This tactical unity could be
seen during Karen Andrews1 IvWe are family" campaign in the
19809, and during the provincial parliamentary debates on Bill
167 in 19942. However, two years after the defeat of Bill 167,
Tom Warner, chair of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in
Ontario, which had created the Campaign for Equal Families,
questioned whether another version of the Bill should be a
political goal in the future. Speaking in July 1996 at a public
forum on relationship recognition, Warner said, "We don ' t need
to have our relationships legitimized or recognized. We donlt
need heterosexuals to find us acceptable"".
The Failure of Bill 167
In this section 1 analyze political discourse on Bill 167,
the NDPvs effort to pass legislation recognising same-sex
relationships. Lesbian and gay supporters of the bill focussed upon similarities between gay families and other families, and
the Rae goverment defensively emphasised that the bill would not change marriage. I suggest that supporters and opponents of 158 the bill were contesting the meaning of "familyW, but the NDP1s decision to allow a free vote constituted the issue as a moral one and prepared the ground for the defeat of the bill.
The Ontario Human Rights Commissionrs decision in favour of
Michael Leshner in 1992 was a significant moment in the growing political pressure on the NDP provincial government to provide sonte form of legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships.
Other influences were the release of an Ontario Law Reform
Codssion report recommending the recognition of "a diversi ty of family f~rms~~(Cossman, 1996; Cossman and mer, 1993), the occupation of the Premier's office by members of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario (CLGRO)', and the tefusal of an NDP Riding Association to nominate a candidate for a provincial by-election, which led to the subsequent election of the Liberal Party candidate5.
In May 1994, the NDP Attorney-General? Marion Boyd, introduced Bill 167, or the Equality Rights Statute Law
Amendment Act, which aimed to give lesbian and gay couples the same legal rights and obligations as those enjoyed by common-law heterosexual couples. Bill 167 revised the Ontario Human Rights
Code and 57 Ontario statutes, changing their definitions of wspouselwto include same-sex couples.
Following Marion Boydls announcement, the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario formed the Campaign for Equal
Families to organize support for the bill6. It is interesting
to examine the discourse deployed by this new organization. The
Campaignls lobbying was organized primarily around the category
"familyw; to a lesser extent wrelationshipvlwas deployed, while
"partnerW was mentioned infrequently, and wspousew qui te rarely .
A widely used leaflet said, "The Campaign for Equal Families
Asks You to Support Lesbian and Gay Families and Our Human
RightsVv;and The Cknnibus Bill is About Human Riahts Not Special
Rightsvl (emphasis in original) . This leaflet went on to Say:
Al1 people seek to build and protect their families. Gay and lesbian citizens are not different. What we ask for Our families is not different than what you would want for your own. Respect, dignity and freedom from discrimination. These are the cornerstones of our society... Recognizing same-sex relationships is a hwnane and decent step forward towards ending discrimination agains t lesbian and gay citizens and according us the same rights and obligations that most citizens in Ontario take for granted. It means ending bla tant discrimination agains t gays and lesbians and our families. 1 means treating gay and lesbian relationships Eairly. It means a measure of equality under the law. It means valuing every member of society equally7.
The Campaign was attempting to situate political debate about Bill 167 within liberal discourses concerning "equalityw,
"ci tizenshipvl, and llhuman rightsW1,as well as wi thin discourses concerning Yhe EamilyV1. A news release prepared by the
Campaign for a press conference was entitled "Recognition of Lesbian and Gay Families is a Human Rights Issue", and it cited
the support of a former Chief Corcunissioner of the Ontario Human
Rights Commission. It also quoted Mary-Woo Sims, Co-Chair of
the Campaign for Equal Families :
Unfortunately, Bill 167 has been painted as a "gay rightsw bill by opponents of equality for our families. This is not just a gay rights issue. It is a human rights issue. . .'.
One of the first press conferences organized in support of the Campaign was held by the Ontario Association of Professional Social Workers . The news release was titled "Gays and Lesbians
Make Good Parents Argue Social Workersw, and quoted prominent social workers who stated that:
The fact is that gays and lesbians are forming family units and raising children in increasing nwnbers in our communities. This is not a cause for alam. However, it does mean that our social policy must reflect this reality. These couples and ramilies have the same need for spousal benefits as do heterosexuals ... Based on an extensive review of the evidence, 1 want to Say very clearly that there is no reason to believe that gay and lesbian couples can't do the job of forming healthy families and raising happy children. . .'.
A later news release from the Campaign was entitled
"Lesbian and Gay Parents Urge Ontario's Provincial Legislators to End Discriminationtv,and again drew upon expert knowledge concerning the parenting abilities of lesbians and gay men:
The findings of more than three dozen psychological studies show no difference in social or emotional development between children raised by lesbian and gay parents and those reared by heterosexual parents ... The studies confirm what my children take for granted - that the quality of our family has nothing to do with my sexual orientation and everything to do with the love and support 1 can pr~vide~~,said Car1 Miller. . who single parents two daughters [and says] "This act will strengthen and preserve our families, providing our children with the right to financial support from non-biological parents and the security of knowing that if a parent should die, it will keep our families intact"...
As part of their briefing material for lobbying MPPs, the
Campaign prepared a l'fact sheetVwon matriage. This leaflet argued that the provincial goverrunent does not have the power to change the definition of marriage nor llwho can participate in this institutionl1. Bill 167 merely provided lesbian and gay partners with the same legal status as that gained by corrunon-law heterosexual relationships in Ontario in the 1970s:
Recognizing these common law relationships did not bring an end to socîety, to responsibility, to couples raising children together or to any of the other functions that we value and that families carry out. But it did bring to an end the uncertainty and the fear that many people experienced because their relationships were not recognized under the law... This is not the same thing as giving gay and lesbian citizens the right to marry - but it is a fair and just thing to do1'.
Thus the Carnpaign for Equal Families challenged traditional definitions of "familyw while making limited daims for human rights and equality. Rather than challenging the legal benefits accorded to married couples, or the familialism of social policies, the discourse deployed by the Campaign suggested that gay couples and families were just as good as heterosexual
The Attorney-General, the Premier and other Ministers who spoke in favour of Bill 167 clearly drew material from briefing packages provided by the Campaign for Equal Families, while also deploying their own argumentsu. men she brought the bill forward, Marion Boyd argued that it would:
ensure that al1 common-law couples, regardless of their se%, will enjoy equal rights in Ontario. Our legislation will not, however, change the special status in our traditions and laws regarding marriage, as marriage is a federal jurisdiction (Hansard, 19 May 1994, ~~6454)~.
Marion Boyd attempted to set Bill 167 in the province's
"strong tradition of human rights legislation":
This means that the discriminatory treatment of same- sex spouses will be prohibited in al1 areas which are covered by the Ontario Human Etights Code. . . In addition this bill ensures that same-sex spouses have al1 the same obligations as other unmarried spouses, including obligations to support one another financially when that relationship cornes to an end (Hansard, 1 June 1994, p.6573).
Boyd also argued that in recent decades, there had been enormous changes in the composition and structure of families:
Families may now be made up of single parents and their children, married couples with without children, same- or opposite-sex couples who live together in a commi tted relationship outside of marriage, wi th or without children. Many familias today are blended families in which one or more of the children are from a previous relationship. Whatever their form, families deserve our protection and our support. Bill 167 respects the rights of individuals to zctake their own choices about their personal relationships and ensures continuing public support for Ontario l s families in al1 their diverse forms . . . [Tl here is a real hunger for people to see in the public policy of goverment more explicit support for the family in al1 its forms (Hansard, 1 June 1994, p. 6575-6) 14.
However, much of the goverment's rationale for the bill was defensive. Boyd argued that existing legislation did not meet the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms and that it would be difficult to defend provincial
legislation against charter challenges in the court^'^. Boyd also emphasised the limitations of the ~ill,for example, that
it did not redefine marriage or automatically provide gay and lesbian couples with adopted childrenl".
The purpose of anti-discrimination laws is not to promote the group interest per se, but to ensure that individuals who are mersof a disadvantaged group are treated fairly ... 1 think it is important at this point to address four important things which this bill does not do. First, it does not redefine or affect the institution of marriage. Second, it does not create a so-called right to adopt children. Third, it does not impose aignificant costs. Fourth, it does not take away rights from anyone else (Hansard, 1 June 1994, p. 6573) .
Frances Lankin , NDP Minis ter of Economic Development , who
Woke strongly in favour of Bill 167, also emphasised that the bill would not change marriage. Lankin s speech referred to the number of religious leaders who were supporting the bill1', and the number of companies who had already offered their employees
same-sex employment benefitsl'.
The Premier, Bob Rae, argued that lesbians and gay men had
a right to "their own partnershipsVr.
[Blécause there are enduring partnerships between gay and lesbian people, those partnerships are entitled to equality before the law , those partnerships are entitled to a sense of respect before the law. 1 happen to believe that the courts will find their way to that conclusion, but 1 also happen to believe that it isnlt right, even with the charter, for legislators to back off and Say, 'Oh, we'll let the courts decide that. Thatls too difficult an issue, thatzs tao hot a topic. . . (Hansard, 9 June 1994, p. 6797) .
Bob Rae argued that provincial legislation should reflect
the secular and diverse nature of Ontario society:
[To those who] don% want the law to even countenance the very idea of homosemial partnerships ... in a secular society such as ours and in a diverse society such as ours and in a society such as ours which ref lects dif ferent values, different traditions , different people, people who live differently, it is only right and fair that the law should reflect them as well (Hansard, 9 June 1994, p.6797).
Rae listed a large number of private companies, hospitals, universities, and local governments that had provided employment benefits to the partners of lesbian and gay employees, and stated:
These are not radical organizations. When the Royal Bank, Sears , Ryerson Polytechnic University , the Wellesley Hospital and London Life Insurance can ail agree that itls time to move ahead, who are we as a Legislature to fa11 behind? (Hansard, 9 June 1994, p.6796) . The leader of the opposition Liberal party, Lynn McLeod
stated that while she supported the extension of employment benefits to same-sex couples, she was opposed to re-definitions of "spouse" and VamilyW. Mike Harris, who was then the leader of the Conservative party, did not speak in the legislature on
Bill 167. However, the following report appeared in the press concerning his position on the issues raised by Bill 167 :
Mr. Harris told reporters he is against changing the definition of spouse and that he does not want the legislature wasting time debating the issue. "We ' re tired of being asked if we are for or against things we shouldn't even be talking about when the economy is in the state it is," said the Conservative leader, who has been away from the legislature for most of the past two weeks to sel1 his "Cornmon Sense Revolutionv (Globe and Mail, May 20, 1994, p. Ag).
With this statement Harris suggested that recognition of lesbian and gay relationships was a trivial matter.
One of the most outspoken opponents of the bill in the
Legislature was an NDP MPP, George Mamnoliti. He argued that if lesbian and gay relationships were legally recognized, then some cultural communities would expect recognition of their multiple wives, implying that he was defending a European notion of marriage. Mammoliti also rejected the recognition of siblings or other CO-residing relatives as partners , a strategy which had been proposed by the Federal governrnent to avoid explici tly recognising same-sex spousesls : [With the] 111 or 112 different cultures that exist in the province of Ontario at this point, those cultures that believe they could and should have the right to be married five and six times and have five or six wives will corne knocking on our door and ask us to extend benefits to them as well, . , [1Jf this legislation were to go through, is it not our responsibility as members to stand up and represent the others who might claim that their human rights are at risk? Should not two sisters or two brothers or a daughter and a granddaughter share benefits? Should an aunt and a niece share benefits? (Hansard, 2 June 1994, p.6634).
Mammoliti argued that the high proportion of HIV-positive people who were gay men, and the opposition of people who linked lesbians and gay men to vlunacceptablevl sema1 practices that
"turn sex into a toy or a gamevl, were reasons for voting against the bill. He listed sexual practices discussed in a HIV prevention booklet, and suggested that Bill 167 would legitimise those practices and would therefore jeopardize children:
My question-,. is, does this go on? And if it goes on, do you believe that i t ' s fundamentally acceptable to include the adoption of children? What will that do to society as we know it in 100 years? ... 1 believe that children pick up from their parents, and if we extend the defini tion of "spousew and open up tradi tional families, those children will be influenced in a way that we'll never, ever forget (Hansard, 2 June 1994, p. 6634 -5) -
Much of the opposition to Bill 167 had been gathering strength during the previous year, becoming visible through petitions to the Ontario Legislature. In the summer of 1993 two private membersl bills were introduced: Bill 45 aimed to change the definition of spouse in the Human Rights Code to include lesbian and gay relationships; Bill 55 prohibited the promotion of hatred against any group protected by the Ontario Human
Rights Code. While these private-membersl bills were still being considered by the Legislature, they were superseded by
Bill 167, which proposeci more wide-ranging changes. These bills prompted the introduction of hundreds of petitions to Queen's
Park in 1993 and 1994 opposing legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships; they were usually presented by Conservative
MPPs. Sometimes they were simply read into the record; at other times an MPP would announce that he or she had personally signed the petition. An exarnple was a petition from the Waterloo area which argued that the bills would:
redefine the family as we know it ... [And] since the words llsexual orientationw have not been defined in the Ontario Human Rights Code, may include sado- masochism, paedophilia, bestiality etc, and since sexual orientation is elevated to the same level as morally neutral characteristics of religion, race, sex... Bill 55 is a grave threat to free speech in a democratic society. Bill 45 is also an attack on freedom of religion against historical Christianity which does not condone homosexuali ty (Hansard, 23 November 1993, p.4217) .
On the same day another petition from the menbers of a rural Baptist church raised similar concerns.
Welre also concerned that Bill 55 could prohibit our freedom to talk about our views on homosexuality and legitirnizes a particular conviction/behaviour and silences debate concerning semial orientation with criminal consequences for such debate . We believe tha t these bills make the government more intrusive than is justifiable in a free and democratic society (Hansard, 23 November 1993, p.4217) .
With the introduction of Bill 167 in May 1994, a flood of
hostile petitions were read into the parliamentary record at
Queen1s Park, One of those suggested that:
. . . The name of Adam's companion was Eve, not Steve . . . The ability to adopt children will only lead to the extension of their iifestyle. since the animals of the field show now evidence of it, why should we, the ones who are supposed to have more sense, approve of this bill? (Hansard, 2 June 1994, p. 6622) .
A petition brought forward and signed by the Conservative
MPP for E tobicoke-Humber included the following arguments :
We, the undersigned, are totally opposed to the proposed legislation ... [which would] have a devastating effect on the moral and social fabric of the province (Hansard, 2 June 1994, p.6622).
A significant player in the opposition to Bill 167 was the
Toronto Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church. On Sunday,
May 29, 1994, a pastoral letter from Archbishop Aloysius
Ambrozic was read to Catholic congregations; it argued that while individual lesbians and gay men should be granted acceptance and should not be discriminated against, their relationships should not be legally recognized:
The Church makes a clear distinction between sexual orientation and semial activity. . . It 's not sinful to have homosermal tendencies, but sexual acts between people of the same sex are morally wrong because they do not respect the plan of God in creating us male and fernale-.. homosexuals are often treated in ways that are cruel, deeply disrespectful and discriminatory . Like everyone else, homosexual persons need the experience of acceptance, friendship and love from others. As indiviàuals they must have me same legal protections and basic human rights that al1 citizens of our province enjoy. Homosemial relationships, however, are not, and indeed cannot be conjugal relationships. They do not qualify for the rights and benefits that are accorded to married and common-law couples. Any attempt to promote a homosexual lifestyle as the equivalent of legal marriage must be vigorously opposed. It is a matter of considerable urgency, and to that end we are asking you to write to your local member of provincial parliament to protest the proposed legislation [emphasis in original]20.
Catholic parish priests were instructed to provide pens and paper so that rnembers of their congregations could write letters to their MPPs after the service.
On June 9, 1994, Bill 167 was defeated by a margin of nine votes after the Eiae government allowed a free vote by members of
1 would argue that the NDPqs decision to allow the success or failure of Bill 167 to be determined by a free vote constituted same-sex relationship recognition as a moral issue.
In the parliamentary tradition, Vree votes" are usually reserved for issues, such as abortion and capital punishment, which are believed to raise moral rather than political or policy questions. This was a significant concession to the opponents of the bill, who certainly attacked its provisions in moral terms . Mammoli ti linked same-sex spousal recognition to 170 disease and to dangers to children, and numerous petitions and the official statement of the Catholic Church suggested that passage of Bill 167 would jeopardize the province's llmoral fabriciW.
The Success of Health Care Legislation
This section is devoted to an analysis of health care legislation passed by both the NDP and the Conservatives, which, in contrast to Bill 167, opened space for the recognition of same-sex relationships under particular circumstances. 1 will first discuss the NDP legislation and then the Conservative laws which overturned many of their provisions, while retaining their def initions of "partnerW,
In 1992, two years before Bill 167 was introduced, the NDP had passed the Substitute Decisions Act, the Consent to
Treatment Act, and their companion, the Advocacy Act. These
Acts pennitted the inclusion of lesbian and gay couples, and were particularly welcomed by organizations for people with HIV or AIDS*', The Advocacy Act aimed to contribute to the empowennent of '~vulnerable personsV1 and to provide advocacy services for people with disabilities particularly in relation to their rights and to their interactions with health and social According to the former Attorney-General , Howard Hampton, who introduced the Substitute Decisions Act, that Act was intended to allow people to make plans regarding property and persona1 care in the case of a future time when they would not be capable of making those decisions. It also aimed to protect the rights of the incapable and '%top [their] financial exploitation. . . physical abuse and neglectw2*. The Substitute
Decisions Act defined qqspouseslvas a couple of the "opposite sexl' who were mrried or living together in a "conjugal relationship outside marriage" (Section 1 (1)) . 1t also defined wpartnersm:
Two persons are partners for the purpose of this Act if they have lived together for at least one year and have a close persona1 relationship that is of primary importance in both personsl lives ...
The Consent to Treatment Act aimed to give people the right to make their own decisions about health treatments and provided procedures for occasions when they were incapable of making those decisions the~nselves~~.1t featured the same defini tions of ql~p~~~eqland "partnersqq as the Substitute Decisions Act. A booklet designed to explain this Act to the public, Consent to
Treatment. A Guide tu the Act, expanded on the defini tion of
Examples might be same-sex partners or two elderly siblings who have lived together for many years . For ease of discussion the term IvpartnerW should be understood to be included when family members are mentioned as substi tute decision makers (Ontario Ministry of Health, 1994, p.13).
In 1995 the Harris government introduced Bill 19 which revised the three NDP Acts discussed above . It repealed the Advocacy Act and the Consent to Treatment Act, and amended the
Substitute Decisions Act. Charles Harnick , the Attorney-General of Ontario, introduced Bill 19 by saying that:
This important new law will reduce government interference in the private affairs of individuals. It will also place decision-making where it belongs--in the hands of individuals and their families (Hansard, 5 February 1996, p. J-11) .
Harnick differentiated the new bill from the previous legislation, arguing that it reflected:
[Tl his governmentvsbelief that the majority of family members, service providers and caregivers are acting in good faith and with good intentions (Hansard, 5 February 1996, p. 5-12) .
The Minister of Health, Jim Wilson, introduced the health- related sections of the bill with the following words:
The new Health Care Consent Act gives famiiy members clearer legal authority to make decisions for their incapable loved ones without the unwarranted interference of the state. . . These changes will . . . continue to honour people's wishes about treatment, such as their living wills and advance directives; keep the government out of family matters and strengthen the family 's role [ . . . and] reinforce the positive role of health care providers (Hansard, 5 In revising the Substitute Decisions Act, Bill 19 re- affid the previous definition of **relativesnas "two personsw who are "relateci by blood, marriage or adoption", but it did not provide definitions of "spouseW or "partnerW1. Later sections of the Bill make reference to lvspouse or partner" (7.(1) and
17. (1)) , suggesting that the NDP s open def inition of "partnern is still recognised. A large part of Bill 19 was a replacement for the Consent to Treatment Act, entitled the Health Care
Consent Act, 1996. This new Act provided definitions of
*l~p~u~el*and "partner" which were exactly the same as those of the previous NDP legi~lation~~.When Jim Wilson made a speech on the Bill to the Standing Committee on Administration of Justice, he did not refer to its recognition of partners (Hansard, 5
February 1996, p. 5-14).
A nrunber of organizations made deputations to the Standing
Codttee on Administration of Justice, including one by Father
Thomas Lynch, representing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of
Toronto . His presentation focussed upon three issues :
the concept and rights of the family, the inclusion of nutrition and hydration as treatment and the lack of a conscience clause for heal th care professionals (Hansard, 7 February 1996, p. 5-97). mgarding the family, Father Lynch argued that:
In our day the family is a much-threatened institution. Not only are social forces undedning much of the innate cohesiveness of the family, but there are powerful philosophical currents that seek a new understanding of the individual. . . The rights of the family are prior to the rights of the state.. . (Hansard, 7 February 1996, p- 5-97) .
It is interesting to note that despite the Catholic
Archdiocese ' s previous campaign against Bill 167, Father Lynch did not criticize Bill 19's definition of 'tpartners" for pedtting the recognition of lesbian and gay relationships . On the contrary, discussion of that issue was explicitly avoided, as the following exchange between Father Lynch and Marion Boyd shows :
Mrs Boyd: What you Say about family in terms of the importance of family, 1 certainly don't disagree with, although 1 think we might disagree with what the composition of that family might be. Father Lynch : Actually, i t ' s interesting you have 'vpartnerslr in the act. But let's not get into that. (Hansard, 7 February 1996, 5-100)
The reluctance of the representative of the Catholic Church to criticize the new Health Care Consent Act, when the
Archdiocese had been a leading critic of Bill 167, could be interpreted in a number of ways. It could have been the result of reluctance to enter into a struggle with Mike Harris's government, Or, perhaps when lesbian and gay relationships were only offered implicit recognition , without a declaration of their equality with heterosexual relationships, and without public fanfare and the attendant political struggle, then this would be accepted by the Catholic Church.
The Campaign Life Coalition of Ontario focussed their presentation on issues related to euthanasia and spoke strongly in favour of parents having increased rights to Wirect and control" the medical treatment receiveà by their teenage children, such as birth control, abortion and counselling about sexuality; they did not mention Bill 19's definition of partner.
Diane Watts, speaking on behalf of REAL Women of Canada, was also interested in parents' rights. Watts noted that the definition of partner:
does not provide that these partners be of the opposite sex. Our concern lies in the fact that this lrpartnerw, a relationship of only a minimum of one year, takes precedence over... al1 family members. This would appear to be an unduly harsh provision in that it excludes the family from a very sensitive and crucial decision and gives a partner the total decision-making authority . At the very least , this proposed legislation should require that a family rnember be notified and consulted in regard to the decision if a family member is available (Hansard, 13 February 1996, p. 5-258).
The definition of partner was criticised by a number of other arganizations with quite different concerns. The Ontario
AIDS Network queried whether the Bill s definition of "partnerW included same-sex couples and whether partners had greater authority than families. A representative of the Ministry of
Health was asked by Elinor Caplan to clarify these issues on the record and he responded: There's a recognition that people can becorne estranged from their families, for whatever reason, and they are more cornfortable with a partner making a decision than som relative out there. With that in mind, a partner ranks higher in this scale than any family member, regardless of whether the partner is a spouse or otherwise, and the def inition of "partner" , . . is drafted to include partners of the same sex (Hansard, 19 February 1996, p. 5-410).
Other organizations argued that the repeal of the Advocacy
Act and the provisions of Bill 19 could have a detrimental effect on lesbians and gay men who did not have partners. Nick
Mule presented a brief on behalf of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario (CLGRO) which raised this point:
The repeal of the Advocacy Act may directly affect those lesbians, gay men and bisexuals who have not delegated a power of attorney, are not in a recognized partnered relationship with a significant other of one year's duration or longer, are alienated from blood relatives and are incapable of determining their health and well being provisions (Hansard, 22 February 1996, p. 5-574) .
CLGRO argued that the previous Advocacy Act had offered protection to lesbians and gay men.
The Advocacy Act allows for intervention in a situation in which a lesbian, gay man or bisemial person were to be pressured to enter a custodial relationship with estranged people, such as blood relatives, or in which the vulnerable person were to receive treatment deemed adverse to his or her sema1 orientation, such as aversion therapy (Hansard, 22 Febmary 1996, p. 3-574).
Organizations who workeà with people with HW and AIDS also had criticisms of Bill 19 and its definitions of Vamilywland 177
lgpartnerrg,AIDS Action Now suggested that CO-residence should not be essential for two people to be designateci "partners", and
Jeffrey Cowan, speaking for the Ontario HIV and AIDS Legal
Clinic, argued that "partnerW was an inadequate category:
It was nice to see. , . a def inition of glpartnerrt. However, 1 suggest to you that in. . , almost a majority of circumstances, it is neither the family, nor is there a partner, who is making the decisions for these individuals; it is a friend or colleague, sorneone who has nothing to do in terms of bloodline or of relationship with the individual on an intimate basis who is helping make these decisions. So 1 suggest to you that you expand the def ini tion of Vamily". . . [AndJ oftentimes in terms of gay males or intravenous drug users, the person doesn t necessarily live wi th their partner but they may have an intimate relationship (Hansard, 8 February 1996, 5-192-3).
The HIV and AIDS Clinic was also critical of the sole that parents and other relatives attempted to play in the treatment of vulnerable people wi th AIDS~'.
Oftentimes when a family finds out that their loving son or daughter is sick with HIV, what ends up happening is that the family, the mother, the brother, swoops dom on them and takes over al1 of the control of their healthcare, of their finances, and basically shuts out of the picture individuals who are their pref erred individuals or their partners .. . probably three or four [times] in ten, the family interferes in the wishes of the individual. . . We don t really requise that much of families. We just want them to be there and to somehow have the similar structures of DM, and thatls al1 they're required to have. 1 think itls much more important for there to be some general system of vetting anybody who was going to be assuming the substitute decision role (Hansard, 8 February 1996, p. 5-192, 194, 195).
Bill 19 retained the broad definition of llpartnerlg introduced by the previous goverment. However, the
Conservative government did no t publicize that they were in effect recognising lesbian and gay relationships. At the same time, they abolished the Advocacy Commission, which the Rae government had established with a mandate to provide information to vulnerable or disabled people about their rights. During discussions at the Committee after the brief presented by the
Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights (Cm), a Conservative MPP said that she found it "incongruousn that CLGRO did not appear to be satisfied with the level of recognition afforded gay relationships in the bill. Nick Mule's response was that the problem was that lesbians and gay men might not be of their rights under the new legislation:
We are happy with [those clauses of the Bill] as long as people are aware of it. What wevre trying to highlight there is that the very role of the Advocaq Comnission would have been to inform people that they do have that option. 1 donlt have the greatest level of confidence that when someone is in an incapacitated state within the health care system, theylre going to be given al1 the options. . . What people know in the health care system is traditional family relations ... (Hansard, 22 February 1996, p. 5-576) .
Contradictions of the Cormon Sense Revolution
1 will now discuss some of the contradictions of the
Consenrative government. While Bill 19 quietly created some space for the recognition of lesbian and gay relationships in a limited area, in a prominent court case the Consematives opposeci the equality of lesbian and gay "spousesw. In Mary-WOO
Sims and Bill Dwyerwshuman rights case against the Municipality of Metropoli tan Toronto regarding employee benef its, the
Province acted as an intemenor against the complainants2'. The
Attorney-Geneal s position was that employee benefi ts , such as extended health care and survivorsr pensions, should be restricted to other-sex partners of employees on the following grounds :
an incremental approach to expanding protection against discrimination and extending benefits; concern with the addi tional cos ts and administrative burden; support for couples with capacity to procreate and which generally raise children in society; legislative consistency with other provincial statutes affecting employment and the [Income Tax Act] (Dwyer v. Toronto) 29 .
The Province's arguments were different from those of the body which was being sued, Metro Toronto. Metro focussed upon the f inancial costs of including same-sex spouses in employee benefits and argued that the ciefeat of Bill 167:
reflected the public will that society is not ready to make any additional incremental steps in these areas nos is it ready to adopt new ... values concerning the family, described as the fundamental building block of our society (para. 113) . Shifting Intersections Between Class and Sexuality
In this section 1 will explore sorne questions about social class and sexual identity that are aised when one examines efforts to achieve official recognition for lesbian and gay relationships . Some of the best scholarship on the history of sexuality has given serious consideration to the significance of class in the social construction of lesbian and gay identities
(Beamyn, 1997; Chauncey, 1994; DIEmilio, 1983; ~ennedy and
Davis, 1993; Kinsman, 1996; Weeks, 1981). In cornparison, C~SS has rarely ben addresseci in scholarship on contemporary lesbian and gay issues, two exceptions were Weston (1984) and Champagne
(1993). A recent popuïar publication explores gay men and lesbiansl rnemories of growing up and coming out in working-class families (Raffo, 1997), and classism in lesbian comunities has been occasionally discussed in the community press (Jensen,
1982; Hughes, 1987).
In the decades since the development of post-Stonewall lesbian and gay comunities, intersections between class and semal identities have occasionally emerged as issues for debate in the gay popular press, or more recently, in academic publications. One of these has concerned the role of gay men in the "gentrificationW of poor urban neighbou~hoods~~.In the
1990s we have witnessed an extraordinary growth in what has been 181
termed the Ilgay market1 and "lesbian chic"", at a tirne when
increasing numbers of poor people are begging on the streets of
Torontovs gay village. As 1 discussed in the previous chapter
on street youth, lesbians and gay men who are active in
community organizations or who work in social services are
drawing on research about gay homeless youth and other aspects
of poverty. Other sectors of lesbian and gay comunities
express hostility to the presence of "street peoplewfin their
mids t3*, These developments suggest that some aspects of
contemporary lesbian and gay identities are implicated in the
formation of middle-class and eli te cultural capi ta1 (Bourdieu,
1984), while other sectors of lesbians and gay men share the
economic and cultural resources of poor and working-class
people.
Some lesbian and gay scholars have provided descriptions of
the anergence of the gay market or focussed upon discrimination
against lesbian or gay consumers within other markets (DeLozier
and Rodrigue, 1996; Jones, 1996; Walters and Curran, 1996)-
Other scholars have critically analyzed these developments and
suggested that they have serious implications for lesbian and gay politics (Badgett, 1997; Baker, 1997; Gluckman and Reed,
1997a,b; Maynard, 1994; Penaloza, 1996; Robson, 1997).
1 would argue that recognition of lesbian and gay 182 relationships also has implications for deepening class divisions among lesbians and gay people. In Ontario, some of the most substantial gains for lesbian and gay couples have been won through systems of private welf are, particularly employee benefits which are only available to certain segments of the workforce, such as unionized workers , professionals and employees af large corporations. Court cases and union contracts have won spousal recognition at, for example, Cami
Automotive, the Globe and Mail, Northern Telecom, and various
Ontario universities . GLOBE (Gay and Lesbian Organization of
Bell Canada) , an employee group, persuaded Bell Canada to provide spousal benefits by launching a human rights cornplaint.
Other corporations off ered benef i ts to lesbian and gay employees either because of cornpetition for highly skilled personnel, for example in computer software and other high-tech industries, or because they anticipated human rights complaints, for example in large manuf acturing corporations and bank~~~.Thus the large numbers of lesbians and gay men who work in low-paid non- unionized service occupations do not have access to these benefits. As Patricia Lefebour (1993) noted, lesbians and gay men whose employers provided benefits such as prescription drugs, dental care, extended medical care, and prescription eyeglasses would receive further financial rewards from the official recognition of their relationships . Lefebour cited
Ministry of Health research indicating that:
approximately two million On tario residents have no access to extended drug plans. These people include the self-employed, people in non-unionized businesses, part-time workers, workers in small businesses which do not offer extended health plans, workers excluded from Company plans because of a pre-existing condition, workers wi th chronic illnesses whose premiums are higher than the amount covered by the insurer, and the children of those workers (Lefebour, 1993, p.279).
At the same tinte, recognition of lesbian and gay
relationships by state bodies would further penalize low-income
lesbians and gay men who might need to apply for social
assistance. During the debate on Bill 167, this was briefly
mentioned. A short news report in Xtra, the Toronto gay
newspaper, said that :
People with AIDS who have an Ontario drug card could lose benefits under the Ontario attorney-generalls spousal recognition bill. Many PWAs quit low-paying jobs in order to get on the welfare or family benefits rolls and obtain the card, which allows Eree access to potentially life-extending drugs. But itls harder to qualify for welfare if you have a spouse. It's most likely that the Ministry of Comunity and Social Services will send questionnaires to applicants that would determine whether a roommate is in fact a cornmon-law spouse, and consider that spousels economic means3',
This news report quoted extensively from Patricia
Lefebourls research, which was prepared before the introduction of Bi11 167. Lefebour (1993) argued that lesbians and gay men 184
who were on social assistance would face financial losses with
the legal recognition of their relationships. Lefebour found
that, under the Family Benefits Act and the General Welfare
Assistance Act, lesbians and gay men who CO-resided with people of the same gender would have their circumstances reviewed to determine if they were in a spousal relationship. This could mean financial losses and possibly the enforced dependence of poor lesbians and gay men on their partners3'. In 1996, two years after the defeat of Bill 167, Eric Dow, the Executive
Director of the People With AIDS Foundation, told a public forum
that the legal recognition of gay relationships could cause financial hardship for people with HIV and AIDS by reducing access to social assistance and the Trillium Drug Plan, a provincial program which pays for wcatastrophicw medications3'.
Claire Young's work is also relevant to this issue. Young has undertaken a detailed examination of the Canadian Income Tax
Act and the impact of relationship recognition on couples with dif ferent income levels (1994) . Young1s analysis indicated that the greatest financial benefit would be received by a lesbian or gay couple in which one partner had a vesy low income and was financially dependent on another (high income) partner . If both partners had low incomes, they would pay more income tax if their relationship was recognised by Revenue Canada than if it was not. In an article about Young's research in Xtra, Michael
Leshner (who had won the landmark 1992 court victory) and Philip
McAdam, another gay lawyer, argued that spousal recognition for
lesbian and gay couples would entail wresponsibilitieswas well
as rights. "But 1 think itrsworth it and 1 do believe in those
obligationsw, said McAdam; Leshner was quoted as saying:
The issue is: Whatever the rules are for society, they should be the same. If the goverment said welll make you equal, but youlre going to lose financially for it -- I1d jump at it3'.
Xtra noted that Leshner earned over $100,000 a year.
Young ' s research had shown that relationship recognition by
Revenue Canada would mean higher taxes for low-income gay and
lesbian couples.
Lefebour (1993) argued that same-sex spousal recognition by welfare authorities might lead to a situation in which the only lesbians and gay men who could proudly declare their relationships would be those whose economic means sheltered them
Erom the need to apply for welfare. These questions have provoked increasing controversy in the lesbian and gay popular press, suggesting that while the Campaign for Equal Families and the work of other advocates for spousal recognition have represented alternative strategies for forming and according social recognition to intimate relationships and families, they have been themselves challenged within lesbian and gay 186 comrnunities. At the same time, unemployment, homelessness and poverty among some sectors of lesbians and gay men, especially youth, suggests that the market" and same-sex spousal benefits are nat available to everyone who shares gay sexual identities . As some critics suggest, same-sex spousal recognition may not be worth the risk of deepening class divisions and reproducing the enforced dependency through which heterosexual relationships are regulated. As Gary Kinsman suggested, relationship recognition vwwould incorporate some
*queers into familial/spousal relations as sites for regulation and governancew (1996b, p.372).
Conclusions
Debates within lesbian and gay communities about relationship recognition have intensified in the years since the defeat of Bill 167. Many leading activists have become increasingly critical of the haphazard series of legal cases which have been setting legal precedents and social policy without adequate opportuni ties to debate alternatives within communities . In Vancouver, Barbara Findlay called on lesbian and gay organizations to fight for recognition of many types of families : We must fight these battles not on the basis that because we are "just like heterosexuals" we should get the wsamevvrights, but rather on the basis that we are one of many family forms which Canadian law should recognize. We donrt want to squeeze our rives into their definition while pulling the gate closed behind us to exclude other family forms (Findlay, 1996, p.14) .
Tom Warner, a leader of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay
Rights in Ontario, which had sponsored the Campaign for Equal
Families, published a critique of the Campaign. He argued that
its goals became narrowly focussed on legislative reform rather
than broader social change. It turned into "a conservative movement for accomodation within the status quow (Warner , 1997, p. 28) . Warner charged that internalized homophobia led many
lesbians and gay men to fight for the respectability that off icial recognition of relationships would offer . He also acknowledged that the canrpaign had failed to take account of the potential economic impact of Bill 167 on welfare recipients and
O ther groups .
Other developments have suggested that the legal recognition of lesbian and gay relationships could of fer advan tages to goverments intent on reducing expendi tures on social programs. Brenda Cossman noted that legal cases for same-sex spousal recognition which would have increased costs to the state have been lost, such as Jim Eganrs attempt to win pension benefits for his partner. On the other hand, the 188 successful cases could Save money for the state, for example, the important 'W versus HV1 case in which it was ruled that obligations to support a former partner under the Family Law Act apply to same-sex couples (Cossman, 1997) . In July 1997, legislation similar to Bill 167 was passed by the British
Columbia legislature. Barbara Findlay applauded the recognition it would offer to lesbian and gay couples, but cautioned that
3t fits into Canada's general intention to download responsibilities for social programs like health care, care for the elderly, etc, ont0 In a period when neo- liberalism is ascendant, the implications of official recognition of lesbian and gay relationships are clearly contradictory. 1 would concur with Gary Kinsman (1996b) that political gains may also be integrated into strategies to responsibilize individuals and families, thereby diminishing the social demands on the state. Chapter 4
ENDNOTE S
1. Brian Mossop's case was supported by his union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada; Michael Leshner is a crown attorney. Since these efforts were focussed upon the courts and human rights tribunals much of this history has been written by iegal scholars, see Cossrnan (1994, 1996), Herman (lWO), Lefebour (1993), Sanders (1994), and Young (1994). The significance of Leshner's victory was suggested in news reports: "Ontario told to expand gay employees' benefits. Including same-sex spouses in pension plan greeted as 'precedent- setting' ", Globe and Mail, September 2, 1992, p.Al; "Gays win rights. Pensions could cost fmillions"', Toronto Sun, September 2, 1992, p.4; "Benefit ruling might result in separate plans", Financial Post, September 2, 1992, p.39; "Hurnan rights panel awards gay partner family benefits", Toronto Star, September 2, 1992, p.Al; "The rights of homosexual couples" [Editorial], Globe and Mail, September 3, 1992, p.Al4; "Welcorne victory for gay couples1' [Editorial], Toronto Star, September 3, 1992, p.A20; "Queer notions" [Editorial], Toronto Sun, September 3, 1992, p. 10; "Gay-couples ruling won' t break the bank", Globe and Mail, September 7, 1992, p.B4; "A piece of the action. The Leshner decision is a significant but tiny victory, lawyer says" Xtra, September 18, 1992, p.9. Regarding the related issue of custody and other rights for lesbian mothers in Canada, see Arnup (1991) and Nelson (1996). 2. From the gay popular press see, for example, "Cornmitment confessions. Becki Ross finds fun and romance in wedding rituals", Xtra, September 4, 1992, p. 12; "Status seekers. Spousal rights are a cop-out, says Rick Bebout", Xtra, March 19, 1993, p.29; "Pretend marriage is a bad idea. And consider the US and European mode1 of 'domestic partnership'", Xtra, August 29, 1996, p. 18 . From the U.S., Weston (1991) provided a scholarly analysis supportive of lesbian and gay claims to constitute "family"; for a critique see O'Brien and Weir (1995). In Canada, Herman (1990), and Cossman (1994, 1996) thoroughly reviewed the dif fering positions arnong lesbian and gay activists. I will discuss below Lefebour's (1993) and Young's (1994) empirical analyses of the impact of state recognition of same-sex relationships regarding provincial social assistance legislation and federal incorne tax laws respectively.
3. See "Fighting for same-sex benefits. Spousal recognition would hurt PWAsl', Xtra, 4 July 1996. 4. CLGRO had submitted a brief to the provincial goverment in April 1992 entitled, Happy Families. The Recognition of Same-Sex Spousal Re1 a tionships . 5. Regarding these developments see "Gay-rights groups to press Ontario for 'marriedl status. Homosexual partners would be equal to cornmon-law heterosexual couple", Globe and Mail, September 4, 1992, p.A8; "Legal highlights. A look back at pink postcards and Blue Cross", Xtra Newsflash, 10 June, 1994; and a chronology of related events prepared by Christine Donald, "The Spousal Collection. Selections from the Newsclippings' (Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario, 1995) . The Ontario Law Reform Commission report was written by Brenda Cossman and Bruce Ryder (1993); its recommendations were subsequently analyzed in a later publication by Cossman (1996). 6. Regarding the campaign among lesbian and gay activists for Bill 167, see the following articles from the Toronto lesbian and gay newspaper: "Thousands protest vote" and "Our rights betrayed. Free vote allowed NDP dissidents to scuttle rights billv1,Xtra Newsflash, June 10, 1994; "The spousal rights fight . The Campaign for Equal Families forges ahead', and "Just what was said. MPPs spoke about AIDS, electric torture and whipping", Xtra, June 10, 1994; "Bill 45 on backburner. Attorney-General says there isnrt enough support", "Lives are changing in small towns. Lesbians and gay men across Ontario are risking much to corne out in support of family rights", "Out of the backrooms and into the streets. Low- key dernonstrations are part of the plan, says Campaign for Equal Families coordinator", and "From the horsers mouth. MPP cites Nelson Mandela as he votes against spousal rights", Xtra, June 24, 1994; "Sarnia man nurtures hate. Backlash against Bill 167 births group called People Against Queering Canada", Xtra, July 22, 1994; "Activists wind down? Campaign for Equal Families shuts offices", Xtra February 1, 1996.
7. This leaflet and others quoted below are available in the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, which houses al1 of the papers of the Campaign for Equal Families, Box 95-244/02. 8. Campaign for Equal Families press release (June 3, 1994), (Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Campaign for Equal Farnilies papers, Box 95-244/02) . 9. Ontario Association of Professional Social Workers [News Release] May 17, 1994 (Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Campaign for Equal Families papers, Box 95-244/02. See also a news report on this press conference, "Groups rally to support same-sex couple legislation. Rae's promised free vote adds to concerns about bill's chances", Globe and Mail, May 18, 1994, p. A7.
10. "Fact Sheet: Marriage. The Question: If we give gay and lesbian partners common law status, is this the same as marriage?", (Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Campaign for Equal Families papers, Box 95-244/02) . 11. Regarding an alternative to "spousal" recognition see Brenda Cossman's article, "Pretend marriage is a bad idea ... And consider the US and European mode1 of 'domestic partnership"', Xtra, August 29, 1996, p.18. 12. A news release from the Campaign for Equal Families, "Campaign for Equal Families is Breaking Down Myths Held by MPPs of Lesbians and Gays" (May 30, 1994) reported that "Information packages are being delivered to MPPs, regardless of how they voted on first reading" (Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Campaign for Equal Familiesr papers, Box 95-244/02) . 13. In a later speech on Bill 167 Marion Boyd discussed some alternative ideas about relationship recognition which had been raised by the Federal Justice Minister, Alan Rock (Hansard, 1 June 1994, p.6576-7). Boyd was probably referring to a proposal reported in a newspaper article, "Extending family benefits", Globe and Mail, May 27, 1994, in which the Minister is reported to have said that he wanted to "be fair to gay Chief Comrnissioner of the couples, but also does not want to undermine the traditional family ... Instead of talking about spouses or families, if you spoke about relationships, that might be a broader approach". It was reported that such relationships could include parent-child, sibling, or friendship CO-residence relationships, which were based on dependency rather than sex. Rock's proposa1 was supported by Max Yalden, thenne of Green Gables" (Hansard, 1 June Human Rights Commission ( "Benefits proposa1 praised", Globe and Mail, May 28, 1994) . 14. In this speech Marion Boyd quoted a sociologist, Susan McDaniel, in suggesting that the most famous Canadian family internationally was non-traditional. She was talking about the family comprised of an "older brother and sister, never married, and their adopted child... A and lesbian 1994, p. 6576). 15. Boyd's speech also analyzed the potential cost of the legislation to ernployers or to the provincial governrnent. These questions were addressed in briefing notes prepared by the Campaign for Equal Families, "A Word About Tax Implications.. .", and "Fact Sheet: Cost" (Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Campaign for Equal Families papers, Box 95-244/02).
16. A few days later, Boyd's position changed and she promised that if Bill 167 made it to Committee the goverment would introduce revisions that would eliminate gay couples rights to adopt children (See "Boyd backs off gay spouses. Ontario of fers to drop adoption right in last-ditch bid to Save billf1,Globe and Mail, June 9, 1994, p. Al).
17. See "Clerics push for acceptance of same-sex rights measure", Globe and Mail, June 3, 1994; and "Same-sex bill troubles traditionalists", Globe and Mail, June 7, 1994, Lankin and the news reports referred to a news conference organized by the Campaign for Equal Families, see news release "Religious Leaders Voice Support for Ontario's Farnily Equality Legislation" (June 2, 1994) which featured quotes from the former moderator of the United Church, the former primate of the Anglican Church, two rabbis, a Catholic priest, a Catholic theologian, and a minister of the (gay) Metropolitan Community Church (Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Campaign for Equal Families papers, Box 95-244/02). 18. See a report in the Star's business section, "Same-sex plan just ho-hum to bosses. Cost is minimal and some firms already treat gays and lesbians as married couples", Toronto Star, May 21, 1994, p. Cl. This article listed 31 employers who provided benefits to lesbian and gay partners of employees, including educational institutions, local governments, hospitals and large corporations.
19. See "Extending family benefits", Globe and Mail, May 27, 1994. 20. The text of the pastoral letter was published in Xtra, June 10, 1994. See also Ed Jackson's "No more self-hatred or apologies. Lesbian and gay Catholics act up after the archbishop preaches intolerance", Xtra, July 22, 1994, p. 17.
21. See: "Same-sex rights bill will go to free vote: legislation would give gay couples health benefits, right to adopt", Toronto Star, May 11, 1994, p. Al; "Ontario bill on gay rights defeated: Attorney-General 'terribly disappointedwl, Globe and Mail, June 10, 1994, p. Al; "Our rights betrayed. Free vote allowed NDP dissidents to scuttle rights billff,Xtra Newsflash, June 10, 22. See "Who'll care for you?. New laws may help same-sex partners have a Say in treatment and finances", Xtra, December 9, 1994, p.21.
23. Advocacy Act, 1992, S. 1, "Purposes of Act". See also the speech of Elaine Ziemba, then Minister of Citizenship and Minister responsible for human rights, disability issues, senior's issues and race relations, to the Standing Cornmittee on Administration of Justice (Hansard, 9 December 1991, p. J-1609) . Regarding the opposition to the Act from the Ontario Medical Association and groups such as Friends of Schizophrenics see "Help or hindrance. Proposed Ontario Advocacy Act", Toronto Star, January 18, 1992, p.G1. The Advocacy Act provided for the establishment of an independent Advocacy Commission which would be substantially directed by people with disabilities. 24. This phrase is from Howard Hampton's speech to the Standing Committee on Administration of Justice (Hansard, 14 December 1991, p. J-1649) . See also the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992. Physicians continued to be highly critical of this Act after it was enacted, çee, "New law delays health care, MDs warn", Toronto Star, April 15, 1995, p. A3.
25. See Consent to Treatment Act, 1992, and the speech to the Standing Comrnittee on Administration of Justice made by the then Minister of Health, Frances Lankin (Hansard, 10 December 1991, p. 5-1629) . There was vocal opposition to this Act £rom a significant number of physicians, see, "Doctors question consent legislation: Bill fraught with problems for medical profession, panel told", Globe and Mail, August 6, 1992, p. A8, and "Hurting those you're trying to help: Consent to Treatment Act: The death of Lonnie Clemens points out a medical grey area into which some patients may fall", Globe and Mail, September 25, 1995, p. A6.
26. See the final form of Bill 19, An Act to repeal the Advocacy Act, 1992, revise the Consent to Treatment Act, 1992, amend the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 and amend other Acts in respect of related matters, 1996. Appendix A contains the Health Care Consent Act, and Section 1 explains the purposes of the Act. For press reports see, for example, "Law to give families control of mentally ill", Toronto Star, November 16, 1995, p. A12.
27. Lesbians and gay men in Canada were also aware of the related eight-year legal struggle of Karen Thompson, a U.S. lesbian, to win back custody of her brain-injured partner, Sharon Kowalski from Kowalski's parents (Thompson and Andrzejewski, 1988) . 28. The Harris government also changed the province's position on another legal case in order to appeal a court decision that the Family Law Act's provisions for support obligations after the breakup of a relationship should include sarne-sex relationships (this concerned the "Mlf case); see 'Ontario backtracks on legal definition of spouse. Government lawyer says Supreme Court confirms Family Law Act validity'', Globe and Mail, September 13, 1995, p.A2, and "Ruling on same-sex couples to go to Supreme Court. Ontario government appeals decision involving support provisions", Globe and Mail, May 17, 1997, p.Ag.
29. Dwyer v. Toronto (Metro), Canadian Human Rights Reporter, Vol. 27, Part 2, Feb. 5, 1997, paragraph 108. The Harris government took a similar position in another (court) case, the efforts of "Mm to receive financial support from her former partner (see "Ontario backtracks on legal definition of spouse", Globe and Mail, Sept. 13, 1995, p. A2) . 30. The collection Homo Economics. Capitalism, Comunity and Lesbian and Gay Life (Gluckman and Reed, 1997a) includes an article about gentrification (Knopp, 1997).
31. See, "A blinkered view of the gay world: Canada's homosexuals have substantial economic and political clout yet mainstream newspapers and magazines are still reluctant to let gays have a regular platform", Globe and Mail, December 11, 1991, p. A18; "Advertisers discover the gay dollar", Globe and Mail, June 28, 1994, p. A17; "Pink papers in the black: when a failing publishing firm realized its readerç were a growth market, its advertising base exploded", Globe and Mail, July 11, 1994, p. 86; "Tapping the gay market", Toronto Star, September 18, 1994, p. Dl; "Agents, groups catering to gay, lesbian travellers", Globe and Mail, February 25, 1995, p. F8; "Gay Pride Week goes commercial. Companies that used to avoid the homosexual community now see a lucrative market1', Globe and Mail, June 29, 1996, p.A7. 32. Regarding this hostility, see "Pesky panhandlers on ChurchR, Xtra, September 29, 1995; "Poor stereotypes", Xtra, November 10, 1995. On poverty among lesbians and gay men, see Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (1995); "When no place is home. Homeless gays -- we are everywhere, yes, even where wetd rather not ben, Genre, May 1993; and "These so-called lives. Perhaps homophobia isnlt the biggest problem faced by lesbian youth. Maybe it's paying the rent", Girlfriends, May/ June 1997. 33. Regarding the struggle at Bell Canada see, "Corporate Canada feels the pinch. Lesbian and gay employees lay discrimination cornplaints against Bell and the Royal Bank of Canada", Xtra, "Xsl', December 1992, p.3, The Carnpaign for Equal Families published a list of 25 private companies offering same-sex benefits. These included: Dow Chernical, Eaton's, Falconbridge, the Hudsonvs Bay Co., IBM, Levi Strauss (Canada), London Life Insurance Co., Lotus Development Co., and the Toronto Dominion Bank (see ~ampaignfor Equal Families [Newsletter], Spring 1995, p. 3, available at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives) . See also, "Gays quietly gaining ground. As politicians argue, many firms already of fer same-sex benef its", Toronto Star, May 2, 1996, p.B1; "Unitel to offer same-sex benefits. Canadian Airlines, CIBC among firms reviewing policy after federal human rights rulingl', Globe and Mail, June 15, 1996, p.B5; and "Governments leave it to courts to shape same-sex policy. Ottawa, provinces unwilling to touch politically hot issue even as big business accedes to benefit payments to avoid lawsuits", Globe and Mail, October 12, 1996, p.A8, Pam Shime's (1994) on AIDS and poverty law is also relevant to this discussion.
34. See "Drug cards and welfare", Xtra, June 1% 199% p.12. 35. News reports early in 1997 indicated that people with HIV and AIDS (PKAs) may be seriously affected by other plans of the Harris government to institute a restricted definition of disability which may render many PHAs ineligible for Family Benefits and subject to workfare requirernents to receive welfare. See "Tory policy changes would cut off PWAs. Although nothing's been announced, Family Benefits Program is already bouncing them off the roll^^^, by Elinor Mahoney, titra, February 27, 1997, p.11. During the summer of 1997, the Social Assistance Reform Act (SARA) was introduced into the legislature, which includes a new Ontario Disability Support Program Act. See the information package on SARA prepared by the Ontario Social Safety Network, August 23, 1997, 36. See "Fighting for same-sex benefits. Spousal recognition would hurt PWAsl', Xtra, 4 July 1996. 37. See "Death, taxes and marriage, ~elationshiprecognition would cost couples hard cash", Xtra, April 25, 1996, p. 5.
38. "Spousal rights pass in BC", Xtra, July 31, 1997, p.11. Chapter 5
Social, Medical and Moral Constructions of AIDS
This chapter focusses upon AIDS policy in ontario'. I will
analyze policy developments under the NDP and the many years of
intense political pressure required tu achieve certain programs
for people with HIV and AIDS (PHAs). 1 will discuss political
discourses about AIDS, and argue that the stigmatization of AIDS
points to complex processes of moral and sexual regulation. 1
will argue that, regarding some issues that directly concern
AIDS, little difference can be seen between the NDP and
Conservative governments, partly been due to the ways in which
sexuality and AïDS cross social boundaries. It has also been
due to the ways AIDS activists have had some success in
countering AIDS stigma by constituting AIDS as a problem of
"healthw, or more specifically vvmedicinew,rather than as a problem of social welfare. But although some AIDS programs have
thus far escaped the deepest cuts of the Common Sense
Revolution, funding cuts to social services and public health departments have had serious implications for the other "social welfarew aspects of AIDS. AIDS Policies under the NDP
The Ontario NDP was elected to power, in 1990, at a time when decisions were required on a number of complex and controvessial political issues related to AIDS. These included the lack of a provincial strategy to guide the government's response to AIDS, the severe shortage of physicians specialising in HIV and AIDS and the lack of standards of care for their work, problems with access to new treatments and their high cost, and criticisms of the dominant public health position on anonymous HIV testing and the quarantine of people with HIV and
AIDS (PHAS)*. me NDP faced strong political pressure on issues related to AIDS imediately upon their election. This pressure was led by AIDS Action Now, a Toronto-based group which has been one of the most skilled and energetic Canadian AIDS political organizations since its founding by leading gay activists in
19883.
In this section 1 discuss anonymous HIV testing, the development of a provincial XDS strategy, and the Trillium Drug
Program for catastrophic treatment costs. 1 show that the relations between the Rae goverment and the AIDS movement were mixed. The NDPvs quick move to establish anonymous testing, the release of the provincial AXDS plan and the change in mandate of the AIDS Bureau al1 met activists' demands for policies, created 198 the space for social responses and shifted frorn sovereign approaches to newer responsibilizing s trategies . These decisions also down played the influence of public health strategies . In contrast, the reluctance to fund AIDS treatments until the penultiznate moment in Bob Rae s mandate priorized a politics of fiscal responsibility over health and social issues.
Anonymous HIV Testing
One of AIDS Action Nowvs key demands was for anonymous HIV testing (McCaskell, Interview, 1997') . During their term in office, the Liberals had funded only one anonymous HIV testing facility in the whole province, the Hassle Free Clinic in downtown Toronto. One month after being elected the NDP acceded to the lobbying of activists, educators and AIDS service organizations (ASOs) and promised to es tablish anonymous HIV testing in a number of centres across the province5. Implicitly rejecting public health strategies of contact tracing and involuntary testing, Evelyn Gigantes, then Minister of Health, announced the implementation of this promise in terms which recognized the discrimination faced by pHAs6. Gigantes argued that fear of the stigma of AIDS deterred people who might be 199
infected from taking an HIV test if there was a possibili ty that
their names might be revealed to employers or others. The
provision of anonymous testing would lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment .
We believe that many are not coming forward to be tested because of Ontario ' s tes ting sys ta and reporting requirements . They fear the disease ; they fear discrimination; they fear loss of privacy. It is extremely important that we encourage those at risk to be tested as soon as possible. With early diagnosis, people can receive the care they need to delay the onset of AIDS. They also receive the information and education they ne& to prevent the spread of the virus to others . . . [Pl eople are more likely to corne forward when testing is anonymous.. . (Hansard, 15 Aprii 1991, p. 669-670) .
Voluntary, anonymous testing also represented a shift away
from sovereign approaches to HIV/AIDS. These attempt to controï people with HIV/AIDS through the investigation of people ' s previous sexual partners and through restrictions on their
sexual activities . The new responsibilizing s trategies constituted people who might be infected with HIV and PHAs as self-regulating individuals who should be provided wi th the information to make decisions about their heal th care and sema1 activities7.
Developing the Provincial Governrnentvs Response
The NDP attempted to shift the direction of provincial AIDS policy and expand the provincial goverment s capaci ty to respond to the disease through two measures: the establishment
of the AIDS Bureau and the development of a provincial strategy
on HIV/AIDs. The second NDP Health Minister, Frances Lankin,
established the AIDS Bureau and rnoved this work from the Public
Health Banch to the Corrununity Health Division of the ~inist#.
This marked an important change in the philosophy guiding the
Bureauls work, from a lVpublic healthV1agenda of controlling disease , to a llcomunity healthVv focus upon cornmuni ty organizations and the relationship between health and social
issues such as poverty and housing. Lankin also hired Jay Browne
to direct the Bureau, a move which activists saw as creating an environment which was more welcoming to their demands.
Jay Browne, when he took over the AïDS Bureau, changed a lot of stuff, He was very open to activists, very skilled; he had real vision in being able to take community concerns and figure out what that meant in terms of making things happen in the goverment and the bureaucracy. He provided a kind of leadership that hadn ' t been there bef ore (McCaskeli, Interview, 1997 .
In December 1993, the third NDP Health Minister, Ruth
Grier, released an AIDS plan for the province, Building on Our
Strengths: Focusing ûur Efforts. Since 1990, AIDS Action Now had been campaigning for the development of a provincial AIDS strategy"' . Interestingly, this document was developed not by policy staff at the Ministry of Health, but by members of the
Ontario Aàvisory Comnittee on HIV/AIDS (WW), a voluntary body that reports directly to the Minister, and includes PHAs and members of activist groupsl'.
The influence of these corrtmunity members can be seen in the
Plan's analysis of the history of AIDS in Ontario, which acknowledged the central role played by gay men's communities.
It also implicitly accorded a secondary role to public health departments, while the work of physicians and researchers was not lauded:
Ontario has been active in the fight against BIV and AIDS since the early 1980s, when the gay community first mobilized to care for members suffering from a strange new disease and to educate its members about risks. To deal openly with the illness and to fil1 a gap left by government and the medical establishment, many gay men took great personal rlsks, talking openly about their semiality for the first time, organizing and putting pressure on the government to act (p.6) .
The goal of the Plan was to "prevent the spread of HIV infection and improve the quality of life for those infect&''
(p-i) These were to be accomplished within particular financial limitations , which required that funds be used
The government is committed to HIV/AIDS prevention and care and, over the past 10 years, budgets have increased steadily. In the economic climate of 1992/93, al1 sources of HIV/AIDS are severely cons trained. Although Ontario will remain codtted to the struggle and does not expect any decrease in funding, it is imperative that the funds available be used where they will be most effective and do the most good (p.i). The goal of using funds lleffectivelywleads to particular management strategies. One of these is to require that organizations or programs be "evaluatedV. As the following quote from an AIDS activist suggests , demands that ASOs evaluate their work came at the same time that funding was being reduced.
This puts particular pressures on small organizations.
When we started to hear about funding cutbacks, people started to Say this new thing, llDoes this stuff work?". Al1 of a sudden, that became an issue, "Does any of this AIDS prevention actually work?" And I'm thinking, llWhydidnlt they ask that five years ago?" It seemed to become a way of justifying cutbacks, and comunity people were giving in, Tutbacks are a reality, we donlt have the money we used to have, and therefore we have to prove that our programs work". A new kind of rhetoric was being created and generated. . . It came from the funders but it plays itself out in community-based agencies in a particular way. Funders Say, IVWe want you to evaluate your pro gram^^^. The organizations that are most likely to have wevaluablew programs ars the stable gay men's prevention programs, like ACT ... theylve produced a lot, done a lot of work... In srnaller cities, there's no long-term work to evaluate, and they keep losing their gay men's health educators because therels no resources to support them, and they've thrown into ridiculous jobs that they canlt do ("Pearsel', Interview, 1996~). To return to the Ontario HIV/AIDS Plan, it was based upon seven principles including communi ty mobilization, accessibility, empowerment, comprehensiveness and balance. lvEmpowermentwwas defined as:
giving people the skills, knowledge and support to make appropriate choices and decisions. In making funding and policy decisions, the Ministry of Health will consult closely with people living with Hm, volunteer and professional caregivers , members of groups at risk of HIV infection and the general public. Priority will be given to programs and services that rely on CO-operation and peer support (P.9) *-
Many of the principles eniphasised the role of social issues
and comunity development in responding to AIDS, for example:
HIV/AIDS is not simply a health problem. It is a complex social issue. Although the [Health] ministry will play the lead role in government, CO-ordinating and advocating for HW/AIDS programs, other governrnent ministries have a role to play and should be active in and conunitteci to achieving the provincial objectives and strategy (p.9).
The Plan identified a number of llbarriers and opport~nities'~in pursuing i ts goals. The barriers were fiscal
constraints , cornpeting demands for resources , "the inability to
shape provider practicel1 (such as the wunwillingnessl1 of "many health care providersl1 to care for PHAs), the "impact of multiple 10sses~~on comunities and caregivers, relations between the federal and provincial levels of government , the
"loss of urgencyvl about HIV, and the lack of "new leaders" to replace or help those who had been working hard for more than a decade (p. 12) . llOpportuni ties l1 in implementing the HIV/AIDS
Plan included the province l s llwell-developed infras tructure1* and
"experienced resource poolw, lltrustll between different sectors such as comunity activists, service providers and the government ministries, and the "political willw on the part of the provincial government (p. 12) .
The Plan established priorities for the years 1993 to 1995
in a number of different areas. Indicating the influence of gay
activists in ASOs and AIDS education, prevention of HIV was to
focus on gay and bisexual males, that is, on:
men who have sex with men (the population with the highest incidence and risk of HIV/AIDS) . Ontario will aim intensive education efforts at men who have sex with men [and] ask community-bas& organizations to realign their programs and services to reflect this priority.., (p.98)
In the area of %are and supportrr for PKAs, the Advisory
Committee recornmended that the social and economic context of
health be addressed and that PHAs be %mpowered" to self-
regulate. Thus the priority was to:
ensure people with HIV have access to social support, peer support, employment , housing and financial security. . . Ontario should give priority to support programs that are based on or encourage successful self-help or peer support models and that empower people living with HW to promote their own mental and physical health. Ontario should also give priority to the issue of housing for people living with HfV (pp-96,981
Although AIDS Action Now had called upon the provincial government to develop a strategy for responding to AIDS, not al1 of AïDS Action Now s leaders found such work poli tically useful .
From my point of view, strategic plans turn out to be window-dressing for government. They take a lot of programs that are happening, put them al1 together and put a glossy cover on it, Which makes it look like someonevs thought the whole thing through. But 1 dontt think it works that way (McCaskell , Interview, 1997) .
However, this criticism may be more relevant to AIDS treatment, which is the focus of PHA-led organizations like AIDS
Action Now, and it may be less relevant to AIDS education and
HIV prevention. The Ontario ~DsPlan's priorizing of work with
"men who have sex with men" and youth provided credibility to the ducational work taken up by gay men involved in prevention and could be used to question other trends in AIDS education.
Although sexual activities between men accounts for three- quarters of the positive HIV tests in Ontario, activists have found that the education of gay males is often minimised by AIDS organizations, especially when they are located outside larger ci ties :
One of the main challenges right now is making sure that men-who-sex-wi th-men [MSM] programming s tays on the agenda in AIDS education and within ASOs. Thatls a real challenge, to make sure that staff are hired, are trained, and are designated to work in those areas. And very few agencies axe allocating resources to work in that direction. Theylre lumping it in with general education , in with the "general populationw, which is a duplication of what public health departments do, ASOs with very Iimited resources should be focussing on MSM work, and very few of them do (wPearsetl, Interview, 1996) .
Funding for AIDS Treatments
AIDS Action Now had been campaigning against the high cost of AIDS treatments since 1990. Many PHAs with modest incomes 206 and without private employer-funded drug plans were forced to leave their jobs and dispose of their assets in order to become eligible for welfare drug cardsu. Because of these exorbitant costs AIDS Action Now demandeci the establishment of a goverment-funded treatment program, known as a "catastrophicW drug plan". Winning this demand proved to be a four-year stniggle, in which AIDS activists and service providers mounted a number of highly publicised actions against three successive
NDP Health Ministers. In September 1991, AIDS Action Now occupied Frances Lankin ' s office Using the slogan, W.ïlling
Time = Kïlling People," they protested against the NDP's Eailure to establish a catastrophic drug plan and presented Lankin with a brief which argued that "for too long, people living with AIDS and HIV have ben fighting for their lives with little help from the health care systemw". The same month, Dr. Philip Berger, a leading AIDS physician in Toronto, published a newspaper article charging that the NDP government was no bettes than Liberal party predecessors in regard to AIDS poli~ies'~.By February
1992, Lankin promised that the drug program would be introduced by her government, at an unspecified tirne". One year later, following a video-taped plea from the deathbed of the AIDS
Action Now CO-chair, James Thatcher, Lankin was still arguing that the program could not be lldone ~vernight~'~. 207
Ruth Grier, Lankinls successor, told a journalist that AïDS
had been a priority for her government: "As we look at the
health care agenda, 1 donlt think any one of them has received
more attention than AIDS~~'~. However, she was slow to implement
the promise to establish a drug plan. AIDS Action Now
intensified the pressure on the NDP government by holding
demonstrations at the Heal th Minister s speaking engagements,
during Cabinet meetings, and from the visitorls gallery at the
Leqislature2'. In the following quotation, an AIDS activist, "P.
Maxwell1', who was also an employee of the provincial government,
argues that the NDP1s fiscal policies had led to the Health
Minister losing the power to establish a drug plan. Such a
decision could only be taken by the Premier. "Maxwell1' also
suggests that, despite repeated promises to introduce a drug
plan, a political decision against such a move had been taken by
the NDP leadership,
Ultimately, AIDS activists succeeded in wringing a
catastrophic drug plan from the NDP government, This last- minute concession was achieved by focussing pressure on Bob EXae
and by suggesting that gay communities should be compensated for
the failure of the NDP to secure the passage of Bill 167, their
attempt to recognize same-sex relationships.
The NDP were stalling on the catastrophic drug issue, trying to give the impression that they were working towards it, but actually they were determined not to spend any new money before the election. It wasnlt even Ruth Griervs decision anymore; the Premier had taken control of al1 new spending and he had decided against it. When AIDS Action Now realized the real story they held demons trations that personally targeted Rae as I1hanging EWAs out to dryv', and they combined that with disrupting the NDP convention and telling Rae that he had to do something for the gay community to make up for screwing things up on Bill 167. In the end Rae was afraid of totally losing the lesbian and gay vote going into an election and he approved the $75 million to set up Trillium [Drug Program] (lWaxwellw, Interview, 1997) .
At the end of 1994, the Premier announced that a new program would pay for high-cost medications for those in economic need. As Grier stated in the Legislature:
The governmentls goal is to eliminate the need for patients with a catastmphic disease from having to go on welfare just to get adequate drug coverage (Hansard, 1 December 1994, p.8095).
The Trillium Drug Program was described as being for people who had l'unmanageable drug expenses IV. A leaflet provided information about the new Program in the following terms :
Prescription drugs play an important part in todayvs health care. However, some people in Ontario canlt afford to buy the drugs they need. People with lower incomes and those who need very expensive drugs often go without or face serious financial hardship. Some families canlt afford to buy drugs for children or family rnembers with a chronic illness. For others, the cost of prescription drugs can reacb many thousands of dollars each year. Thatls why Ontario is introducing the Trillium Drug Program on April 1, 1995. . . 1 t will help pay for prescription drugs for individuals and families with high drug costs relative to their in corne^^^, 209
Neither RaeVs nor Grierls statements made reference ta the importance of the needs or political demands of gay comunities in the sudden decision to introduce the plan in the last few months of the NDP government.
It is interesting to note that the guide for applicants to the Trillium Program suggests that it recognises gay relationships. All applicants to the Program are deemed to constitute "a family unit*., even if they are single people. The definition of "family unitv1includes: I1a spouse or partner, of the opposite or same sex, who lives with you". Eligibility for the Program, and the levels of deductibles and benefits are based upon the income of the whole "family unitr1. The application form requires that "every family member over 16" sign the form, and states that in signing "you confinn that.. . the Ministry of Health or its agents may collect any information from any source to verify the information in this appli~ation*~~'.
This would permit the Ministry to investigate applicantsw relationship status in the same manner as the social assistance system. A staff derat an AIDS organization reported to me that PHAs who were living with same-sex partners were individually deciding whether or not it was in their interest to declare their relationships to the Trillium Program, and were of ten withholding that information ("FineN, Interview, 1997) . 210
"Fine" argued that the Program was making absolutely no attempt
to enforce disclosure of gay and lesbian relationships and that
this policy was at least partially based upon a court case in
British Columbia. A judge had found that if the previous Social
Credi t government refused to provide comprehensive recognition for lesbian and gay relationships, then it could not require that same-sex relationships be declared by applicants for provincial social assistance ("FineM, Interview, 1997).
However, lesbians and gay men who are not part of urban AIDS community networks may not be aware that the policy is considered to be unenforceable, and they may be either deterred from submi tting an application to Trillium by their apparent ineligibility, or they may declare their partnerls income and pay higher deductibles and receive lower benefits. The Trillium
Drug Plan's recognition of same-sex relationships provides further evidence for a daim made in the previous chapter.
Relationship recognition is more likely to be granted by the state when it is in the latter's financial interest.
Leaders of AIDS service organizations and political groups had differing assessments of the NDPs AIDS policies. Those whose work focussed on HIV prevention praised the NDPvs financial support for AIDS education , particularly wi th marginalized groups, such as women and street youth.
During the early 90s the NDP encouraged expansion of AIDS education work; the AIDS Bureau gave out a lot of money, there was a big growth in the nimibers of people doing AIDS education. The NDP was always keen on funding programs for women and especially youth and the AIDS Bureau has always been very pro street youth -- 1 remember a couple of times people coming from other places, people doing the same kind of work in Vancouver and dom East and they just mameiled at the resources that we had in Toronto. As it got near the end of the NDP government, things were changing, with the recession and the Social Contract. But funding for AIDS didn t shrink , i t froze (lvRandallll, Interview, 199623).
On the other hand, there was frustration and anger among activists whose primary concerns were treatments, drug costs and other issues facing PHAs. A Tim McCaskell suggest below, they felt that each victory required a difficult and sustained s truggle .
With the NDP we had to fight for everything. Even to get a meeting with Frances Lankin, we had to occupy her office. They didn l t really take on AXDS as a major issue, though they did respond to pressure. The Trillium Program. . . was the result of us neediing them over and over again, until they finally gave up and produced this program on the eve of the election, because they didnvt want us on their backs during the election either (McCaskell , Interview, 1997) .
Tirn McCaskellws critique suggest frustration at the mixeci and sometimes contradictory strategies deployed by a political party which was in principle committed to improving social programs. From the perspective of an activist who was employed by the government, the intense political pressure require to achieve demands could be explaineci by the NDP1s inexperience in management and their lack of direction in office.
For the NDP, AIDS was not a big issue, even though the activis ts were their consti tuency , poli tically . They were swamped by the huge bureaucratie issues like hospitals and OHIP, and by high-pressure lobbying by doctors. The NDP were totally unprepared for governing and they bought a lot of the bureaucracyls line on issues. Other than a few ideas of their own they didn't run Health strategically, they went from crisis to crisis, and didnrt want to spend too much money or get into battles with doctors or hospitals. In my work with them, they seemed to feel they didn ' t really have a mandate. And of course Rae said he wanted to be the premier of the whole province. So it took constant political pressure to get them to do anything on AIDS (Maxwell, Interview, 1997~')
Tim McCaskell concurred with the argument that the NDP were poli tically unprepared to hold power . As a result, they continued to implement agendas established by the previous goverment or by the bureaucracy, as the following quote suggests :
They didnlt expect to get elected. And al1 of a sudden they were running a province with a huge budget and very complex politics. So they weren't ready for it, and that meant that they depended on bureaucracies and civil servants who were already in place to give them a lot of advice. And that bureaucracy was the result of 40 years of Tory rule and about 6 years under the Liberals. The NDP were trying to look professional, and Bob Rae was trying to be the Premier of al1 of the people, not the people that elected him. So they tended to be very cautious and they seemed to need a lot of pressure (McCaskell, Interview, 1997) . Political Discourses about AIDS
1 will now turn to a discussion of the ways in which AIDS was constituted in Ontario parliamentary poli tical discourse
1 found that AIDS is frequently separate from other health issues and that it has been constructed as a non-partisan issue, that is, apart from party-political struggles. 1 also axplore how the stigma of AIDS was revealed and constructed in politicians' interventions on the topic. AIDS stigma has important social dimensions, but 1 argue that it also suggests the intersections between AIDS and moral issues such as sexually-transmitted diseases, illicit drug use and homosexuality, In the previous chapter 1 discussed the process through which moral regulation of sexuality led to the ''free votew1on Bill 167, The location of MDS in the moral domain and its links to sexual regulation are suggested by non-partisanship on the issue, and by politicians' euphemisrns and separation of
PHAs into "innocent victimsmvand those who were implicitly to blame for their own illnesses.
Most statements about AIDS made by Ministers of Health and opposition heal th cri tics occurred ei ther during AfDS Awareness
Week, in October of each year, or on World AIDS Day, which is marked on December 1. Ministersl annual speeches to the
Estimates Conunittee of the Legislature, and other formal presentations of their health policies did not usually
speci fically mention AIDS~~. Thus AIDS was constituted as
separate from other health issues.
Among provincial poli ticians, AIDS is frequently
constructeci as a non-partisan issue. men the mP announced the
establishment of widespread anonymous HIV tes ting , the two
opposition parties responded favourably , with suggestions for
further work, rather than with criticisms . Speaking on behalf
of the Liberals, Ed Phillips put forward a different approach,
but he was supportive of the governmentls efforts to deal with
what he called Yhis areagl and "an extremely sensitive issue
that requires al1 of us to tread softlyV1. The quotation below
shows how this language constitutes MDS as a moral issue:
[TJhere is much here that we can support, .. In terms of considering ways this may be improved ... There is perhaps a middle ground that might be considered, the non-nominal identification of individuals who may have tested positive, just to ensure that the physicians and the medical officers of health are working together.. . There are other aspects of this area that need further work, as the minister appreciates, f am sure, and we are looking forward to the more comprehensive plan 1 think she talked about last week. We are dealing in this area with an extremely sensitive issue that requires al1 of us to tread softly and with a good deal of thought as we try to ensure that we protect the rights of the individual and the rights of the public (Hansard, 15 April lggl, p. 670) [my emphases ] .
Phillips' suggestion that AIDS required "treading softly" implies that the association between AIDS and homosexuality raised questions about sexual regulation, a field which is
usually indirectly addressed by the state in liberal, secular
societies. Ernie Evesl comments, on behalf of the Conservative
party, were similarly cautious. He also declined to use the
word VUDS" and made frequent euphemistic references to AIDS as
"the problem we have in society today":
1 would like first of al1 to associate myself with the comments made by both the rninis ter and the [previous speaker]. 1 would also like to point out that there are other areas, of course, with respect to this problem that we have in our society today, education being one of them, that certainly ne& to be addressed so that we can get to root of the problem that we have facing society today. A couple of other, smaller points. 1 am not trying to be critical; 1 am actually trying to be helpful here. A needle exchange program, which 1 suggested to the minis ter ' s predecessor many months ago... 1 think would go a long way to solving a small part of the problem that we have in society today. 1 know that the minister is aware of the northern health travel grant aspect of this probla... She indicated that she would be looking into perhaps expanding that program, to looking after patients with AIDS who need treatment in a lot of those areas of the province where there really are not general practitioners who are used to dealing with this particular disease. . . (Hansard, 15 April 1991, p. 670) [my emphases] .
After Jim Wilson became Health Minister, he would at times invoke AIDS as an issue apart from politics:
Setting aside al1 partisan differences, 1 would encourage al1 members to voice their support for a national AIDS strategy (Hansard, 30 September 1996, p.4226) .
Elinor Caplan initially responded on behalf of the Liberal Party in a similar vein, although she went on to make some
cri ticisms :
1 would like to Say to the minister in a non-partisan sense, as I have exhibited before in thi 3 House, that 1 share his desire to see a continuation of the national stratem... You mentioned today funding for anti-viral [sic] load testing, and thatls one example of where 1 believe that you shirked your responsibiliw. British Columbia has had that program and testing in place for some time. It's about time Ontario showed the community that we maintain our commitment to those who are iniected ... and we are sad to see the minister wait so long before he would make that announcement, 1 would also Say that there are many who do not have adequate access to dnigs... [andl many are concerned about his $1.3 billion in cuts to the hospitals and the effect that will have on the programs serving not only those who are dealing with AIDS and HIV but al1 those in the province who need access to care... (Hansard, 30 September 1996, p.4227).
It could be argued that the efforts on the part of rnany poli ticians to constitute AIDS as a non-partisan issue, partly emerged frorn an understanding of HIV and AIDS as siMlar to other "medical" or llhealthw issues, which concern individuals, rather than a qlsocialmissue. However, this se-s to be an inadequate explanation. 1 would argue that moral and sema1 regulation play a more significant role.
Much of the AIDS literature on these issues has been framed in tems of the concept of "stigmaW, rather than moral regulation (Herek and Blunt, 1989; Patton, 1986; Weitz, 19912') . wkhalovskiy and Smith (1993) suggest stigma is social as well as psychological . The social stigma of AIDS has shaped off icial responses to the disease:
stigma of HIV/AIDS and the conception of AIDS as a disease of 'others ' '' shaped the responses of professionals such as physicians and social workers , and institutional sites such as health policy and medical research . Through these "social processes. . . the stigma of AIDS is accomplished, reinforced or carried (p.25).
Mykhalovskiy and Smith point to a crucial difference in the stigma of AïDS inside and outside urban gay circles. In non-gay settings AIDS stigma continues to have considerable force:
Toronto's downtown lesbian and gay community has a history of over 10 years of struggle and response to HIV/AIDS. Over this period, numerous AIDS service organizations have played a critical role in shaping a sex-positive and life-affirming approach to AIDS in the lesbian and gay community... This works to establish a context for daily life in which the stigma of HW/AIDS is reduced; in which HIV/AIDS is no longer unusual or 'deviant' but rsgular and almost comrnonplace (1993, p.26).
Mykhalovskiy and Smith argue that for the many PHAs who are not part of those small, openly gay, largely white, urban cornmunities the stigma of AIDS is experienced in a context of social isolation2'. The stigma of AIDS outside of AIDS-activist and gay conaminities permeates everyday and political and policy discourses. The "1997 Update" to the Ontario HIV/AIDS plan argues that stigma is still a l'serious issuew for PHAs:
People with HIV continue to have problems with discrimination in housing and employment. Some experience discrimination in accessing health services. For example, people in drug rehabilitation programs are often uncomfortable about having people with HïV in the program. People with HIV who are in correctional facilities are also likely to experience discrimination (p. 202') .
Before their election, the Consenratives also drew on discourses about AIDS which reproduced its stigma in ways other than silence and euphemism. Jim Wilson, when he was
Conservative heal th critic, talked about haemophiliacs who had become HIV-positive through blood transfusions as "innocent victimsw of the disease, which they had contracted through "no fault of their ownw. This discourse implicitly designated as qwguiltywthose who had been infected through sexual activities or intravenous needles.
1 want to ask the Minister of Health a question on behalf of the innocent victims, the haemophiliacs in Ontario, some 305 people in number, who through no fault of Meir own contracted the AIDS virus in the mid-1980s through blood products that were approved by the Canadian Blood Cormittee... will the Minister tell this House today that she believes Ontario has a role to play compensating these innocent victims? (Hansard, 15 April 1993, p.52) [my emphases] .
A few months later, Wilson introduced some visitors to the
Legislature; they were activists for financial compensation for people who had become HIV-positive through blood transfusions:
In the gallery sit Mark and Colleen Bulbrook and Ron and Laurie Mitchell, with their sons, Nick and Josh. The only mistake that Mark and Ron made was to place their faim in the integrity of Ontario s health care system. Regrettably , their fai th proved to be misplaced as each contracted HIV through the Canadian blood supply (Hansard, 21 June 1993, p.1654) [my emphases] .
Ruth Grier, then Minister of Health, and other NDP members of the Legislature, did not challenge Wilson's use of the term
"innocent vi~tims~~to describe a minority of Ontario PHAs and to implicitly condemn PHAs who had "made a mistakeVrthrough their sexual activities or drug use. The HW-positive status of recipients of blood transfusions was thus clearly a health issue, while others who were HIV-positive were constituted as subjects of moral and sexual regulation. The NDP MPP, George
Mammoliti, later argued that gay relationships should not receive legal recognition because a large proportion of PHAs were gay men, and therefore AIDS was widespread in those communi ties .
In the Ministry of Health statistics frorn 1981 to the end of 1993, the total reported cases of AIDS were 3,712: 272 were heterosexuals, 107 were blood transfusions, 114 persons contracted it through dmg use and 3,190 were homosemials. Those statistics are frightening to me.. . That leads me to believe that it is pretty prevalent in the homosexual community (Hansard, 2 June, 1994, p. 6635) .
This particular point, which Mammoliti made during a wide- ranging attack on gay relationships, was not directly challenged by politicians who supported Bill 167.
On other occasions, Jim Wilsonls comments on AIDS drew on the analysis and demands of gay-led AIDS activist groups, like AIDS Action Now, to critique the government. As the following comnents from Wilson during AIDS Awareness Week show, he called for higher levels of government spending on AIDS, especially in relation to treatments and research. Wilson suggested that people with HIV were not tlotherlvfor they were %ontributing to our society" . He also made reference to political protest and included a version of AIDS Action Nowls slogan, Willing Time =
Killing People1':
In resporse to a protest last month and a 10 kilometre walk yesterday, the government announced $2.1 million in funding to assist in the fight to conquer the AIDS disease. While any moneys that contribute to the war on this deadly disease are welcomed, members on this side of the House and the AIDS community and the AIDS community-based groups are still left with one overriding concern. The struggle continues. My concern is that nothing in the Minister's ... announcement yesterday provides an enhanced structure to treat AIDS, it falls silent in the one area that matters most to people living with HIV and AIDS, that is, it fails to strike decisively at the source of the disease. The announcement also offers nothing in the way of research into treatment and care for infected people who are living longer lives. Thousands are living with this disease in Canada, and they are contxibuting to our society. As a people and as individuals, we have a moral obligation to find both a compassionate and expeditious cure for the destructive HIV virus ... people are dying. By killing the we are contributing to kiffing people.. . (Hansard, 7 October 1991, p-2744) [my emphases].
Two years later, during ATDS Awareness Week, Wilson drew on a discourse which clairned al1 PHAs as lvOntarianswand wcommunity membersn. He also called for greater access to AIDS treatments and ecfioed AIDS activists' claim that PHAs were being forced to become social assistance recipients in order to pay for their medications.
mile researchers and govements grope for solutions, the deadly HW killer continues to hover like a black cloud, bringing death to thousands of people in our neighbourhoods and communities . . . These individuals are being denied access to essential prescription drugs. Consequently, the government is stripping people living with AIDS of their dignity by forcing them to pay for their dnigs or go on social assistance and welfare. AIDS affects us all: our families, our fkiends and our neighbours. Therefore, we must work in partnership and with great haste to find a cure for this lethal disease (Hansard, 5 October 1993, p. 3235) [my emphases] .
While in opposition, the leader of the Conservative party,
Mike Harris, even joined in the criticisrns of the NDPVs AIDS policies and demanded that the government pay for AIDS treatments .
Yesterday , AIDS Action Now brought its frustration with your government into this chamber, and today, Minister, 1 want to bring that frustration on to the floor of the Legislature. Joining us in the members' gallery is Brian ~arlingez?', CO-chair of AIDS Action Now. Minister, we are al1 aware of the financial pressures on your ministry. What that means is that you must set priorities ... Your inaction, for example, on health card fraud alone costs 10 times more in waste than AIDS Action Now and others are requesting for treatment of catastrophic illness.. . (Hansard, 27 April 1994, p. 5912) .
Despite such statements by Opposition MPPs , political discourse on AIDS largely revealed the importance of AIDS stigma. Such stigma points to the processes of sexual and moral regulation within which AIDS is located.
Con tradictory Policies under the Comon Sense Revolution
In this section 1 will show that the election of a
Consenrative government in 1995 did not bring about significant changes in those specific policies which focus upon AIDS.
However, when AIDS intersected with social welfare it was as vulnerable as other sectors to the oveall strategies of the
Consenatives . Funding for AIDS treatments and for programs funded directly by the AIDS Bureau have continued at the same level of funding. 1 will argue that this was due to family links between the Conservative party and AIDS Action Now, and more broadly, to the ways sexuality and AIDS permeate social divisions. At the same tirne, the Comrnon Sense Revolutionls strategies which undermined social assistance, social services and local government through reduced funding and transfers of responsibilities will indirectly change HIV prevention and the quality of life for PHAs. 1 argue that if one examines which aspects of AIDS have escaped these processes, then it appears to be those which can continue to be consti tuted as within the category of "heal thw case ra ther than ltsocial welfareff.
During the first AIDS Awareness Week following his appointment as Health Minister, Jim Wilson made the following statement, in which he argueci that AIDS affected al1 sectors of society, and that it would be a priority for his Ministry:
This is my first public statement as Minister of Health on HïV and AIDS. 1 want to be clear. 1 want my position and the position of this government to be understood on this day. We recognize that no one is immune to this disease. Al1 of us have friends or family members who have been touched by the tragedy of AIDS. It does not matter which side of the House we sit on. It does not matter what political stripe we Wear, It does not matter where we corne from, We can al1 be touched by this disease. AIDS is a priority for my ministry and it is a priority for this government. Our work will build on what Ontarians have already achieved ... (Hansard, 2 October 1995, p.36).
In September 1996, Jim Wilson announced that the Health
Ministry would provide $2 million for an HIV viral load testing progrado. In the same speech, he cormented on the death of
David Kelley, the CO-chair of the Ontario Advisory Connrittee on
HW/AIDS, and re-affirrned that AIDS was a priority for his government:
David Kelleyts passing reminds us al1 that AIDS is still exacting a terrible toll on its citizens. It reminds us that we still need more prevention education . We still need to provide treatxnent, care and support for those already infected and affected. We still need more research, and we still need a cure. That is why AIDS is a priority for this government (Hansard, 30 September 1996, p. 4225) ''. Many people who have long been involved in work on AIDS in
Toronto argue that continued funding for AIDS education and treatments during the Common Sense Revolution has been due to family links between certain AIDS activists and the leadership of the Ontario Consenative party. Brian Farlinger, the late
CO-chair of AIDS Action Now, was a senior manager in the banking industry; his father was a prominent funder and political strategist for Mike Harris s election ~ampaign~~.
Specif ically around AIDS , there ' s been remarkably little difference between the NDP and Tory governments, Part of the reason for that is, it's pure speculation, but one of the architects of Mike Harris's victory was Brian Farlingerls father, Brian was CO-chair of AIDS Action Now and Mike Harris came to Brian s funeral . Within the Tory party there ' s a real reluctance to offend the Farlingers. And there's a notion that if they take on AIDS the same way theylve taken on other people, they would be taking on the Farlingers (McCaskell, Interview, 1997).
When we compare the record of the Tory and the NDP governments in relation to AIDS, we donlt see such a big difference in their policy output, but more in terms of the reasons for their decisions. The Tories, despite huge cuts in other areas, never touched the AIDS Bureau and have hardly gone after anything else thatls specifically for AIDS"'. It's surprising, given their politics , But it was only due to the connections between Brian Farlinger, [a former CO-chair] of AIDS Action Now, and his father, who is a very influential Tory. He was a member of Harris's Transition Tearn around the election. I mean, Mike Harris even came to Brianls funeral ('Waxwell", Interview, 1997).
Not only did Mike Harris attend the funeral for the co- chair of AfDS Action Now, in October 1995, Harris held a meeting with AIDS Action NO$*, TO meet with the leaders of a radical community organization, and so quickly after the June 1995 election, was an unprecedented move for the Harris government. One activist, IVP.Maxwellw, argues that the Farlinger f amilyls influence began before the election, continued through the large round of funding cuts in October 1995, and has led to the preservation of the AIDS Bureau and the Trillium Drug pian".
Even before the election, Harris was standing up in the House and waving around what was actually an AIDS Action Now policy paper calling for a catastrophic drug planH. . . During the big round of cuts in 1995, 1 had a discussion with Jay Browne [former director of the AIDS Bureau in the Ministry of Health] . He had just met with Jim Wilson who said he was committed to maintaining AIDS funding. Browne knew that the Farlinger connection had saved their butts, as the Bureau wasnlt a core program of the Health ministw. And if the Trillium Program hadnlt been set up before the election, the Tories probably would not have established it, because it cost $75 million, but once it was there they didnlt want to cut it ("Maxwell", Interview, 1997)
As Tim McCaskell suggests below, the family connection between AIDS activists and the Consenrative party was not mere coincidence. Infection with HIV crosses social boundaries, creating the possibility of some shared demands for health care among PHAs; the development of a Pm-led social movement by AIDS
Action Now and other groups turned this possibility into a reality. Semiality, in particular, hornosemiality, also crosses social divisions such as those of class or race.
Theoretically, you can pull back and talk about the nature of danocratic politics, the gay movement or the AIDS movement. Itvs manifested in such a way that anybody could be gay, or anybody could have AIDS. So you end up with these class alliances. You have Brian, Who's a spokesperson for the Canadian Bankers Association, and connected to Tory power. But hels got AIDS and becomes an activist, like people who are desperately poor and on the streets. This kind of movement makes possible these kinds of connections, across classes (McCaskell , Interview, 1997) .
Jim Wilson described the Heal th Ministry s accomplishments in relation to AIDS in very different terms £rom the usual language of the Cornman Sense Revolution:
[Bletween June 1995 and July 1996 this government has spent more that $11 million to provide BIV and AIDS patients with important AIDS drugs. This is about a $5-million increase in drug funding from the previous year.,. This government has fully maintained funding levels for comnunity-baseci AIDS programs. This ailows comrnunities to operate programs that meet their needs, such as counselling and education (Hansard, 30 September 1996, p. 4225) .
Wilson ' s positive response to HIV and AIDS contrasted sharply with some of the areas targeted for cutbacks under the
Common Sense Etevolution, such as social assistance. However, the contrast is decreased when one considers the Harris governmentls approach ta health care generally. As the following comments frorn Wilson suggest, although funding of health care is
"cons trainedVv from expansion and hospi tals are being
'kestructuredW. Yet citizens who benef i t from free heal th care are not cri ticised, unlike, for example, social assis tance recipients :
Governments across Canada are facing serious fiscal constraints and must be strategic in allocating financial resources to priority needs . . . Our co~tmentto hold health care spending at $17 billion annually remains firm. When this government came to power, we promised we would protect health care spending, and wetre doing it in spite of the fact that welre now seeing a reduction of $2.1 billion in transfers from the fedeal government.. . There have been changes ... 1 [have] promised to shift resources to comunity-based services and away from expensive institutions; to begin to reform primary care. .. to reinvest in priority areas; and to expand treatment programs in cancer care, cardiac care . . . This is a vision that emphasi zes prevention , early detection , and intervention ... (Hansard, 2 October 1996, p.E- 637)37.
It would appear that the location of AIDS within Revolution . There were few cuts to programs closely tied to HW and AIDS, such as viral load testing, prevention and education, and the Trillium Drug Plan (although ORCHA has argued that access to the latter works best for people whose medications are less expensiveg8). Representatives of ASOs and AIDS activist groups argue that reductions in welfare and other policies of the Harris government have serious implications for AIDS. Below, Tim McCaskell points to hospital closures and reductions in social assistance: Theylve ben very careful , they didn ' t touch anything AIDS-specific, they basically left it alone. But their general policies have certainly damaged the quality of life of people with AIDS, the closure of hospitals, the cutting back of welfare, al1 of those kinds of things . (McCaskell , Interview, 1997) ". Pamela Bowes, of the Toronto People lith AIDS Foundation, argued that cuts to social services affect the quality of life For the HIV/AIDS community, especially for people who rely on government assistance and affordable housing, the [cuts] will have a profound effect [on their] general quality of life.. . People who are on social assistance, waiting for their Family Benefits to start, will be placed in a position of great financial hardship, at a point where they are feeling sick. The wait for affordable housing is about a year long, so people will be forced to either move, share, or struggle in their present home until their Family Benef it starts. With so little discretionary money, there is virtually nothing left for alternative treatments (Bowes, 1995, p. 6)'O. Joan Anderson, of the AIDS Cormnittee of ~oronto", argues that under the Common Sense Revolution, "health carew is constituted in such a way as to exclude social and economic issues . When it cornes to care of people with AIDS the Tory record is terrible. The NDP understood that incorne and housing are determinants of health. The Tories don1t understand health as meaning anything outside of doctorsv offices. Their welfare cuts and housing cuts are devastating for people with AIDS, they ' re doing the biggest damage there. And thatls also affecting [HIV] prevention, because welve known for a long time that the more stressors people face in their lives just to survive or have a place to live, the harder i t is for us to do AIDS education with thern. And many research studies show that poor people have more health problems. HIV is not exempt from this. A recent Vancouver study found that the survival of PHAs was directly dependent on income level. Wevre going to be facing repercussions from Harris's cuts for a long time (Anderson, Interview, 1997) . Anderson suggests that funding for HIV prevention will be rduced as a result of cuts in the provincial health ministry' s funding for the public health sector. Under the Harris government, AIDS education is in danger on two fronts: On the one hand, the province is downloading the health ministry ' s public heal th responsibilities to municipalities . And that branch provided a large part of the funding for HIV prevention. . , (Anderson, Interview, 1997) . At the same time the amalgamation of municipalities may jeopardize funding for HIV prevention in the City of Toronto, which has had one of the largest AIDS education budgets in Canada : City [of Toronto] grants for AIDS got started about ten years ago, and now it's over a million dollars in funds, while federally they spend $7 million, so the City [of Toronto] is a really big piece of the funding picture, it provides one-seventh of what they give federally! It hasn't grown in the last two years, but it also hasn ' t been cut (wQuintero'T, Interview, 199642). In particular, the City of Toronto has offered consistent financial support to the AIDS Contmittee of ~oronto'~,to other educational work with gay and bisexual men, and to groups and agencies who serve homeless people, people of colour and other marginalised sectors. ...The imposition of the megacity is another big danger to ATDS education because the City [of Toronto] was the oniy city to recognize AIDS as a priority. They've had a purchase-of-service agreement with [the AIDS Codttee of Toronto] and Youthlink-Inner City for many years, itmeans $250,000 a year for ACT'S gay men's education and the ACT library. And the City's Comnunity Grants Program funds a lot of ethnocultural AIDS groups; what will happen to al1 that under the megacity? (Anderson, Interview, 1997) The City [of Toronto] has been very keen to fund work with gay men and men who have sex with men ("Randall" , Interview, 1996)- A lot of conununities would not be reached if we did not have City [of Toronto] funding. For instance, Streethealth , which works with s treet-involved under- housed people. The [Department of Public Health] staff would not be able to reach them in the same way, it just wouldnlt work ('UezamW, Interview, 1996"). Another concern arising out of municipal amalgamation is that in other cities within the Greater Toronto area, AfDS education and other types of sex education have been unable to secure much funding £rom their local city councils and as a result have been directly dependent on Ministry of Health funding. As Joan Anderson pointed out (above), the latter may be lost through the vldownloadingll of programs front the province ta municipalities. AIDS educators who work for cities other than the City of Toronto have also found that their educational work has been severely restricted by religious and right-wing local organizations and politicians campaigning against sex education and lesbian and gay rights (l%~tinsll, 1996 ; qlOrlecklv, We have trustees who just want to see abstinence. . . The more right-wing types feel that they have a voice now.,. Itlsbecorne pennissible to be extremely right- wing. They see anti-homophobia work as proselytizing, and they Say, llCondornsdon1 t work anyway, so why are we telling kids that they do?" We were further ahead five years ago.. . In a systematic way the Christian right has ben trying to erode AIDS and sexual health education in the schools ... Then 1 have to do a whole lot of work to find research articles that say that condoms do work, to justify my work (l'Youngw, Interview, 1996) Revising the Provincial AIDS Strategy In this section 1 will discuss the TJpdatew to the Provincial HIV/AIDS Plan which was being prepared during summer 1997 and is expected to be approved by OACHA, the Ontario Advisory Commi ttee on HIV/AIDS~~. The IIUpdatelq reviews work accomplished across the province since the 1993 release of the plan, "Building on Our S trengthsvr, during the NDP government . It notes the improvement in medical treatments for HIV/AIDS with the recent development of protease inhibi tors and combination anti-retroviral medications , but states that access to drugs continues to be a problem for PHAs: The Triilium Drug Program appears to work better for people with other, less costly illnesses. People with HZV have trouble with the program because of administrative details , such as deductibles and reimbursements (p.19) 47. Aïthough the "UpdateWv is the product of an advisory committee which is responsible to the Conservative Minister of Health, it echoes many of the criticisms of government policies made by AIDS service providers and activists that 1 quoted in the previous section of this paper, presumably because of the significant representation of comunity members on OACHA. The Wpdatew points to serious problems as a result of provincial goverment Eunding cuts: Reductions in funding to municipalities for youth outreach programs, womenls shelters, street workers and social housing -- al1 part of the health and social service infrastructure that supports HIV/AIDS activities ... [Planneci shifts in] funding for certain services, such as subsidized housing and public health to municipalities, could have a dramatic impact on local programs and services (p. 12) OACHA also criticised the reductions in social assistance implemented by the Harris goverment. The Update argues that the health of PHAs is seriously affected by lower benefits: People with HIV in Ontario who rely on social assistance have suffered severe cuts in the money available to them, and now have less money for food, shelter and complementary therapies. As income is one of the strongest dete~nantsof health, changes in social assistance may seriously affect both quality of life and longevity for people with HIV (p.13). The Update suggests that funding cuts to welfare and other social services, such as housing and dntg treatment, have led to additional demands on AIDS service organizations: Agencies that have traditionally dealt with the most marginalized populations report that they are now seeing poorer people with very basic sumival needs such as food, clothing and shelter, as well as "hard to servet1clients such as street-involved people4* and people who substance abuse problems ... [some PHAs] in urban centres... cannot find affordable housing with appropriate supports -- al1 housing agencies have long waiting lists and, with the government freeze on some housing pro jects , the problem will likely get worse (pp.17, 19). OACHA1s recoxmnendations for AïDS programs and funding for the province remain virtually the same as in the original plan produced during the Rae government. In the area of KIV/AIDS prevention the Update calls for the Eirst priorities to continue to be "men who have sex with menw and vryoung peoplevv. In the care and support of PHAs the goal was somewhat different: in 1993 it had been %ocial support, peer support, employment, housing and financial s~pport"'~. In 1997, msociallvand vvpeerrv supports were eliminated; the new recomnnendation was for, lVappropriate access to practical supports, such as food, housing, and adequate incomew (p.24) . It is interesting to note that terms which suggest collective responses, such as vvsocialw and IVpeerware replaced by vvpracticalwa term which implies minimal and individual care. The review of AIDS services provided in the vvUpdaterv suggests sorne of the contradictions and limitations of the Harris governmentvs policies in relation to HIV and AIDS. Although funding for the Trillium Program and the AIDS Bureau has been maintained, "socialw programs which provide incorne and services to low-incorne and homeless PHAs have not been exempted from the widespread provincial funding cuts . Conclusion Relations between the Rae government and the AIDS movement were mixed. The NDP1s qui& move to establish anonymous testing and other programs met the demands of AIDS activists, although the discourse surrounding anonymous testing suggested the growing significance of responaibilizing strategies of governance. However, the reluctance to fund AIDS treatments until the penultimate moment in Bob Raevs mandate priorized a politics of fiscal responsibility over health and social issues. An examination of how AIDS is constituted in Ontario parliamentary political discourse suggests the importance of moral and sexual regulation : AIDS is frequently discussed separately frorn other health issues and it has been constructed as a non-partisan issue. Poli ticians ' comments and speeches reveal the work of AIDS stigma through the use of euphemisms and the separation of PtfAs into "innocent" and "otherV1HIV-posi tive people who implicitly were to blame for their own illnesses . The election of a Conservative government in 1995 did not bring about significant changes, or funding cuts in many important policies which directly focus upon AIDS. Yet when AIDS issues intersected with social welfare they were as vulnerable as other sectors to the overall strategies of the 235 Conservatives. At the same time, Conservative moves which undermined social assis tance, social services and local goverment through reduced funding and transfers of responsibilities will indirectly change HïV prevention and the quality of life for PHAs. Chapter 5 1. Regarding the history of officia1 responses to AIDS see, for exarnple Adam (1992) Patton (1985, 1990 and 1996) and Watney (1994). On Canada see Kinsman (1992, 1996a,b) Rayside and Lindquist (1992a,b). The federal government has also played a significant role in funding research and education, particularly through the five-year AIDS Strategy which is scheduled to end in 1998, see HN and AIDS: Canada 's Blueprint (Health and Welfare Canada, 1990), Building an Effective ~artnership:The Federal Goverment's Commitment to Fighting AIDS. ~ationalAIDS Strategy Progress Report ( 1991), National AIDS Strategy. Progress Report 1991. First Report by the Minister of National Health and Welfare to the Standing Committee on Heal th and Welfare, Social Affairs, Seniors and the Status of Women, National AIDS Strategy Update (1991), and Toward Building Private Sector Partnerships. A Discussion Paper (National AIDS Secretariat, 1994) . Sec ~SO, Women and AIDS. A Challenge for Canada in the Nineties. A Framework for AIDS Education Programs (Minister of Supply and Services, 1990). Federal government policies are analyzed in Kinsman (1992, 1996) Poirier (1994) and Rayside and Lindquist (l992a,b) . For an AIDS activist's proposals about policy, see Lee (1991). 2. AIDS activists called on the NDP to fire Dr. Richard Schabas, then Chief Medical Officer of Health of Ontario, following his suggestion that the province consider quarantine for some PHAs. See "AIDS Action Now - A Chronology", and "Community treatment plan disappoints AIDS activistsfr,Toronto Star, March 19, 1991, "Nothing New. AIDS activists unsatisfied: Health Minister doesnlt deliver", Rites, April 1991. Regarding the use of the legal system to constrain the sexual activities of some PHAs see "Province seeks sex ban for man. AIDS sufferer faces $5,000-a-day fine if judge grants order", Toronto Star, April 2, 1991, and a report of the Ontario Aids Advisory Committee, "Consultation on Reducing HIV Transmission by Individualç Who Are Unwilling or Unable to Take Appropriate Precautions. A Discussion of the Options" (April, 1991, Available from the AIDS Bureau, Ontario Ministry of Health and in the library, AIDS Committee of Toronto), The spring of 1991 was a period when many AIDS activists lost patience with what they saw as the NDP goverment's inaction on a number of issues related to AIDS care, and the provincial AIDS Advisory Committee threatened a rnass resignation. See "Apology mollifies AIDS panel", Globe and Mail, April 11, 1991. AIDS activists also campaigned for more funding for AIDS research. At the provincial level this led to AIDS Action Now's support for the Health Ministry's exclusive contract with the multinational pharmaceutical Company, Burroughs Welcome, for the purchase of its patented version of the drug AZT for al1 PHAs in Ontario. In exchange, Burroughs Welcorne donated $1.25 million to AIDS research and social programs ("Province, firm sign AIDS-drug deal. Company to provide money for research in return to exclusive sale of Retrovir", Globe and Mail, December 12, 1992) . 3. On the history of AIDS Action Now, see the nine-page "AIDS Action Now! - A Chr~nology~~,(n.d. [c. October, 19961, available from AIDS Action Now) . Regarding the history and present work of AIDS community organizations in Ontario see Cain (1994) Kinsman (1992, 1996a) Rayside and Lindquist (1992a,b) and Smith (1990). See also the 1997 Annual Report of the AIDS Committee of Toronto (the largest AIDS service organization in Canada) which includes an interesting article, ''ACT: Some Historyl' (by Rick Bebout with Joan Anderson, supplement to Xtra, August 28, 1997) . 4. Tim McCaskell is one of the few people 1 interviewed who is not identified by a pseudonym. He was a founding member of AIDS Action Now, and has continued to be active with that group as well as sitting as a comrnunity representative on OACHA, the provincial Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, and as the CO- chair of the Review Committee which selects research projects for grants under the Burroughs-Welcome Fund negotiated as a result of the company's exclusive contract to sel1 its brand of AZT in Ontario. 5. Regarding the implementation of this promise see "News Release. Gigantes Announces Changes to HIV Testing", (Ontario Ministry of Health, April i5, 1991). 6. According to Tim McCaskell, "Public health people didn't want anonymous testing, Schabas was opposed to it because it would limit his power in terms of contact tracing and al1 the rest of it" (Interview, 1997). 7. See Kinsman (1996b) on the Responsibilization of PHAs. 8. For more details on the history of the AIDS Bureau see the Ontario governmentrs AIDS plan, Building on Our Strengths (1993, pp. 6-7), and "Playing Political Games. Ontario AIDS Bureau Head Says He's Not Enough of a Bureaucrat", Xtra, February 19, 1993. The latter highlights Jay Brome's role. 9. See Lankin's letter of June 18, 1991, announcing the move to OACHA members and "cornmunity-based" AIDS organizations and other providers of services to PHAs (A copy of the letter is held in the vertical files of the library of the AIDS Committee of Toronto) . 10. See "AIDS Action Now! - A Chronology". 11. Tim McCaskell suggests that, "The NDP need to be credited with putting particular things in place, making OACHA a lot more community-based, when the Liberals were in there before, OACHA tended to be a very closed group, and even its deliberations were supposed to be secret. People in the community werenrt even allowed to know about what was being talked about1' (Interview, 1997). 12. "1. Pearse" is a pseudonym for a senior staff rnember in a social service agency who has worked on AIDS issues for many years . 13. On AIDS and social assistance, see Shime (1994). 14. See "AIDS Action Now! - A Chronology". 15. Quoted in "AIDS Action Now pushes province for improved carel', AIDS Action News, Winter 1992, p.2. See also "AIDS Action Now - A Chronology". 16. See "For AIDS activists, NDP no better than the rest. Bob Raels cabinet has proved no more helpful than previous governments", by Dr. Philip Berger, Toronto Star, September 30, 1991, p.B3. 17. See, "Health minister promises drug plan, Government acknowledges the need to develop a comprehensive drug policy", Xtra, February 7, 1992. 18. See, "Free drugs for AIDS must wait, NDP saysw, Toronto Star, January 7, 1993. 19. "The sick must pay. Health minister plans for the future expenses of people with AIDS", Stra, September 17, 1993, p. 11. 20. See "AIDS Action Now - A Chronology". 21. See the Trillium Drug Program's information leaflet [n.d., c-early 19951 "Trillium Drug Program. For People With Unmanageable Drug Expenses". Available in the vertical files of the library at the AIDS Committee of Toronto. 22. See A guide to your application. This program may make you eligible for Ontario Drug Benefits (Trillium Drug Program, Ontario Ministry of Health, p.7) and 1997/98 Application for Ontario Drug Benefi ts, (Trilliurn Drug Program, Ontario Ministry of Health, p.4) . 23. "G. Randall" is a pseudonym for an AIDS educator who is presently working for a municipality, and who has been active on many different AIDS issues for a decade. 24. Maxwell (Interview, 1996) reported that bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health would often cornplain that politicians responded more readily to AIDS than to other issues raised by activists. 25. See the absence in Frances Lankints speech to the Standing Committee on Estimates on June 2, 1992 (Hansard, p.E-531, a partial sentence in Ruth Grier's speech of July 21, 1993 (Hansard, p.E-140), the absence in Grier's speech of June 7, 1994 (Hansard, p.E-4541, and in Jim Wilson's speech of February 15, 1996 (Hansard, p.E-433). Wilson's estimates speech of October 2, 1996 included one sentence about HIV and AIDS when he reminded the cornmittee that he had just announced the viral load testing program (Hansard, p. E-638) . AIDS was also mentioned in the Health Ministryrs Annual Report S. 26. The term "stigma" draws upon a long history or sociological work based on Erving Gof hanrs theories (1963). 27. Mykhalovskiy and Smith discuss the stigma of AIDS among street youth, homeless men, and Aboriginal people. Darien Taylor (AIDS Committee of Toronto, persona1 communication, July 1997) has described how HIV-positive deaf people and HIV-positive women from some communities in Toronto also experience extreme social stigma and isolation. Ki NamasteTs research (CACTUS Needle Exchange, Montreal, persona1 communication, July 1997) is revealing the extent of AIDS stigma among transsexual and transgender sex-trade workers, where members of that community will be completely surprised by the death £rom AIDS of someone who had hidden their sero-positive status in order to be able to work until just a few weeks before dying. 28. "Ontario's HIV/AIDS Plan to the Year 2000. Update 1997", Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS (July 1997). See below regarding access to this document. 29. See below for an analysis of the links between the Farlinger farnily and the Tory party. 30. Tim McCaskell reported that Jim Wilson initially attempted to fund viral load testing out of the Burroughs-Wellcome (now Glaxo- Wellcome) Fund. The request was withdrawn by the Minister when Tim, as a cornmunity representative and CO-Chair of the Review Committee, refused to approve the application on the grounds that the Fund was intended to support research and not medical services (Interview, 1997) . 31. See also, ''$2 million pledged to fight HIV1', Toronto Star, October 1, 1996. 32. Brian Farlinger's father was Bill Farlinger, the present Chair of the Board of Ontario Hydro. 33. News reports about the round of cuts that were announced by the Harris government in October 1995 stated that two "AIDS- related programs will also be cut, one for HIV assistance ($1.7 million) and another for AIDS prevention ($77, 000) " ("Every provincial rninistry hit", Toronto Star, October 6, 1995, p.A28) . This was in the context of widespread and deep cuts that totalled $772 million, including $32 million from school boards, $6.8 million from colleges, $16.8 million from universities, $20 million from hospitals, $20 million from the JobLink program for welfare recipients, $43.5 million from social services, and $19.8 million from public transit (see "Where $772 million cuts will hit hardestt', Toronto Star, October 6, 1995, p.A. 1) . 34, See "Mike makes no promises. Premier meets with AIDS activists", Xtra, November 10, 1995. 35. Two others who have long been involved in AIDS work, B. Lee and Joan Anderson, also reported to me that the Farlinger family had been very influential on AIDS policy under the Tories. "B. Lee" is an AIDS activist whose employment has required the use of this pseudonym for many years. 36. See p. 14 above regarding Harris's recognition of Brian Farlinger in the visitors' gallery of the Legislature. 37. Jim Wilson's first speech to the Standing Committee on Estimates was in a similar vein (see Hansard, 15 February 1996, p.E-433). 38. See "Ontario's HIV/AIDS Plan to the Year 2000. Update 1997" (Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, July 1997) p.19. 39. Regarding the importance of the Wellesley Hospital to gay communities and to PHAs, see "The Common Sense Revoiution. Hospital closure would take $29-million from ghetto economy', Xtra, November 10, 1995, and "Save our hospitals. Write, organize, maybe even get arrested", Xtra, October 24, 1996. 40. See also an AIDS Action Now interna1 document, "Effect of Goverment Announcements to Re-Align Services With Municipalities", (n.d.[c. January 19971, available from AIDS Action Now). This analyzed the potential impact on people with HIV/AIDS of Harris government proposals to change cost-sharing arrangements with municipalities for social assistance, child care, emergency hostels, long-term care, ambulance, public health, social housing, and the arnalgamation of Metro Toronto and the revision of property taxes in Toronto. 41. Joan Anderson's interview with me was not anonymous; she is the Director of Education at the AIDS Committee O£ Toronto, a former AIDS educator with the East York Health Department, and a former chair of the boards of the Canadian AIDS Society and the AIDS Committee of Toronto. 42. "H. Quintero" is the pseudonym for an individual who has worked in frontline and management of AIDS education at the municipal level for ten years. 43. ACT'S funding relationship with the City of Toronto and its position on the amalgamation of Metro Toronto are detailed in ~WO documents: "People Affected by HIV/AIDS Speak Out Against the Megacity" (Media Advisory, February 12, 1997 [AIDS Committee of Toronto]), and "Written Submission to the Toronto Transition Team from the AIDS Committee of Toronto. Based upon deputation notes - Toronto Transition Team Public Hearing, July 10, 1997. Presented by Michael Battista, Vice-Chair, ACT Board of Directors". (Both documents are available from the AIDS Committee of Toronto). Regarding the philosophy and programs of the City of Toronto in response to AIDS, see the annual reports of the AIDS Prevention Program of the Toronto Board of Health. As with other municipal government programs, full and detailed information is available on the organizations and HIV prevention programs that were funded through the AIDS Prevention Program, Department of Public Health, City of Toronto. Reports and minutes of the Toronto Board of Health and its AIDS Sub-Committee are available in the Urban Affairs Library. 44. "K. Nezam" is the pseudonym for an individual who works in a municipal public health department. 45. "L. Mertins", "J. Orleck", "D. Unwin", and "A. Young1' are pseudonyms for educators with public health departments in the Greater Toronto area. 46. Thanks to Tirn McCaskell, a community member of OACHA, 1 was able to receive a copy of the Update, which staff at the AIDS Bureau are not yet authorized to release. 47. "Ontario's HIV/AIDS Plan to the Year 2000. Update 1997", (July 1997), p.19 (Copies of the Update should be available from the AIDS Bureau from Fall 1997, 1 received a copy from Tim McCaskell of AIDS Action Now). 48. One street youth and HIV see: English (lggl), Kruks (lggl), and Luna (1991). 49. "Building on Our Strengths", p.96. Chapter 6 Conclusions In this thesis 1 analyzed the intersection between the regulation of sexuality and social policies in Ontario, a topic that has been virtually unexplored in the social policy literature. This work is ovesdue as related issues have been discussed for many years by scholars in sociology, history, criminology and other fields , including important work on Canada. 1 focussed upon contemporary developments in four dif ferent sites : social assistance, street youth services, the recognition of lesbian and gay relationships, and AIDS. These case studies show that sexual regulation can play a significant role in certain social policies; conversely, social policies are certainly important in the study of sexual regulation in Ontario. However, 1 do not think that it is possible to determine how sexuality is regulated by social policies at an abstract or general level. Each of the sites 1 examineci revealed particular strategies in governing the social through sexuality, as well as in governing sexuality through the social. 244 In the following section 1 will summarize each chapter in the thesis, discussing my analyses of the intersections between sexuality and social policy in each site. 1 will then compare the themes that emerge from the study and suggest implications for future work. In the chapter on Velfare, Sexuality and Strategies for Governing Povertyw, 1 discussed how the past decade has ben a tîme in which the leading strategy in governing Ontario welfare recipients has shifted from problematizing poverty to problematizing dependency, in particulas, dependence upon the state. 1 found that this has been a highly contested development which did not begin with the election of a Conservative goverrunent in 1995, but with an earlier and significant reformulation of welfare policy during the NDP period in power in which recipients of welfare began to be problematized more than npovertyw, Vhe economyv or "unempl~yment~~.This change also represented a shift from social explanations of people's lack of financial means and of the welfare caseload, to explanations which looked to individual deviance, such as "abuse of the systemV1,or individual moral and psychological pathologies, such as "dependencyV1. This form of dependency is argued to have been state-induced, that is, it has 245 been created and maintained by welfare programs. 1 argue that the Common Sense Revolution marks the culmination and intensification of these policy changes, rather than an abnipt reversal. I also argueci that a focus on sexuality shows that the shift from poverty to dependency is only one part of the picture. Under the Common Sense Revolution, what is most under attack is one particular form of dependency, that of adults on the state. Coercive technologies are being deployed in the promotion of non-state foms of dependency, within the heterosexual couple and between parents and their teenage children. Under the Cornman Sense Revolution these are called "traditional fonns of supportv1. 1 draw on the concept of moral regulation to argue that this is not simply aimed at discouraging women welfare recipients from being sexually active outside of marriage or common-law relationships, but that it is also centrally concerned with governing the foms that heterosexuality takes. The testimony of the women who launched a court challenge to the new welfare rules regarding spouses demonstrated some of the strategies deployed by women who want to retain financial independence within heterosexual relationships . In Chapter 2, 1 also argued that policies regarding social 246 assistance intersect with the regulation of sexuality in highly complex ways. At one level the spouse-in-the-house rule is concerned with detebning which applicants are already economically dependent upon other individuals, and preventing such people from becoming dependent upon the state. However, this search for dependency between individuals is predicated upon an assumption that dependency will and should emerge as a result of (hetero)sexual relations rather than as a result of other relations between adults, My analysis also showed the links between welfare niles and the regulation of youth sexuality. Some evidence of this is provided by critics of teen welfare and policy makers who fear that autonomous access to income security from the state will open the door to youth engaging in sexual activities that have not been authorized by their parents. Another form of intersection is suggested by the work of activists and researchers who assert that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth form a significant proportion of youth "on the streetw and that restrictive eligibility criteria for welfare contribute to the subordination of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth. 1 argue that the new welfare rules for 16- and 17-year-olds introduced by the Harris government are another part of the strategy of promoting "traditional foms of supportt1, in this case the dependence of 247 teenagers upon their parents. Like the spouse-in-the-house rule, this form of non-state dependency is contested, but an examination of political debates about the policy reveals a wider consensus endorsing teenagers ' dependence on their parents. The administration of the spouse-in-the-house rule requires that applicants be questioned about whether they have a spousal, that is, a sexual, relationship. The rules regarding welfare for teenagers are different. They regulate youth sexuality at a distance rather than directly. 1 do not argue that the sexual regulation of single mothers and teenagers is the goal of Mike Harris's promotion of non- state "traditional forms of support". Instead I attempted to show that these policies are implicated in sexual regulation. In Chapter 3, llInventing Street Youth: From Protecting 'Easy Victimsl to Teaching 'Risk Reductionm, I argued that street outreach and other services specifically directed at street youth were not only techniques in a new strategy for social work with a particular group of people, but that they also helped to constitute "street youthw as a new and specific 'lpopulationl' or set of clients. The new category ''street youthW1 constructeci a group of people who were not adults, not children, and not juvenile delinquents. Older strategies, such as 248 services for homeless people of al1 ages, child protection, and policing, came to be viewed as retrogressive and unimaginative, and older population categories , such as "transient youthl*and VunawaysWbecame less prominent . The expansion of street youth services in Toronto signalled the decline of strategies which drew on sovereign power and punishment, and gave primacy to strategies which constituted street youth, including those under 16 years, as self-governing subjects. In this chapter 1 also discussed the ways in which moral regulation and issues related to semiality intersect with developments in services for street youth. 1 argued that the creation of street youth services was closely tied to anxieties about prostitution and homosexuality and the formation of particular ethical subjectivities among youth who are not under parental authority. The impetus for new techniques of street outreach emerged partly from general concerns about youth on downtown streets, but also as a response to the controversial sex-trade on Yonge Street and to a specific event which had taken place the year before the Downtown Youth Centre was proposed- In August 1977 a twelve-year-old boy, Emanuel Jaques, was raped and murdered by three men above a Yonge Street sex shop; this precipitated a political and media uproar which led to renewed support for efforts to Tlean-Up Yonge Streetw, to 249 police campaigns against prostitution in several cities across the country, and to popular, media and police attacks upon homosexuality. 1 argue that this event was the catalyst that led directly to the development of a new approach to working with youth on city streets . Following the murder of Emanuel Jaques, the Catholic Church attacked homosemiality in its own church media. Three years later, in 1981, Cardinal Carter, the head of the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, announced that Father Bruce Ritter from Covenant House-New York had been invited to start a youth shelter in Toronto. Its aims were strikingly similar to those of the Downtown Youth Centre, and constituted youth not as children needing sovereign power or pastoral care, but as self- governing. Covenant House viewed its work as being centrally concerned with issues related to moral regulation and sexuality, in particular youth prostitution. The establishment of the shelter had been a persona1 project of the Archbishop, rather than having emerged from Catholic agencies or the diocesan commi ttees usually entrusted with social service issues. In particular, it was the result of the Archbishopws office being locateà on a Toronto street which, in different yet overlapping sections, was associated with the gay comunity and with street prostitution. 250 In Chapter 3, 1 also described the work of child welfare services, the other es tablished response to homeless young people. 1 argued that in the 1980s and 1990s we have witnessed a significant shift in the leading child welfare strategy in Toronto for responding to homeless youth: from child protection to treating youth as self-governing subjects who should be taught techniques of lkisk-reductionw. 1 showed that this shift was accompanied by new approaches to the regulation of youth sexuality, from attempting to rescue them from exploitation caused by prostitution, to unders tanding that they engaged in wsurvival sex" for primarily economic reasons, and that it was acceptable for them to explore lesbian or gay sexual identities. In the final section of Chapter 3, 1 turn to the Comon Sense Revolution and issues related to reductions in funding for street youth services and changing strategies in governing agencies. These changes have serious implications for the services available for street youth, including the large numbers of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, as well as prostitutes, who make up this sector of young people. However, I show that it would be difficult to argue that the goal of these Consemative cuts was to regulate the sexuality of street youth. On the con trary , these developments emerge from the provincial government ' s efforts to govern voluntary social service 251 agencies . 1 also show that new strategies for governing voluntary agencies did not suddenly emerge wfth the election of Mike Harris in 1995, they had also been a feature of the NDP period in power when voluntary agencies were criticised for their "rugged individualismn. In Chapter 4, "Governing ' Family ' and ' Spousall Relationshipsw, 1 discussed the defeat of Bill 167, the successful passage of health care legislation recognising same- SPY relationships and the implications for class relations among gay people raised by advances in spousal recognition. 1 suggested that after basic human rights protection was won by lesbians and gay men, public recognition for lesbian and gay relationships has emerged as a key political issue, with much of the leadership being taken by individuals in legal battles rather than by comunity organizations. A substantial section of Chapter 4 was devoted to a detailed analysis of political discourse on Bill 167, the NDP effort to win legal recognition for lesbian and gay relationships. I suggested that supporters and opponents of the bill were contesting the meaning of wfamilyvv,with lesbian and gay activists focussing upon similarities between gay familias and other families, and the NDP defensively emphasising that the 252 bill would not change marriage. 1 argued that the Rae governmentrs decision to leave the fate of Bill 167 to a free vote constituted same-sex spousal recognition as a moral issue- 1 also examineci the different fate of consent-to-treament and related legislation under the NDP and the ~onservative party. 1 showed how these laws included regulations drafted by the NDP that had open-ended definitions of rlpartnersvr, yet they survived both Consenrative party and Catholic Church scrutiny when the Harris government incorporated them into its new legislation. This success may only have been possible because recognition of lesbian and gay relationships was a minor eiement ather than the central goal of the legislation, permitting rnuch of the political struggle to be avoided. As gay activists pointed out, although the Health Care Consent Act and related legislation provided practical benefits to lesbian and gay couples, the lack of publicity meant that most people would not be aware of what had been won, Gay and AIDS organizations also critiqued the limitations of the category rvpartnerlr. In Chapter 4, 1 also showed that while the vvCommon Sense Revolutionw campaign document had made no reference to lesbian and gay relationships, the Conservative record in power has been somewhat contradictory. They created space for lesbian and gay relationships through the health care legislation. At the same 253 time, the Conservatives opposed the equalis of lesbian and gay w~p~~~e~win a prominent court case. In the final section of Chapter 4, 1 discussed the questions about social class and sexual identity prompted by efforts to achieve of ficial recognition for lesbian and gay relationships. 1 argued that the ways that same-sex spousal recognition is king achieved is contributing to the widening of class differences among lesbian and gay people. Many of the most significant advances in relationship recognition have been achieved through routes other than legislation, such as trade union contracts , court cases and human rights complaints . Many ernployers , including universities , municipali ties and large corporations, have conceded benefits to lesbian and gay employees ei ther because of competition for highly skilled personnel, or because they anticipated human rights complaints . Some work places have become sites where lesbian and gay employees have increasingly been successful in winning recognition for their relationships. But these advances have generally been limited ta workers in unionized or high status occupations. The large numbers of lesbians and gay men who work in low-paid non-unionized senrice occupations do not have access to these benef i ts . 1 explored how recognition of lesbian and gay relationships 254 by state bodies could further penalize low-income lesbians and gay men who might need to apply for social assistance, and whose circumstances would be reviewed to determine if they were in a spousal relationship. This could mean financial losses and possibly the enforced dependence of poor lesbians and gay men on their partners, and the extension of strategies of responsibilization to include lesbian and gay farnilies. Chapter 5, rqSocial, Medical and Moral Constructions of AIDSWr focussed upon AIDS policy in Ontario, in particular developrnents under the NDP and the present Conservative government. 1 showed that relations between the Rae government and the AIDS movernent were mixed. The NDPrs quick move to establish anonymous testing, the provincial AIDS plan and the change in mandate of the AIDS Bureau al1 met the demands of activists for policies, created a space for social responses and shifted policies frorn sovereign approaches to newer responsibilizing strategies. These decisions also reduced the influence of public health strategies. In contrast, the reluctance to fund AIDS treatments until the penul timate moment in Bob Elaers mandate priorized a politics of fiscal responsibility over health and social issues. In the second section of Chapter 5, 1 turned to a 255 discussion of the ways in which AIDS was constituted in Ontario parliamentary political discourse. 1 argued that AIDS is frequently separateci from other health issues and that it has been constructed as a non-partisan issue. 1 also explored how the stigma of AIDS was revealed and constructed in politicians' interventions on the topic. In the final section of Chapter 5, 1 showed that the election of a Conservative government in 1995 did not bring about significant changes in those policies which focus specifically upon AIDS, Yet when AïDS intersected with social services it was as vulnerable as other sectors to the overall s trategies of the Conservatives . Many existing AIDS-specif ic programs continued at the same level of provincial funding; this was partly due to family links between the Conservative party and some members of AIDS Action Now. More broadly, it can be understood in terms of the ways sexuality and AIDS pemeate social divisions. At the sarne tirne, Common Sense Revolution s trategies which undermine social assistance, social services and local government autonomy will indirectly change HIV prevention and the quality of life for PHAs. 1 argued that the emphasis of AIDS activist groups upon treatment ensured that people with HIV had access to medical services as good as those available to people with other 256 illnesses. Given the stigma of AIDS, this has been and will continue to be critical for the sumival of PHAs. This emphasis upon treatments also contributeci to efforts to cons titute AIDS as a wmedicalw problem and moved it out of the moral terrain. Class differences among gay men and PHAs played a role in the process by which the middle-class leadership of activist groups focussed on the issues which are the most pressing to them. These were less likely to be welfare or social housing, and more likely to be the cost of medications and access to new treatments . My analyses of these four different areas suggests a number of common themes and points to insights for other researchers. One theme that is threaded through the four "case studiesn is the waning of the significance of "the socialw as a category. The Conservatives have argued that lack of income should not be addresseci by state-run programs open to al1 citizens but by individuals and families taking responsibility for their own or their relatives1 financial needs. But while this analysis is illuminating it cannot explain al1 developments. The undedning of the social may appear to be a radical change when oners analysis is gender-neutral or age-neutral. When viewed through the lens of particular sectors of the population it 257 represents a decline in public support that was already limited in scope. The tightening of Ontario welfare regulations in 1995 had their greatest impact upon women welfare recipients and applicants , The removal of the three-year delay and the reintroduction of an imrnediate spouse-in-the-house rule intensifieci established welfare policies which constitute single mothers and their children as the responsibility of the men with whom they may be in heterosexual relationships. The boundary between social and familial responsibility for teenagers is also constantly contested, by youth themselves , by parents, and by social workers and other professionals. The restrictions on social assis tance for 16- and 17-year-olds introduced by the Ontario Conservatives again represent an intensification of familial responsibilization and a shift away from social responsibili ty. However, they do not mark an about face in policy; teenagers1 access to independent income from the state has always been quite lirnjlted. This study also suggests insights that an analysis of moral regulation can offer. Moral regulation, or the formation of ethical subjectivities, is central to the work of the Common Sense Revolution and its critique of the deficit and goverment "wasteW. In relation to social assistance, the Conservatives suggestion that some recipients wanted a "hand-outrr, or that 258 they were not really in need, contributed to a moral discourse which attempted to consti tute lrdependencyllon the state as ethically problematic'. Moral regulation takes place at both state and non-state sites. For example, youth workers and other professionals in Toronto have been developing new strategies for governing street youth. These mark a shift from the moral regulation of youth who had been constructed as sexually exploi ted to stra tegies which foreground ri sk reduction . Religious bodies play an important role in moral regulation. The Catholic Church helped to frame responses to the murder of Emanuel Jaques in tenns which cons ti tuted homosexuali ty as immoral. The leadership of the Catholic Church was central in constituting street youth as sexually victimized in the 1970s and early 19809, and in playing a leadership role in opposition to Bill 167 in 1994- In Ontario in the 1990s, there has been no simple equation between fiscal conservatism and moral conservatism, and different strategies of moral regulation emerge at different times. As a result, analyzing the differences between the policies of the NDP government and the Comon Sense Revolution is a complex matter, as is shown by the NDP1s failure to win Bill 167 and the Conservatives quiet passage of legislation which provided space for the recognition of lesbian and gay 259 llpartnersll. The Consenratives fiscal consenmtism does not extend to al1 its programs, best exemplified by the continued funding for AIDS treatments . The NDP forced AIDS activists to fight for many years before a catastrophic drug plan was established. The strategy of attempting to govern social service agencies through llefficiencyll and **eliminationof duplication" took place under the NDP government and has continued under the Conservatives, although in the context of larges reductions in funding for wsocialll programs. The decline of l'the socialw, a central feature of Conservative policies, was initiated in the last years of the NDP government and thus represents an intensification of that trend rather than an abrupt policy reversal . My research also shows that strategies for governing people are not singular or monolithic. In the case of social assistance in Ontario, responsibilizing strategies which emphasize self-regulation CO-exist with sovereign strategies which criminalize recipients through techniques such as fraud investigations. Lesbians and gay men are governed by strategies of exclusion, for example through non-recogni tion of their relationships, by familial responsibilization, as well as by strcrtegies of self-regulated risk reduction, such as deployed in 260 work with lesbian and gay homeless youth, and in anonymous testing for HIV. State strategies for governing particular groups of people are contested by alternative s trategies emerging from comunity organizations. Examples of this are Justice for Children and Youthvs legal cases and lobbying work against rules which restrict teenagers ' access to welfare, and the court case brought by four single mothers against the reinstatement of the spouse-in-the-house rule. Alternative strategies are themselves not monolithic. Among lesbian and gay activists and AIDS activists , several strategies are hotly contested, for example concerning the fight for relationship recognition, My analysis of the CO-existence of contradictory s trategies of governance suggests that analyses of social policies is Iimited if attempts are made to explain al1 developments in terms of a single mode of regulation. Greater complexities and nuances are revealed by a theoretical framework which allows for the contradictory and mu1 tiple s trategies that can be found in a study of any one site at a particular historical moment. Recent developments in social policies are not introducing the regulation of sexuality for the first time in Ontario, but particular sites offer important insights not only for the study of sexuality but also for the study of social welfare. Studying 261 sexual regulation offers new perspectives to social policy scholarship, revealing complexi ties and contradictions. For axample, focussing upon rroverall" s trategies for governing welfare recipients suggests a move from problematizing poverty to problematizing dependency . However , examining the regdation of heterosexuality in welfare rules reveals a difference of degree rather than a radical change, because economic dependency by women upon male partners has historically been enforced through in these regulations. This thesis supports the argument that sexuality is not an autonomous site of regulation; sexual and moral regulation are implicated in various s trategies for governing different si tes and groups of people. The relation between sexual regulation and strategies of governance is complex and historically specific. 1 have not aimed to show that new welfare regulations or other programs are "reallyw about sexual regulation. But the study of social policy will be enriched by the inclusion of issues related to sexual regulation, Students of the history of sexuality have long been interesteci in social policies. Through this work 1 have also shown that sexual regulation can play a significant role in particulas social policies. The analyses and critiques developed in this thesis suggest alternative approaches to social policy research and social work 2 62 research. 1 would argue that examinations of social policy, strategies of governance or relations of power at an abstract or general level have serious limitations. By focussing upon specific sites it is possible to develop richer analyses of the complexities and contradictions of governing and alternative strategies. Developing research agendas which focus upon systematic analyses of specific developments in particular his torical moments would also con tribute to challenging the hegemony of poli tical economy approaches in social policy scholarship , Central to this thesis has been an understanding of social policies as being constituted by power relations, and in turn contributing to the reproduction of those relations. MY research has provided evidence of these processes in regard to issues related to sexuality. It is important that social policy and social work research integrate an analysis of power relations into research on other issues. This thesis also shows the limitations of mainstrearn social policy scholarship, wi th its narrow focus upon political economy. A continuing refusal to consider issues beyond class and the economy will lead to an impoverished analysis of the Harris government, which will simply reproduce the stale debates of the 1980s about, for example, Thatcherism. 263 This thesis also suggests the value in critically examining new categories, of analysis or of people, which at first appear to offer much more than their l%znsophisticatedVv predecessors . My analysis of "street youthVVand "risk reduction" shows that these new categories present their own contradictions and limitations. Uncri tically adopting , for example, epidemiological concepts of "riskWfor work on issues such as homeless youth or child welfare, will continue the deployment of social work in strategies for governing people. Instead, social work and social policy research can contribute to new understandings of the processes of regulation. Chapter 6 Endnotes 1. Andre Regimbald (1997) briefly raises the issue of moral regulation, suggesting that the Comrnon Sense Revolution represents a "populist social conservatisrn that seeks to colour economic and social problerns with a moral dimension" (p.53). Appendix 1 f nfomation Sheet TITLE OF RESEARCE: Sexuality, Neo-Liberal Social Policp and Regimes of Power in Ontario INVESTIGA!EûR: Carol-Anne O'Brien (tel. 416-214-6171) 1. The Studv 1 am interested in interviewing agency personnel, community workers and others who axe informed about recent developments in policy and funding of social services in Ontario. Within this context 1 will explore the implications of changes brought in bp the Harris government . My tesearch will investigate, in particular , issues related to serualitp. 1 will draw on this studp for mp Ph.D. thesis and for other publications. 2, Interviews 1 will be interviewing informed people about these issues. Interviews will last 30 to 60 minutes, will be tape-recorded, and will be transcribed in whole or in part. These interviews are completely confidential. Pour name, the name of your agency and anp identifping details will be deleted from the transctipts and from publications. Pour participation in interviews is completely voluntary. Pou may stop the tape-recording or decline to answer any question. Pou may withdtaw pour participation from the study at any the. The tapes and transcripts will be kept in a location to which only 1 have access. At the end of the study the tapes will be erased. 3. Risks and ~enefits There are various risks and benefits associated with participation in this study. Benefits include the opportunity to discuss issues related to policp developments and the possibilitp of contributing to knowledge and to developments that map benefit societp. The risks associated with this study are minimal. Although the interviews are completely confidential, there is a small risk that readers who have specialized knowledge of the field might be able to guess the identity of some agencies. This risk will be minimized bp the exclusion of identifying information from the thesis and publications. Please feel free to cal1 me any time and ask me aay questions pou may have about the research. Thank pou verp much for your interest. Appendix II Consent Form TITLE OF RESEARCH: Sexuality, Mo-Liberal Social Policy and Regimes of Power in Ontario INVESTIGATOR: Carol-Anne O'Brien (tel. 416-214-6171) 1 acknowledge that the reseaich procedures described on the attached information sheet and of which 1 have a copy, have been explained to me and that any questions 1 asked have been answered to my satisfaction. I. also understand the benefits of joining the research study. The possible risks have been explained to me. 1 know that 1 map ask nar, or in the future, any questions 1 have about the studp or the research procedures. 1 have agreed to have the interview tape-recorded but if X wish to withdraw my participation from the study at anp the, 1 map do so. 1 understand that this interview is completely confidential. My name, the name of my organization and anp identifying details will be excluded hminterview transcripts and publications. 1 understand that the information gathered in this interview may be included in Carol-Anne O'Brien's Ph.D. thesis and in other publications. 1 hereby consent to participate. Name and Date Signature Witness and Date Appeadix III Interview Guide 1. In general, has your (organization/departmentfagency) been through changes in recent years? What are they? How have they affected pour work? 2. Bow have the policies of the Harris government affected pour (agencp, organization, department)? 3. Which provincial ministries fund/ed pou? Ras their funding changed? Hm? 4. What other types of funding do pou receive? (metro, city, United Way) In what ways, if any, have these changed? 5. Tell me about any directives pou might have received from government or other funders regarding pour work? 6. What types of decisions have you had to make as a result of al1 of these changes/cuts? - types of clients? - new programs shelved/developed? - changes in agencp structure? - staffing? 7. Tell me about any of your programs related to sexuality that may or may not have been affected bp al1 of this? 8. Are there any other ways in which you have been affected by or responded to these changes or cuts? PRIMARY SOURCES Archival Records Archives of Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services. Memorandum from George H . Thomson, Associate Deputy Minister , Children ' s Services Division. To: Keith C. Norton, Minister. Re: Proposed Downtown Youth Service. June , 22, 1978. [Attachent 11 lVDraft [P~oposal]~To: The Social Senrices and Housing Corrunittee. Subject: Proposed Downtown Youth Service. Origin: Commissioner of Social Services [Metro Toronto].[no date]; [Attachment 21 "Brief Historyl* [n.d.]. (RG 29-1, Acc,17033, tf.81-455, Box 27). Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Toronto Campaign for Equal Families Papers Un~ublishedGoverment and Leaai Documents, Health and Welfare Canada llNational AIDS Strategy Updatew. 1991. National AIDS Secretariat. llTowards Building Private Sector Partnerships . A Discussion Paperl1. (May 1994 ) . Legislative Assembly of Ontario l%dvocacy Act, 199211. "Bill. 19, Ch. 2, 1996. An Act to repeal the Advocacy Act, 1992, revise the Consent to Treatment Act, 1992, amend the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992 and amend other Acts in respect of related rnatters including the Health Care Consent Act, 1996". 'lBill 167. An Act to amend Ontario Statutes to provide for the equal treatment of persons in spousal relationshipsw. 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AIDS Cornmittee of Toronto Library "Media Advisory, People Affected by HIV/AIDS Speak Out Against the Megacityvl [AIDS Committee of Toronto] (February 12, 1997) . llWrittenSubmission to the Toronto Transition Team from the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) 1n.d. c, July 19971 IIHow the Harris Goverment's Changes will Effect [sic] People Living With HIV/AIDS: an analysis of the changes to General Welfare Assistance, Family Benefits Allowance, and Housing Developments by the new Ontario G~vernment~~.By Pamela Bowes, Benefits and Assistance Coordinator, Toronto People With AIDS Foundation [n.d. c.19951. Ontario Ministry of Health. Memo from Minister Frances Lankin to Tommunity-based AIDS organizations; Members, Ontario AIDS Aùvisory Committee and sub-cornmittees; Members, Interministerial Working Group on AIDS ; HIV outpatient clinics". Re: "New AIDS Bureaur1,June 18, 1991. Ontario AIDS Advisory Cornmi ttee . IIConsultation . Reducing HIV Transmission by Individuals Who Are Unwilling or Unable to Take Appropriate Precautions . A Discussion of the Options1*. (April 1991). Trillium Drug Program. "For People With Unmanageable Drug Expenses. Are you paying a large part of your income for prescription drugs?" . Urban Affairs Library, Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library City of Toronto. Neighbourhoods Committee "Report No. 14". For City Council Consideration at Meeting No. 18 on November 27, 1995, City of Toronto. Planning and Development Department, Housing Department and Public Health Department. [Memorandum]. To : City of Toronto Neighbourhoods Corranittee. Subject: Tracking the Impacts of Provincial Cuts. February 29, 1996. Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Metro Community Services. "Determination of Spousal Status." [Questionnaire]. [n.d. c. l995]. Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Metro Community Services. [Memorandum] To: Conmunity Services and Housing Committee. From: General Manager, Social Services Division. Subject: General Welfare Assistance Regulation Changes. (Dec.4, 1995). Municipality of Metropoli tan Toronto. Metro Advisory Codttee on Homeless and Socially Isolated Parsons. rWEvictionsand Homelessness. Proposais for a Metropolitan Toronto Action Planq1.(March 1996) . Other Un~ublishedSources AIDS Action Now! rTAIDSAction Now ! - A ChronologyqT. En. d . c . October gvEffectof Goverment Announcements to Realign Services with MunicipalitiesWr.1n.d. c. January, l997J. Tim McCaskellqs membership of the Ontario Advisory Conunittee on HIV/AIDS (OACHA) provides AIDS Action Now with access to government documents such as "Ontariors HIV/AIDS Plan to the Year 2000. Update 1997" (July 1997) . Childrenrs Aid Society of Metropolitan Toronto Interagency Cornmittee on Homeless and Runaway Youth. lqProtocoî Regarding the Provision of Services to Homeless and Runaway Youth Under Sixteen Years of Agew. Toronto, Ontario: August 1993. 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