Searching For New Welfare Models Citizens Opinions On The Past Present and Future of The Welfare State Rolf Solli All Chapter

Searching for New Welfare Models:
Citizens' Opinions on the Past, Present

and Future of the Welfare State Rolf
Solli
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Searching for
New Welfare Models
Citizens’ Opinions on the
Past, Present and Future
of the Welfare State
Rolf Solli
Barbara Czarniawska
Peter Demediuk
Dennis Anderson
Searching for New Welfare Models
Rolf Solli • Barbara Czarniawska
Peter Demediuk • Dennis Anderson
Searching for New

Welfare Models
Citizens’ Opinions on the Past, Present and Future
of the Welfare State
Rolf Solli Barbara Czarniawska
School of Public Administration Gothenburg Research Institute
University of Gothenburg University of Gothenburg
Göteborg, Sweden Göteborg, Sweden
Peter Demediuk Dennis Anderson

Victoria University Brandon University
Melbourne, VIC, Australia Brandon, MB, Canada
ISBN 978-3-030-58227-2 ISBN 978-3-030-58228-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58228-9
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Prologue
We believe that the ways welfare has been, is, and will be organized are both
intriguing and important; many scholars think so, too. The idea behind our study
was to contrast, or rather complement, the traditional studies of the welfare sector
that either collect statistics (which is useful), conduct surveys (also useful, but
mostly for sampling the dominant discourse), or engage in speculative reasoning
(mostly done by economists and political scientists). We wanted to elicit opinions
and reflections from citizens representing different generations in three welfare
states; our goal was to illustrate the ways they think about the organization of
welfare. We believe that we have realized that goal.
Contents
1 Searching for Welfare North and South 1
2 Welfare in Canada: Now and in 20 Years11
3 Welfare in the South: In 20 Years and Now33
4 The Future Welfare in Sweden53
5 The Welfare State: Will It Stay or Will It Go?69
Instead of an Epilogue…85
References87
Index93
vii
CHAPTER 1
Searching for Welfare North and South
Abstract In our opening chapter, we briefly present the history of the wel-
fare state. While it is common to attribute its beginnings to the Beveridge
Report from 1942, it is obvious that this important institution has much
changed during the more than 89 years of its existence. Therefore, we
decided that it would be both intriguing and useful to learn what citizens
of three welfare states think of that institution at present, and how they
imagine its future. The chapter then presents details of our three-country,
interview-based study and a description of the methods and questions
we used.
Keywords welfare state • institution • New Public Management
“Public relief is a sacred debt.

Society owes maintenance to unfortunate citizens.”
Paragraph 21 of the 1793
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
© The Author(s) 2021 1

R. Solli et al., Searching for New Welfare Models,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58228-9_1
2 R. SOLLI ET AL.
A Brief History of the Welfare State

The honor of creating the notion of a welfare state is commonly attributed
to Sir William Beveridge, the Liberal economist who, in the 1940s, chaired
the UK government’s inter-departmental Committee. The Committee
carried out a survey of Britain’s social insurance and allied services, includ-
ing worker’s compensation, and in 1942 produced the so-called Beveridge
Report (Dahrendorf 1995: 154). The best proof that such an attribution
is honorary lies in the fact that it took the UK 20 years to implement the
report’s recommendations. Nothing peculiar about it: just a clash between
the verbs “to institute” and “to institutionalize”. It may take a day to
institute something new, but institutionalizing it may require 50, or even
200 years for the innovation to become a collective practice that is justified
and taken for granted (Czarniawska 2009).
Although the institution of the welfare state is now 80 years old, it can-
not be expected to look identical to that proposed in the Beveridge
Report. Originally called Social Insurance and Allied Services, the 300-
page long Report announced a fight against “Giant Evils” of the then UK
society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease. Arbitrary help
given by charities was not enough to cope with these evils; therefore, an
idea was formed of an all-encompassing system (Abel-Smith 1992). Again,
as observed by a Canadian historian Susan Pedersen, “‘The welfare state’
was neither a British invention nor a British product. All advanced indus-
trial societies became welfare states in the twentieth century, even the anti-
collectivist United States” (2018: 5). There were many variations of
welfare state and, although born from the best of intentions, all shared an
in-built paradox, so well discerned by the Frankfurt School:
The welfare state, as Offe and Habermas have pointed out, cannot guaran-
tee that the individual citizen will be protected from social or economic
hardship. It holds out the promise of securing the welfare of individuals
within the framework of a capitalist economy, but over that economy it has
but nominal control. (…) This state (…) is more or less excluded from the
economic system in terms of central decision making, and even its most
potent weapon, taxation, is dependent upon the overall dynamic of the
economy. The capacity of the welfare state to “deliver” welfare remains ulti-
mately dependent upon the capacity of capitalism itself to avoid crises which
endanger human welfare. (Watts 1980: 177)
1 SEARCHING FOR WELFARE NORTH AND SOUTH 3
Although the paradox remains (and indeed can be seen as a partial expla-
nation of the triumphant entry of the New Public Management; Hood
1991), so do giant evils, old and new, though the ways of dealing with
them have changed.
In Sweden, claimed Beata Agrell (2014), the “people’s home” (an
endearing synonym of the welfare state) started crashing in the 1960s. But
it was in the late 1970s that the media started talking of “the demise of the
Swedish model” (Czarniawska-Joerges 1993). In Australia, according to
Rob Watts (1980), collapse of its welfare state was visible by 1975. In
Canada, the fate of the welfare state and its forms fluctuated as govern-
ments changed; some writers see the 1960s as the period of establishment
of a “proper” welfare state in Canada. Still, Allan Moskovitch (2015)
spoke of an “erosion of welfare state” in Canada over the past 40 years.
These changes were a starting point of a transdisciplinary research pro-
gram “Searching for new welfare models”, undertaken by a group of
researchers from Sweden, Australia, and Canada. These three countries are
considered to be good examples of an institutionalized welfare state, and
they exhibit both similarities and differences that may prove illuminating.
Canada and Australia share the same origins and the same language;
Canada and Sweden, although on two different hemispheres, are both
Northern countries. All three countries have an Indigenous population,
which may present larger or smaller problems in organizing welfare.
A reader may notice absence of New Zealand in this research focus.
After all, New Zealand was, for several decades, considered “the Mecca”
of welfare solutions. It earned this moniker because of its enthusiasm for
imitating the UK in the introduction of the New Public Management
(NPM). At present, however, the NPM is mostly under critique (see next
section for more details) and the research program described here belongs
with several others attempts to reach beyond NPM (see e.g., a special issue
of Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 2015, 19/2).
The More Specific Motives Behind Our Search

Over the past 40 years, the welfare organization has undergone major
transformations in most countries. Today welfare can be organized by
public, private, and non-profit organizations, as well as by informal actors
(social entrepreneurs are on the increase). This change from a mainly
state-run welfare system of the past creates particular challenges for
governance and collaboration. The organization of welfare has acquired a
4 R. SOLLI ET AL.
great variety of forms, which is accompanied by a variety of owner-

ship models.
For a long time, it seemed that NPM would indeed be the best way to
deal with this complex situation. After all, it contains control mechanisms,
such as key performance indicators, process management, management-
by-objectives, management accounting—to mention just the best-known
of a growing number of managerial technologies (Hood 1991; Nilsson
2014). Yet the evaluation of the consequences of these technologies
almost invariably shows that they are doing more harm than good. For
example, the introduction of many new control mechanisms grew from
the assumption that competitive businesses operating on a market are
more efficient and effective than service organizations of the public sector
(Czarniawska and Solli 2014a). In contrast, several studies show that
higher efficiency and productivity are achieved when organizations col-
laborate, not when they compete with each other (see e.g. Lindberg and
Blomgren 2009).
There is no doubt that both the present and the future organizing and
managing of the welfare sector represents quite a few serious challenges.
To quote but one example: In 1971, a government commission was set up
in Sweden to investigate what form futures studies should take. It was led
by cabinet minister Alva Myrdal and its final report had the title “Choosing
One’s Future”. The Government followed its recommendation and in
1973 the Secretariat for Futures Studies was established, which was origi-
nally accountable to the Prime Minister’s Office1. In 1982, the Secretariat
presented a report called “Time for Care”. The project suggested, among
other things, an expansion of outpatient care, as the in-patient care was
found to be excessively resource consuming. It has been pointed out that
effective care requires time; time given by some people (the staff) to other
people (the patients). Careful calculations showed that it would be impos-
sible to recruit sufficient staff to ensure that there will be enough caretak-
ers to offer the proper level and duration of care. If the required numbers
of care workers could have been sourced, unemployment would have
fallen to almost zero as soon as 2006, and there would have been nobody
left to recruit. (One mistake in the report was the assumption of the
1
In 1987, the Government decided to transform the Secretariat into an independent insti-
tution, whereupon the Institute for Futures Studies was established. http://www.iffs.se/en/
about-us/history-of-the-institute/, accessed 2019-07-13.
introduction of the 30-hour working week; had it happened, the predic-

tions of the Secretariat would be completely correct.)
In 2010, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions
(SALAR) published a projection/estimate of the costs of their operations
in 2035. The main factor driving up the costs is the demographic change:
By 2035, the numbers of people over 85 may grow by 76 percent.
Accordingly, the number employees in the public sector must increase
from about 800,000 in 2010 to 1,500,000 in 2035. Assuming a normal
employee turnover and a necessary expansion of the care sector, about 70
percent of any given age cohort must be employed in care. This leaves 30
percent of the workers to do everything else, thus, it becomes clear that
new ways of dealing with welfare needs must be found. The COVID-19
pandemic revealed how problematic the situation can be, even without the
30-hour working week.
Some neoliberal politicians, and some researchers, still seem to believe
that NPM is the solution to welfare problems. Let us take a look at their
arguments.
A market means that several producers exist who compete on price
and/or quality of their products and services. They meet with customers,
who should receive all relevant information permitting them to choose
rationally. According to market economists, the market will wipe out weak
businesses and the strong will be left, as good performance is a result of
competition. If the market works well, the winners will be constantly chal-
lenged by new competitors. The supply would answer the demand, which
requires freely set prices, ensuring that the customers will get what they
need at a fair price. At the same time, customers must never be completely
satisfied, because demand will diminish.
Sometimes it may seem that competition works as intended. After
privatization, many new pharmacies opened in Sweden (though for some
reason they are always located nearby the old ones, leaving whole areas
deprived of pharmacies as before). International companies came to
Sweden to bid on train services. Medical companies with clear business
ideas successfully compete with the medical centers that are overflowed
with patients. And if public tenders do not work as intended (Czarniawska
2002), the parties can appeal to the Public Tenders Act, and the tender
will usually be reissued (Furusten 2014). Of course it may happen that a
tender fails, admit their advocates, but such events are not unknown in the
history of markets, and if some products and services are not delivered in
the right quality and quantity, and at the right time, such problems usually
6 R. SOLLI ET AL.
concern products and services that the customers can do without. This can
be said of great many products and services, but not of health care, educa-
tion, care for elderly, medicine supply, or passenger transport—and it is
exactly in these areas that the market solution does not seem to work as
intended2. All of a sudden there are too many schools, and their quality is
repeatedly criticized. The rail traffic, which in Sweden followed the fash-
ionable pattern of privatizing the profits and socializing the costs, moves
from one catastrophe to another (Riksrevisionen 2013). The crowding of
pharmacies in places where there was already one can hardly be seen as
positive. Competition seems to provoke a wasteful over-establishment or
overflows (more on overflows in Czarniawska and Löfgren 2012,
2014, 2019).
The actual experiments with organizational and governance forms sug-
gested by NPM frequently end with disappointing results. Instead of dem-
onstrating their efficiency, the results reveal their inefficiency—which the
enthusiasts of market solutions often explain away as faulty experiments.
The enthusiasts may be right in that the essential characteristics of the
market model are missing, at least in Sweden where there is no tradition
of organizing welfare on market principles. Yet Gabriel Tarde (1903/1962)
made it clear long ago that successful change must be built on traditions.
The tax-funded welfare sector in Sweden had been built around a form of
central planning, not on the assumption of the superiority of market
forces. Neither welfare “clients” nor the state or municipality government
are incentive-driven, and the clients are not particularly well informed
(Kastberg 2010; Norén and Ranerup 2019). The prices of welfare services
are neither desirable nor do they function as regulators, as pointed out in
a report from the Swedish National Audit Office (Riksrevisionen 2013).
The present organization of welfare in Sweden can be seen as a dysfunc-
tional market or, to put it kindlier, a quasi-market (Solli 2014).
Anna Hager Glenngård (2013) convincingly argued that a well-
functioning quasi-market must be based on comprehensive regulations.
Inputs and outputs, price structure, minimum quality and safety stan-
dards, and guaranteed access—all these must be organized and regulated.
Perhaps most important is the requirement that the customers/students/
patients/users must pay a fixed price. Competition thus takes place in
2
Recently, a “failed” public tender caused a stop of 481 surgeries at several Swedish hospi-
tals, see e.g. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/patienter-kan-ha-dott-inte-forsta-gan-
gen-apotekstjanst-far-kritik, accessed 2019-11-01.
other ways than with the help of price, the linchpin of a market economy.
Glenngård showed in her study that patient choices in a quasi-market can
be extremely complicated and her analysis agrees with the results of studies
in most areas in which quasi-markets have been constructed.
Thus, NPM is a controversial control mechanism. Its critics point out
that the ideas (and ideologies) behind it have been confused with the
application of specific management techniques, whose effects cannot be
anticipated from the ideas only. The common criticisms of NPM concern
a number of aspects, such as the conflicting roles of public and private
actors in the public sector, the fact that dominant beliefs about the market
and competition that are not based on evidence, and the complications of
the public procurement laws (see e.g. Almqvist 2006; Hood and Margetts
2007; Montin and Granberg 2013; Czarniawska and Solli 2014a, b; Hood
and Dixon 2015.)
In cases when welfare organizing has been transferred to private agents,
the resulting competition has led to expansion of welfare services, but the
publicly-run organizations have also expanded their services, at least in
Sweden. Some major organizational changes took place in Australia and
New Zealand (see e.g. Solli et al. 2005) and in the former Soviet Bloc (see
e.g. Roney 2000).
Obviously, what Czarniawska and Joerges (1996) called “master
ideas”—dominant in a given time and place—have an impact on how the
welfare sector it actually organized and managed in that time and place.
The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 produced many sarcastic commentar-
ies about “market lovers “turning to the State for help (see e.g.
Schottenius 2020).
In theory, there are many ways of managing the organization of wel-
fare, ranging from market models to central planning, with the use of
performance indicators in-between. Many questions remain: Who should
control what? Who should measure what? How should management
across organizational boundaries be done? How can a kind of governance
be instilled that will encourage innovation? And how does an overdose of
governance prevent the achievement of desired goals? In the present study,
instead of asking politicians or scholars, we decided to ask citizens.
As mentioned in the previous section, we interviewed people in Canada,
Australia, and Sweden—three welfare countries, but different in tradition,
geographic location, climate, and politics. Sweden was an obvious choice
because of its longstanding welfare state characteristics; Australia was
interesting as, allegedly, the NPM has had a particularly large impact there
8 R. SOLLI ET AL.
(Solli and Demediuk 2007). The choice of Canada was prompted by

recent developments, which suggest that future changes in the elements
and organizing of welfare may be imminent, as indicated by the Canadian
debate about basic income programs and the other welfare innovations
that point in the same direction.
Our aim was not to find representative data, but interesting representa-
tions—about the possible future of the welfare. In our open interviews, we
asked citizens three questions:
1. If you could decide, how would the welfare be organized 20 years

from now? Who should do it, how should it be done, and who
should pay for it?
2. How do you think it will actually be organized?
3. If I asked you the same questions 10 years ago, would you give me
the same answers? If not, what has changed?
We interviewed one man and one woman born in 10-year intervals, thus
representing ages from 20 to 80 (we conducted additional interviews in
Sweden, as some of the potential respondents gave us very short answers,
assuming that the solutions are obvious). As this was not a survey, but an
attempt to collect reflections that can be analyzed on the basis of their
contents, and not their numbers, we attempted to include a variety of
respondents in our respondent selection, following the grounded theory
criteria (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Charmaz 2006). We ensured that the
next interviewed person represented a different job or occupation than the
previous one. In each country, we also interviewed two public sector offi-
cers, and two politicians representing the major political orientations in
the country. We also deliberately chose respondents who lived in different
locations: city vs. countryside inhabitants, located in different regions
within the country.
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CHAPTER 2
Welfare in Canada: Now and in 20 Years
Abstract This chapter contains the results of the interviews we conducted

in Canada about the future of the welfare state. After a brief sketch of the
political situation in Canada, we present the elements of welfare as they are
understood by our Canadian respondents. We present respondents’
answers in order of diminishing frequency of mention. Healthcare was the
element most often mentioned, followed by education and general correc-
tions of the system toward equality. Basic income was also mentioned by
several Canadian respondents.
Keywords Canada • healthcare • education • equality • care for elderly

• basic income • environment care • housing • daycare
In the face of the upheavals guaranteed by automation, cybernetics, and

thermo-nuclear energy, liberal democracy will not for much longer be able
to meet the growing demands for justice and freedom, and will have to
evolve towards the forms of social democracy. (Pierre Trudeau 1958)1
1
Greenfield, Nathan M. (2016) Oh, Canada. Pierre Trudeau: the last North American
politician of whom an intellectual biography can be written. Time Literary Supplement,
5934, December 23 & 30.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58228-9_2
12 R. SOLLI ET AL.
The Canadian study was the first in this three-country, transdisciplinary

research program. We collected information from a small set of Canadian
citizens on how Canada’s welfare state should look and actually will look 20
years from now, and we probed whether or not their answers would have
been different ten years earlier. A total of 16 extensive interviews were
conducted in Canada in August 2016, just a few months prior to the elec-
tion of Donald Trump in neighboring USA—a timing that appeared to
influence, in part, the contents of responses given. The interviewees were
one woman and one man from the following age groups: 20–30, 30–40,
40–50, 50–60, 60–70, and 70–80. An attempt was made to interview
persons living in different provinces of Canada. Additionally, two munici-
pal administrators and two municipal politicians representing opposite
parties were interviewed.2 Their names are fictitious, and their age is indi-
cated only by the decade.
We did not interview provincial or federal politicians based on the
assumption that the interview content would be identical with their public
declarations (an assumption formulated during many decades of research
in the public sector). Instead, we traced public presentations of two of
Manitoba’s provincial politicians, representing the Progressive
Conservative Party, which in April 2016 had defeated their provincial New
Democratic Party (NDP) opponents. In addition, we analyzed the ongo-
ing presentations, policies, and programs of Justin Trudeau (Liberals),
who in October 2015 became Canada’s Prime Minister after winning a
majority in Canada’s national federal election, defeating Steven Harper’s
federal Progressive Conservative government.
The questions asked in the interviews were as presented in the first
chapter, but are repeated here, with some additional explanations:
1. If you could decide, how would the welfare state in Canada be orga-
nized 20 years from now? Please understand the term welfare liter-
ally: what should be done so that all or most Canadian citizens fared
well?3 What should be done, who should do it, and who should
pay for it?
2. I asked you how the welfare state should look 20 years from now. My
next question is: How do you think the welfare state will actually
look 20 years from now?
2
All 16 interviews were conducted by Barbara Czarniawska.
3
This added explanation was necessary as “welfare” in Canada is a synonym for “dole”.
2 WELFARE IN CANADA: NOW AND IN 20 YEARS 13
3. Had I asked you the same questions ten years ago, would you have
given me the same answers?4
Each interview lasted 40–60 minutes and was subsequently transcribed by

the interviewer. Now, we attempt to paint a qualitative image of Canada’s
evolving welfare model.
A Brief Sketch of the Political Situation in Canada

The welfare state in Canada is a multi-billion-dollar system of government
programs…that transfer money and services to Canadians to deal with an
array of [societal needs]. (Moscovitch 2015)
Canada has three major levels of government: national, provincial, and

municipal. There are no party differences at the municipal government
level: Groups of people campaign and are elected or not. Parties begin to
count at the level of provinces, but even there it is sometime difficult for
an outsider to guess their stance5: One of them is called a “Progressive
Conservative Party”; an oxymoron if ever there was one. At the federal
level, there is a Conservative Party, which resulted from amalgamation of
the Reform Party (truly to the right; Canadians seem to love oxymorons)
and the Progressive Conservative Party.
Also, the left-of-center New Democratic Party (NPD) allegedly made
the biggest ever provincial cuts in taxes. Provincial Conservatives (PC) are
perceived as being to the left of the USA Democrats, whereas the Liberals,
ruling now at the federal level, cooperate with both. Indeed, the differ-
ences seem to be minimal. Here is an election speech of a PC candidate
who won a seat in the Manitoba provincial election in 2017:
Hello my name is Alan Lagimodiere, your Progressive Conservative candi-

date for Selkirk, which represents the realm of St. Clements [municipality]
and the city of Selkirk. I’m a devoted family man: together with my wife
Judy we have four children and one granddaughter, which I’m very proud
of. I’m a veterinarian by trade and through the years I’ve been known for my
4
In case of the first age group (20–30), the question had to be modified by adding “if you
thought about such things at the time”.
5
Canada is not unique in this sense: the Swedish Social Democrats could as well be called
Conservative, as they attempt to conserve the welfare state that they created many years ago;
the extreme left may agree with the extreme right on some points, and so on.
14 R. SOLLI ET AL.
compassion, integrity, and honesty—all traits that I want to bring to the

government of Manitoba. I want to work with business groups; I want to
work with first Nations; I want to work for the local producers and small
business; to make a change for the better in our community. I will bring all
of my traits to that for you. April 19 the change for the better is coming!6
The general impression of an outsider, confirmed by many of the inter-

viewees, was that the parties are very close and the major difference is
between “good guys” and “bad guys”, no matter what party. It seemed
indisputable to the interviewees that Canada’s previous Prime Minister,
Stephen Harper, was a truly bad guy. This could have been a misleading
impression, however. This is what Brad Wall, the Premier of Saskatchewan,
leader of the Saskatchewan Party, nine years in the office, wrote on
Facebook on August 26, 2016:
I want to offer Saskatchewan’s gratitude to Stephen Harper for his faithful

service to Canada. His legacy includes low taxes, new free trade agreements
and principled foreign policy. Under former Prime Minister Harper, western
Canada was always respected and treated fairly.
Together we successfully worked on a number of important projects
including the south bridge and north commuter projects in Saskatoon, the
Regina Bypass, twinning projects on Highways 7 and 11, and Boundary
Dam 3 carbon capture project. We coordinated efforts on key trade issues,
assisting exports in agriculture, mining, and processing.
No other Prime Minister in Canadian history did more to open up mar-
kets for Saskatchewan uranium for civilian use than Mr. Harper, first in
China and then in India.
For all of this and more we say thank you.
There were 11 comments following this statement, all praising Harper and
many of them criticizing Trudeau. Nevertheless, the same Brad Wall on
the 31 of August issued the following text:
Thank you, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal government for
helping on behalf of Saskatchewan canola growers.
The pause to the unfair trade action from China is a step in the right
direction, but a long-term science-based solution is still needed.
6
https://www.gov.mb.ca/legislature/members/info/lagimodiere.html, accessed
2017-05-16.
Indeed, Progressive Conservatives and Liberals appear to collaborate in

Canada. This image of cooperation and common values among parties
probably reflects the core elements of Canada’s current welfare state.
During federal and provincial elections campaigning, however, various
political parties attempt to gain votes by laying out platforms that promise
to add new and/or significantly enhance existing welfare system elements.
Although it can only be a guess, our guess is that the answers to the
interview questions, especially the second one (How do you think the
welfare state will actually look 20 years from now?), would be different—
more pessimistic—after the USA elections. Most interviewees, and by
extension people in Canada, seemed to be frightened by the developments
at their neighbors to the south. It is also well to remember that the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—“life, liberty and security of
the person”—was entrenched in Canada’s 1982 Constitution Act.
Elements of Welfare
What is welfare? In Sweden, what counts as “the classical triangle” (a
media expression) is healthcare, education, and social care. After those,
come military defense, police, and infrastructure. Here is the official list
from Canada:
The major welfare state programs in Canada include Social Assistance [many
consider this to be “the dole], the Canada Child Tax Benefit, Old Age
Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, Employment Insurance,
the Canada and Quebec Pension Plan, Workers’ Compensation, public edu-
cation, Medicare, social housing and social services. Programs are funded
and delivered by the federal, provincial and municipal governments.
(Moscovitch 2015)
Are these the elements of welfare in the opinion of Canadian citizens

interviewed for this study? We organize our presentation in order of fre-
quency of mention among our 16 interviewees, from the most often to
the least often mentioned element of welfare.
16 R. SOLLI ET AL.
Healthcare (13 Persons)

Most interviewees mentioned healthcare. Although it is considered to
function relatively well, the commonly mentioned problem was the short-
age of doctors, especially in rural areas.
For me, it means that Canada DOES NOT HAVE an equal health service
for everybody. If you live in an urban area, you have an ambulance that takes
you there. If you live in a rural area, hopefully people who live around you
can get you into a vehicle, and get you to a hospital that actually has a doc-
tor. For me, this is the most important thing about welfare. If you don’t
have health, and you don’t have the care, so how can you have welfare?
(Laura, 40+)
The suggested solutions varied. Many of them concerned education: More

doctors should be educated in Canada, rather than imported from other
countries. The present limitations of university medical education are too
strict: more students should be taken in. Also, at present the doctors
themselves are preventing structural changes that would improve the situ-
ation. It is recommendable that during their education they were to be
trained in all duties and activities related to medical care, so that they
would understand better the whole of its need.
… the biggest problem with Medicare is that doctors put a big kibosh on the
kind of changes that could make Medicare better organized and less waste-
ful. It seems that the doctors disagree with any restructuring, probably
because they want their work scheduled and certain things done their way.
So, I’ve always thought that … Med School should include the bottom
through the top. If you are going to be a doctor, you also have to be a nurse,
even an orderly in the hospital. And if everybody all the way along was
obliged to do all the jobs, they would have a lot more understanding. Also
[I think] that this elitist nature of the doctors could be somehow broken
down if they had to do all the jobs as a part of their training. (Kristin, 50+)
More doctors would mean higher costs. Several solutions were suggested.
One, existing already, is the two-tier system; well-off people should pay for
their care, alleviating the burden of the care for the rest of the population,
or at least they should pay more. A half-joking suggestion was that the
situation will improve when the baby-boomers die out; a more serious
prediction was that e-health would become much more common:
Health care will be handled extensively through the Internet. This will help
many people get specialized and timely service. There are already many
health apps and there will be more with much greater capabilities. We will
walk into a doctor’s office much less frequently, with a report in hand, if we
decide to print it, which has already been sent to him/her. (Gary, 60+)
Another suggestion concerned the need for more emphasis to be put on

prevention than on treatment (at present, the doctors’ earnings are related
to the latter):
… the way we pay for healthcare is … people are paying a high amount of
money to help people whose health has failed, or is failing, as opposed to
perhaps paying fewer dollars to continue to help people who are staying well
to stay well? I know that there are some countries, (…) in which a doctor is
given a patient case load, perhaps 500, and is paid a fee to take care of those
500, so the less time those people are sick, the less work there is for the doc-
tor, but his compensation does not suffer. In Canada, if people aren’t com-
ing to see you all the time, your compensation suffers. So, we may have to
change our attitude that way. Keep people healthy, instead of treating them
as if they were ill, and getting paid for that, a turnstile kind of operation.
(Shane, 60+)
A demand for a universal free dental and optical care has also been
formulated.
Education (12 Persons)

Almost as many people discussed education as they did healthcare. Two
different directions concerning university education could be discerned
among the suggestions. One group thought that university education
should be free; the most radical was the suggestion that banks should carry
the cost of secondary education.
… our banks should pay for our secondary education. The profits that the
banks are making right now are obscene. I think that they either should be
regulated, or they should be obliged at least to contribute somewhat to the
public education. It would make a huge difference in ten or twenty years if
people could afford to go to the university. It’s not that the state is not con-
18 R. SOLLI ET AL.
tributing to the secondary education, but its prices are prohibitive for cer-
tain members of the population at this point. (Kristin, 50+)7
The other group considered university education unnecessary; it is prepa-

ration for trades that should be considered more important, and free:
… just having a higher education does not qualify you anymore for a higher
level of income. We have lots of people in their 20s or 30s that have a uni-
versity degree or two, but they are not quite prepared to enter a workplace,
because a workplace is not accepting them as creditable, to provide value for
the salary that they would ask for. And we are seeing a rise here that you
probably saw 30 years ago in Europe, of the trades people, of people who
can actually produce something for the economy, being compensated
according to their value, whereas the kind of minor academic people are not.
(Shane, 60+)
There was also one opinion that contemporary universities too often serve
as the sources of leftist propaganda.
Several interviewees suggested that young people living in rural areas
have higher costs that need to be subsidized:
I have to pay for the room and board for my kids studying in Edmonton and
Winnipeg, and tuition fees. My son is living in an apartment close to the
university, and it gets extremely expensive. People who live in the city don’t
have that extra expense, and I would like to see that expense shared by
everybody. Just because you have a flat in the city, your education shouldn’t
be that much cheaper than those of the people in the rural areas (David, 60+)
It has also been pointed out that the education of young people living in
Aboriginal Reserves is not given enough attention:
… what we probably should do is invest in things like reservations, an edu-

cation on reserves for the native population… the differences between what
they spend on an average student in Winnipeg [a high amount] and an aver-
age student on the reserve [a low amount] is just ridiculous. I think it would
7
This interviewee would likely be pleased to read that nine months later the federal gov-
ernment agreed to support the creation of an Indigenous school board and fund it directly
on a per-student amount equivalent to the funding intensity of non-Indigenous school
boards (http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/manitoba/indigenous-education-mani-
toba-1.3899241, accessed 2017-05-16).
make a big difference because we have a really growing Aboriginal popula-

tion. (Kristin, 50+)
Some suggestions concerned the organization of the educational system:

at present, there are too many school boards, differentiated by language
and religion. There were also suggestions as to the curriculum: Young
people, beginning with the daycare, need to be taught how to live and eat
healthily. They should learn more about moral dilemmas and political
activities, rather than focusing on adaptation to the demands of the
job market:
I have some optimism that with the middle-line government we can improve
and sustain government programs. On the other hand, I do not know if the
youth have the integrity to carry that through in 20 years, when they will be
making money, this group of people who are in the early years of education
right now, not yet in the workforce. Are they going to care about people like
you and me, or will they just hammer up their doors and say, “Let them die”
or will they help?8 I have a sort of guarded optimism if educators put into
place programs where everything isn’t computer based, when you can have
people in education programs talking about responsibility to others; we
need to encourage volunteerism and thinking about helping the elderly, and
thinking about charity, tolerance and acceptance. (David, 60+)
In general, young people need to learn more about Canada’s “racist

past” (15).
General Corrections of the System Toward Equality (10 Persons)

These suggestions concerned mostly changes in the law, but also some
serious structural changes. Making an equalizing change of the tax system
would mean taxing corporations more or levying a progressive income tax
system and consumption taxes. High-income earners should not be receiv-
ing the old age pension from the system.
In general, provinces should be treated more equally (“Canada is like
12 separate countries, or territories, and there are too many differences
between the provinces, and I don’t really like that…, Kathy, 60+), and too
many differences such as between rich and poor, young and old, poor
8
Margaret Atwood in her story “Torching the Dusties,” (in Stone Mattress, 2014) was
much less optimistic about the future.
20 R. SOLLI ET AL.
immigrants, and rich immigrants. In particular, though, it was the

Indigenous communities (sometimes more generally called “remote com-
munities”) that were seen as unequally treated, beginning with The Indian
Act from 1876.
Decision-making should be decentralized to local communities, where
the people who live longest should have the most voice.
I think that every city should have a website; I am talking about things like
Open Data, Open Government. You shouldn’t have to wait for the public
consultation process to be able to give input. You should be able, if you are
a night owl and up at 4:00 in the morning, or if you are a morning person
and you wake up at 6.00 and start your day, you should be equally able to
give your input that could be tied to the system of public consultation on
specific issues that need a timely resolution. (…) So, the Internet alone is
definitely not a solution, but it would be a fantastic tool, since the majority
of the world now carries the Internet with them at most times. It can then
serve as a catalyst to develop community spaces that are actually physical
spaces for gathering that should be walkable or accessible from your place of
residence or your place of work, so that the fact that you don’t have [access
to] an Internet will be not a barrier for participation. (Oscar, 30+)
It needs to be added that another respondent, less optimistic about the

public consultation process, claimed that the “night owls” are actually
grumpy retired men, who cannot sleep and at night unload their bitterness
through the web. Unfortunately, according to that person, politicians pay
too much attention to such complaints. But Oscar believed in open access
and digital solutions:
It would be an independent platform that could take in all those concepts

that we were discussing earlier, the Open Government, go through the bud-
get, do a Citizen Budget and revise it a thousand times, because it is open
and editable at any moment, allowing people to rewrite those plans. Same
about development plans, development agreements, making those available
to city users. Let people work on them, start the community development
group, talk about how you are going to change the city, and write your
policy there. Let people continue evolving the work in progress, that people
can contribute to in myriad different ways and then politicians can run and
take a place on the platform, on the citizens’ platform. It makes perfect
sense to my mind and I don’t think that it is technologically unfeasible.
A new electoral system would be of help: “now whoever gets the most
votes governs, so it could happen that a party who got 30 percent of votes
is governing, but they represent only this 30 percent of population, and
there must be some way of introducing changes that will permit the elec-
torate to be represented in its majority” (Clay, 70+).
Care for Elderly (9 Persons)

Opinions on the future need varied. Some people thought it will diminish
(as the baby-boomers will die out); others thought that it will increase (as
all baby-boomers will need it, and they will live very long). Again, a two-
tier system was suggested as one type of solution: The rich should pay
more for assisted living and nursing homes. A distinction was also made
between home care, assisted living, and nursing home care. It was pointed
out that private nursing homes were very expensive and public ones very
few. Several respondents suggested that more assisted living homes were
needed and the immigrant workers could help to provide them with
personnel.
Some other interviewees opted for increased and better home care,
which is cheaper, and—done properly—would alleviate pressure on hospi-
tals, which at present often have to take care of the elderly. A new solution
would be to have more mixed housing, for example, student residences
together with elderly accommodation.
I think probably the best idea would be to help people sort of establish living
conditions that are of their own choosing. … Going to an old age home can
be really horrifying. They just sit in chairs and stare out in the space, and it
is not really… it’s kind of user’s abuse factor to aging, so if you actually have
to do something, to get your own meal or to go down to the toilet, all those
things that push you to move instead of staying in one place, to be active,
then you will probably have a healthier elderly population. Or have things
like they might be doing in Quebec, [elder care] residences that would be
integrated with, say, universities, so that university students may live in the
same building as the elderly and be sort of integrated in their care, and that
will subsidize their living there. So, mixing up populations of different ages,
maybe even daycare, so that people have more of a family setting. Young
people will speak to old people and vice versa. University students are often
very segregated as well in their youth groups and don’t talk to other peo-
ple… (Kristin, 50+)
22 R. SOLLI ET AL.
There were also voices for more common introduction of assisted dying—
most interviewees agreed that the elderly should be able to make this
choice themselves.
Basic Income (Social Care) (8 Persons)

Half of the interviewees mentioned the need of what is now called “basic
income”, although the names used varied; some interviewees mentioned
Mincome—a three-year experimental guaranteed annual income project
held in Manitoba in the 1970s.9 The project was funded by the Manitoba
provincial government and the Canadian federal government under Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau. It was actually launched on February 22, 1974,
under the NDP provincial government, and was closed down in 1979
under the Conservative provincial government and the federal Progressive
Conservative government. The interviewees were not sure about the
results of the experiment—apparently, no final Mincome report was ever
issued, but a federal grant established the Institute for Social and Economic
Research at the University of Manitoba and several scholars offered their
interpretations. The main difficulty in solid interpretation was the tempo-
rary, three-year character of the experiment, which was known to its
participants.
Some of the interviewees suggested that in case it would not be possible
to afford a universal basic income, (UBI) a reduced version, a “safety net”
for single mothers should be introduced.
… that would certainly apply nicely to a single mother who cannot work.
Especially if she is getting a minimum wage as much as she needs to work to
support the family, because it is a choice between a rock and a hard place,
and she will need some guaranteed income supplement. (Elliot, 50+)
In late 2016, members of the Prince Edward Island (PEI—population

146,000) legislature voted unanimously to support a motion to work with
the federal government in Ottawa to create a basic income pilot program
for PEI. Surprisingly, even the PEI’s Progressive Conservatives agreed,
saying that a basic income fits with conservative values because it would
reduce government bureaucracy (Tencer 2016).
9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome, accessed 2019-07-15.
In 2017, the government of Ontario10 (population 13.6 million)

launched a basic income pilot project. Some comments online suggested
that the rising wave of automation has motivated recent interest in basic
income plans. In press coverage on the Ontario basic income pilot project,
it was noted that:
[The pilot is] intended to study the effects of guaranteeing a basic income
to about 4000 households in three places in the province… basic income is
an idea targeted at ending chronic poverty by replacing the complex maze
of social assistance programs with a guaranteed minimum income with no
strings attached. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/5-ques-
tions-on-basic-income-as-ontario-launches-its-experiment-1.4084967,
accessed 2017-05-16)
We return to the results of those experiments in the final chapter.
Environment Care (5 Persons)

One of the most common aspects of environment care mentioned by
interviewees was “green transportation”—limiting car use. As a contrast,
the Californian example was used: “they are all very careful about what
they put into their bodies, eating only organic food, buying only things
that are environment-friendly, and then they are driving their SUVs that
are completely destroying their environment” (Kristin, 50+). An obvious
solution is an increase in public transportation, for example trains con-
necting distant communities (in the specific case, the railway already exists,
but is used for goods transport only). A more radical solution is the
increase of population density: moving people in distant communities
closer to cities (with a special attention paid to Indigenous Reserves):
…in most of Canada, (…) you have these rural communities where you can-
not survive without a car. So, you should create such communities where
you can. But the way the present system works, nobody wants more neigh-
bors, nobody wants density, so what is needed is a strong shift toward den-
sity. Like Europe is dense, it is not sprawling, and I think that’s healthy, and
all the urban planners think this is the way North America should go as well.
But how to turn back from all these mistakes made in the 1940s and 1950s
10
See Segal (2016) Finding a better way: A basic income pilot project for Ontario.
24 R. SOLLI ET AL.
with all those suburbs, interstate roads, and this commuting that happens all
the time… (Elliot, 50+)
Other issues mentioned were waste management, fighting pollution, and

water poisoning, as well as preventing logging and fracking on Indigenous
Reserve lands.
… a lot of times the pipelines go through their [Indigenous people’s] land

too, like the one proposed from Alberta to Eastern Canada. And what
happens if it breaks? Then they are in a non-negotiable position. I was at a
panel in Montreal and there were many Indigenous activists, talking about
their opposition to that pipeline, and also to fracking, which is incredibly
environmentally detrimental. Some of those native communities are mater-
nally organized, so that women do the talking, they have the political power
in communities. They were talking about the protests in Eastern Canada,
and they were very tense and confrontational, and not afraid of the confron-
tations with the provincial police. (…) It is a big eye opener when you hear
that, how desperate they can get. Because all this logging and fracking is
ruining the natural environment around you, which has survived for centu-
ries, and you really have nothing else but that. So, the level of desperation is
pretty intense. (Urban, 20+)
One environment activist summed it up, pointing out that environmental

issues are in fact social issues (Oscar, 30+).
“Localization” (4 Persons)
Four interviewees suggested that Canada needs to concentrate more on its
own resources, rather than counting on the import of both labor and
goods. Although nobody suggested limiting immigration or setting limits
to international trade, it has been pointed out that the country should put
more effort into training the professionals needed (doctors was a typical
example), rather then importing them from other countries. The recent
warm admission of Syrian refugees to Canada has been appreciated, but
also contrasted with the still unsatisfactory fate of Indigenous Canadians.
We are now welcoming Syrian refugees; great, honestly it was the right thing
to do, but you also have to think about it in the context of that, you have
people in your country that cannot get the clean water, or that are living in
some places in the north which is pretty bad, there is a super-high teenage
suicide rate. When you have people living in semi-primitive conditions, in

your own country, and then you are accepting all these other people (…)
those weird Canadians, who want to be multicultural, charitable, want to
think about themselves as polite and nice people, who have an interest in
social programs and social welfare, in giving people a certain standard of
living, but then this other segment of the population is completely ignored.
It is a bit of a strange mentality, if you think about it (Urban, 20+)
Paying attention to their needs should also have a political effect: after all,
those who lived there longest should make decisions about specific
local issues.
I think that the best decisions are the ones that people make with the most
thought, and the most thought means that you have been there for a longer
time. That part is quite important. I don’t think you can make good deci-
sions if you are transient in a community. For the long-term benefit of the
community, I think you will be ignorant of it, no matter how much knowl-
edge you have, if you do not know the place, and don’t know the ecology,
and you don’t know the culture, so you just don’t know… So, you can roll
the dice and hope for the best, but the best solutions will always be the
products of the people who have been there for a long time. (Oscar, 30+)
Also, more attention should be paid to local agriculture—a trend already

happening, as shown by the increasing number of local markets.
Housing (Social Care) (4 Persons)

Safe and affordable housing should be every citizen’s right, and there
ought to be a national housing strategy.
… there has to be a national housing strategy. We used to have it in Canada,

in the 1960s, when there were huge incentives given to people to build
buildings that were just for rent; not condominiums, not the few buildings
for people who can pay a high rent, and the million dollar condominiums as
they build now… you had to build an apartment block and rent it out.
There were hundreds and hundreds of those blocks all across Canada in the
1960s, they all look the same, but they are very affordable, and now they are
all, or almost all, converted into condominiums…. That is probably one of
the most important things that I can identify for you in terms of welfare, is
to create a national housing strategy where people have good rental options
again. Especially as people are getting old, the bulge of the baby boomers
26 R. SOLLI ET AL.
will need places to rent, so it is critical that it happens very soon, that they
start focusing on that. (Kathy, 60+)
This demand was often formulated in relation to the needy—homeless

drug addicts, ex-mental hospital patients, etc. It was soon obvious that
many of those are in fact Indigenous Canadians who left their reserve. Yet
public housing still raises protests of the type “never in my yard”.
Right now, we give the residents a lot of say when we have a proposal to
densify a community. If somebody chose to buy those lots back just right
behind us here, and put a four-story building with 16 units in it, this home
here would get a letter from the municipality saying that this is what we are
planning, and several other homes as well. They all come to a [municipal]
council’s meeting and the council adjudicates the situation. So what council
would do is to listen to the proponent of that project, who would say, we
want to build this project, it is a good project, it offers diversity in housing
choices, it offers affordable housing, and offers a good access to services, it
is environmentally friendly. And then all these people, and I mean all, will
come out, and say it has really very bad impact on the quality of life, we
moved out here for the open spaces, we cannot see the sights anymore
because the building is four-stories high, and the adjudicator in the munici-
pality, one of the municipal councilors, will almost always side with the
neighbors. They would say: “If I lived here, I wouldn’t want a four-story
house either”. (Elliot, 50+)
The solution would be to follow the national strategy with a long-term

local planning, of which the citizens will be informed.
Daycare (3 Persons)
In those interviewees’ opinion, daycare should be universal and affordable.
I believe very strongly that we need a universal, affordable daycare [pro-

gram] because I am a feminist and I believe that women have to have the
opportunity to have children early in life if they want and not have it set back
[their] career or completely eliminate hope of ever having a career
(Kathy, 60+)
The fact that it was not universal and affordable was explained by the
Conservative government’s opinion that daycare is a way of
“institutionalizing children” and that the family is the only right place for
children to grow up.
Other
One person mentioned culture and recreation as the ways of holding a
community together; another, on a direct question from the interviewer,
was of the opinion that it should not be under public administration,
though the same interviewee admitted that leaving it in the hands of pri-
vate sponsors means that it can be skewed to fit their interests.
Only one person mentioned infrastructure as the important element of
welfare. According to that person, it should include the construction and
maintenance of highways, streets, water, sewage, and public buildings,
such as hospitals and schools.
One interviewee mentioned the military and police (the person in ques-
tion is professionally related to this segment of the public sector). At pres-
ent, the police have three tiers: there is the federal Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP) and the provinces and municipalities can either
hire the RCMP or build a police force of their own.
Now and Then
Predictions for the Future

As to the state of the world, and the Canadian welfare in 2036—twenty
years from the time interviews were conducted—half of the interviewees
were optimistic (again, this was before the election of Trump, a prospect
few believed would happen).
I think that we continually move forward as a society. Certainly, since World

War II, which was the dark point. I think that since then we definitely
reduced poverty, reduced child mortality, increased health, improved educa-
tion. We have set a lot of good social foundations that will never be reversed.
And I think we will keep doing that. The revenue side, the taxation side of
that, needs to mature and catch up. (Elliot, 50+)
The reasons for the optimism varied. Some persons believed that “things
typically get worse before they get better”, or, in a variation of the same
sentiment, that only truly traumatic events, noticed by the media, can
28 R. SOLLI ET AL.
speed up the improvements, which otherwise happen very slowly. Some

interviewees put their hope in the present government, others in the
Millennials, though still others were suspicious of the “Facebook-
obsessed youth”.
I am impressed … by the Millennials… I think they are an amazing genera-

tion, they are really activists, and they are very concerned about the world’s
well being. If the Boomers, and all of us, can avoid destroying the world,
and if these people [youths] can come into their own, they actually will do a
very good job. I am optimistic about their ability to change things. … this
picture of them being lost in their video games, their social networks, watch-
ing TV, or getting lot of money for their phones—I just don’t think that’s
necessarily the case. It is a kind of fogeyism that everybody indulges in at a
certain age, insisting that young people are somehow less adequate, less
intelligent then they were back in the day, but I really don’t find it at all, and
especially not for the 20-year old. (Kristin, 50+)
The pessimists did not exclude the possibility of a US presidential victory

by Trump, and they predicted that the gap between the rich and the poor
will widen, that the baby-boomers’ housing bubble will crash, or that the
growing urban sprawl will ruin the environment and will cause small places
to die out.
Four interviewees declared themselves to be realists, which meant a
mixture of positive and negative developments. According to them, there
will be new and more problems that must be solved by consolidating and
centralizing the welfare measures, which has its negative sides as well.
Budget deficits must be decreased, but will politicians agree to take ade-
quate measures? Hopefully, there will be more local initiatives, but those
will be opposed by global corporations.
Memories of the Past

Five persons claimed that they would have given the same answers ten
years earlier, but three of them added that those answers would be differ-
ent twenty years earlier, digital technology being the main difference. At
present, and this was already in place ten years ago, people do not fix bro-
ken things, but buy new ones. Also, added one interviewee, at present
students spend too much time organizing political protests.
Ten people answered that their responses would have been different,
either because they were different:
I care more about the others now. It is more important for me now to think
about people who do not have that much. I don’t mind giving to others,
whereas when I was young, I was probably more thinking about myself…
(Harold, 40+),
or because the world was different:
It is not my opinions that changed, but what I know. We have never experi-
enced a housing bubble in Canada before, except a minor one in Toronto
once. We never had all this pain, as much homelessness, the mental institu-
tions shut down and all those homeless people, increasing income inequal-
ity; I never thought it could become as bad as quickly. (Kathy, 60+)
Two persons were more pessimistic ten years ago, because of the then
Canadian government. Eight people were more optimistic: “I haven’t
seen quite so many people suffering…”; the climate change was not so
visible; the world was more optimistic; they did not know as much as now;
children were more respectful, and more volunteers wanted to help oth-
ers; there were not as many “grumpy retired males”.
In contrast to our expectations, there were no significant patterns of
differences related to gender, age, or political orientation. Yes, it was
women who took up the issue of daycare, but there were optimists and
pessimists of all ages and the preferred solutions of certain problems—
public, private, or volunteer—seemed to be dictated mostly by consider-
ations of their effectiveness.
It seems that most issues revolved around the fate of rural communi-
ties. It is a problem of green transportation, accessible healthcare, and
costs of education; all those become especially visible in relation to distant
communities of Indigenous Reserves. The following quote summarizes
it well:
We have Indigenous people, who are more impoverished than a general

population, so you need a system that would treat both properly, get both
to an equal level of welfare where the level of health, education, and well-
being are taken care of. And a part of the problem in Canada is that a couple
30 R. SOLLI ET AL.
of years ago11 it was decided to give Indigenous people communities that are
remote from the rest of civilization. And we still have a lot of communities
that are remote, and communities that have the most difficulties are those
that are remote. And I think that if you put any part of a population in a
remote community in Canada, or perhaps in any other country, without an
ability to have a sustainable income, you have a huge problem, and we have
that problem, and yet we are not changing our philosophy. We are trying to
take the services to those remote communities, but because of the Internet,
because of global communication, the remote communities do not necessar-
ily want to remain remote. They want to be part of the global world, and
this is an extremely difficult situation. Just adding dollars isn’t enough, even
if you decide on a minimum income for all people in Canada, which would
be a good idea, so that you could feed your children, so that you could take
care of yourselves, I don’t think that would be enough for remote commu-
nities, though, because you will still be needing a sense of well being, a sense
of a purpose, and that comes by contributing… All people like to contrib-
ute, and it is difficult to feel you are contributing in a very remote, isolated
situation. (Shane, 60+)
The questions are: How to reverse policies that are more than a century
old, but still producing consequences? Should small, remote communities
die out? Should people be forced to move toward urban centers?
In the meantime, the media glorify “the Canadian experiment” as a first
post-national country (Foran 2017). Will it succeed? If it does, others may
follow suit. There appears to be growing evidence that, nationally and
provincially, Canada is experimenting with initiatives designed to achieve
the goal of ensuring that all Canadians fare well—in communities small
and large, remote and urban. Overall, our interviewees would most likely
be pleased with these developments, but they would probably be quick to
note that Canada still has a long way to go in evolving its own brand of
welfare state. If, however, one were to judge by the promises, or, one may
call it, political posturing that competing federal parties engaged in to win
votes during the 2019 federal election, (all of them promising to enhance
existing and introduce new welfare elements), the accelerated progress in
Canada’s welfare system may yet happen.
11
It was obviously a rhetorical exaggeration, because the continuation of the quote shows
clearly that the interviewee knew very well how old (late 1800s) were those policies to put
Indigenous people on, typically, remote reserves.
References
Foran, Charles (2017) The Canada experiment: is this the world’s first “postna-
tional” country? The Guardian, January 4.
Moscovitch, Allan (2015) Welfare state. The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://
www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/welfare-state, accessed
2019-07-15.
Segal, Hugh D. (2016) Finding a better way: A basic income pilot project for
Ontario, https://files.ontario.ca/discussionpaper_nov3_english_final.pdf,
accessed 2017-05-16.
Tencer, Daniel (2016) Basic income coming to P.E.I.? Legislature passes motion
unanimously. The Huffington Post Canada, 12 July.
CHAPTER 3
Welfare in the South: In 20 Years and Now
Abstract This chapter contains the results of the interviews we conducted

in Australia about the future of welfare state. We briefly describe the
Australian welfare system and present, in descending order of frequency,
the elements of welfare mentioned by the Australian respondents. Again,
healthcare was mentioned most often, followed by income support and
aged care (as care for elderly is called in Australia). The chapter ends by
comparing Australian and Canadian responses: While the main issues
mentioned were similar, less attention was paid to education, and almost
none to basic income.
Keywords Australia • activation-for-work • National Disability

Insurance Scheme • healthcare • income support • aged care •
housing • education • social problems
The Australian welfare state stands firmly in our consciousness as a symbol

of common-sense benevolence, practical economics and consensus politics.
(Watts 1980: 175)
Has it remained so 40 years later?

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58228-9_3
34 R. SOLLI ET AL.
The Australian study was the second in this three-country, trans disci-
plinary research program. As in the Canadian study, the purpose was to
collect information from a small set of Australian citizens on how Australia’s
welfare state should look and actually will look 20 years from now, and to
probe whether or not their answers would have been different ten years
earlier.
A total of 16 extensive interviews were conducted in Australia in
November–December 2017. The interviewees were one woman and one
man from the age groups: 20–30, 30–40, 40–50, 50–60, 60–70, and
70–80. Additionally, two municipal administrators and two municipal
politicians representing opposite parties were interviewed.1
The questions asked in the interviews followed the pattern of those
asked in the Canadian study:
1. If you could decide, how would the welfare state in Australia be

organized 20 years from now? Please understand the term welfare
literally: what should be done so that all or most Australian citizens
fared well? What should be done, who should do it, and who should
pay for it?2
2. I/We asked you how the welfare state should look 20 years from
now. My/our next question is: How do you think the welfare state
will actually look 20 years from now?
3. Had I/we asked you the same questions ten years ago, would you
have given me/us the same answers?3
Each interview lasted 20–40 minutes and was subsequently transcribed.

The names of the interviewees used in this text are fictitious and are
inspired by popular baby names in Australia in 2017. Not all the inter-
viewees wished to give their correct age, other than within the decade, and
we accommodated their wish,4 and presented the interviewees in Canada
and Sweden in the same way.
1
The interviews were conducted by Rolf Solli, Peter Demediuk, and Brodie Lamont.
2
Also, in Australia, “welfare” is often understood as “dole”.
3
Again, in the case of the first age group (20–30), the question had to be modified by
adding “if you thought about such things at the time”.
4
Here is one possible explanation, given in a context of an interview: “I think it is a bit
unfortunate that people have to tell you how old they are (…) because there [are] a lot of
people who are discriminating without meaning to” (Amelia, 50+).
3 WELFARE IN THE SOUTH: IN 20 YEARS AND NOW 35
The Australian Welfare System in Brief

Australia’s welfare system is a complex mix of services, payments, and gov-
ernment and non-government providers. The system is a lot like the Force
in the Star Wars franchise; as suggested in the McLure Review of Social
Welfare (DSS 2015), it is pervasive and powerful, and has a light side and
a dark side.
Government spending in Australia as a proportion of the GDP is rela-
tively low; at 36 percent it rates 27th out of the advanced OECD coun-
tries. Social expenditure is the biggest among these expenses, however, as
it comprises just under 20 percent of the GDP. Australia has kept the cost
of its social support system below the costs of some other advanced OECD
countries through robust, needs-based assessments of welfare recipients
and a means-tested approach that makes exclusion for wealth attached to
assets outside the family home (DSS 2015).
With a population of around 24.6 million (compared to Canada’s 36.6
million), Australia has seen welfare spending increase by an average of 2.6
percent a year in recent times to over 137 billion AUD (84.4 billion
EUR), with 68 percent going to cash payments such as age and disability
pensions, 26 percent to welfare services, and 6 percent to unemployment
benefits (AIHW 2015).
In 2017, the 5.1 percent unemployment rate in Australia was below the
OECD average of 8.1 percent, yet youth unemployment remained nearly
three times higher than that for people over 25. Although Australia has
the fourth highest median income in the OECD, poverty rates at 13 per-
cent are slightly higher than the OECD average of 11 percent. However,
welfare benefits are relatively effective at lifting people above the poverty
line (OECD 2016).
Government in Australia consists of three levels: federal, state or terri-
tory, and local. The Federal Government is the main revenue raiser
through taxation and is the direct funder and administrator of major wel-
fare tranches. These are aged pensions, unemployment benefits, disability
support (such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, NDIS), and
the Medicare universal healthcare payment system, which offers free pub-
lic hospital care and subsidized or no-cost local doctor care to all. The
Federal Government largely funds the hospital, aged care, public housing,
and education systems, but passes responsibility for the design and run-
ning of these to the state (or territory) governments. Unlike in Sweden,
local governments in Australia have a relatively restricted role often
36 R. SOLLI ET AL.
referred to as “roads, rates, & rubbish”. The fact that individual state gov-
ernments act as a postbox for federal welfare-related money and have sig-
nificant autonomy in deciding how this money is applied, means that the
way welfare is produced can depend on where one lives. For example, on
the health front: Safe (supervised) injecting rooms for drug users are only
available in two of the seven states and territories, assisted dying (euthana-
sia) is legal and is supported in only one state (Victoria), and abortion is
essentially illegal in the largest state (New South Wales). Similarly, the sup-
ply of public housing and the criteria to qualify for access to same varies
markedly across Australia.
The McLure Review (DSS 2015) cautions that substantial demands for
increases in social expenditure can be expected in the future as the popula-
tion ages and lives longer—particularly in relation to the provision of
health services, age-related income support payments, and aged care.
Indeed, the aging of the population is a main trend in the context of
Australia’s welfare, with 3.5 million (or 15 percent of the population)
aged over 65 in 2014, compared to an estimated 8.4 million (or 21 per-
cent of the population) in 2054. Although the proportion of people with
a disability has held steady, it is very significant at around one in five, or 20
percent of the population (AIHW 2015). The ability of governments to
fund such demands faces obstacles because of an uncertain world eco-
nomic outlook and fluctuating tax revenues flowing from the highly vola-
tile commodity sector, where prices are at the mercy of many factors,
including trade tensions with China and Brexit uncertainties. These cost
and revenue challenges mean there are huge long-term pressures that
require continual action to ensure that the social welfare system is well
targeted, fiscally sustainable, and provides value for money.
One view put forward in the McLure Review (DSS 2015), and echoed
in the Federal Budget of 2017 (DSS 2017), is that there is an urgent need
for reform to social welfare as changes to the system over time have led to
unintended complexities, inconsistencies, and incoherencies. Certain
changes have made the system more wasteful and costly to administer than
it ought to be, and have created disincentives for some people to work.
Complexity abounds, as there are currently around 75 income support
and supplementary payment types, resulting in a system that is difficult for
recipients to understand and navigate—especially for those with mental
health or other debilitating conditions—and difficult for public officials to
administer. Existing financial-means testing arrangements, based on
income or assets, add to this complexity and result in a system that is
confusing for income support recipients. This complexity leaves recipients

unsure about the potential rewards from work and, as such, demotivates
them and undermines community confidence in the fairness and utility of
the social welfare system.
The Australian welfare system is a product of changing political priori-
ties and ad hoc policy responses, and as a result has become a patchwork
of policies and procedures that lacks coherence and is inequitable. To
quote an example of this hotchpotch: Those seeking work may fall into
one of three income support schemes, each of which is governed by differ-
ent payment amounts, and differing indexation or qualification measures.
As a consequence, people with similar basic living costs and similar capaci-
ties to work may receive very different levels of financial support and have
different participation requirements.
As of 2017, when the interviews were conducted, the government’s
view was that the system is out of step with community expectations and
labor market realities, and that long-term income support dependence
ought to be reduced through intervention strategies that support and
transition people who are able bodied to work and become self-reliant. It
has been argued that a new and less complex social support system is
needed to improve employment and social outcomes, and a variety of
mechanisms are being introduced that range from raising the retirement
age, to introducing a new, more coherent (but controversial) set of mutual
obligation requirements for job seekers (such as cumulative demerit-
point-based penalties for not applying for jobs or failing random drug
tests), and for parents who receive working age income support. Also, a
cashless debit card has been introduced for payments to welfare recipients
deemed to be vulnerable or at risk, which limits what items they can pur-
chase to “desirable” things such as rent, food, health and the like. While
the government has moderated its explicit rhetoric of supporting “lifters”
(those purportedly adding value to society) but discouraging “leaners”
(those purportedly being propped up by society), it has continued to pur-
sue a number of arguably draconian or stigmatizing proposals for welfare
recipients—despite past “failures to launch” caused by a lack of political
capital. Such proposals included raising the age at which one can receive
unemployment benefits, creating a waiting period before unemployed
young people can receive benefits, and widening the categories subjected
to mandatory drug testing and payment via restricted debit cards.
In Australia, there is a significant preoccupation with the concept of
“activation for work” in social welfare policy and its instruments (Whiteford
38 R. SOLLI ET AL.
2016). The objective of an activation policy is to increase the work-search

efforts of working-age people who are receiving social security payments.
The rationale is based on the idea that unemployment is primarily an issue
of deficient labor supply, rather than insufficient demand, thus, the greater
a person’s efforts in actually seeking work, the greater the likelihood of
finding employment. Specific tactics of activation via the social welfare
system include strict requirements for people on unemployment payments
to look for work actively (as measured by job applications submitted per
fortnight), penalties for failing to satisfy the “work test”, and a “work-for-
the-dole scheme” according to which some people receiving unemploy-
ment payments are required to work 15 hours a week to remain eligible
for benefits.
An emblematic innovation in the welfare system was the National
Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which represents the new way of
providing support for Australians with disability, for their families, and for
others hired or volunteering to provide care. The NDIS is expected to
provide about 460,000 Australians, who are under the age of 65 and have
a permanent and significant disability, with the reasonable and necessary
support they need to live an ordinary life. The NDIS takes a lifetime
approach, investing early in people with disability to improve their out-
comes later in life, and is designed to give people peace of mind that if
their child or loved one is born with or acquires a permanent and signifi-
cant disability, they will get the support they need—including programs to
build skills and capability so the disabled can participate in the community
and employment.
The NDIS has been designed to help people with disabilities gain access
to mainstream services and supports (like physicians or teachers), through
the health and education systems, as well as to access public housing and
the justice and aged-care systems. It should also facilitate access to com-
munity services and supports, such as sports clubs, community groups,
libraries, or charities. The NDIS has been also charged with facilitating the
maintenance of informal support arrangements, like help people get from
their family and friends. This is the type of support that people don’t pay
for, but which is usually part of most people’s lives. The NDIS is designed
so that people with disabilities receive reasonable funded supports that are
related to their disability and are necessary for them to live an ordinary life
and achieve their goals.
Unlike other welfare supports, assistance from the NDIS is not subject
to financial-means testing, based on income or assets, and has no impact
on income supports, such as the Disability Support Pension and Carer

Allowance. The ideal is that people with disabilities can choose the sup-
ports that suit them. The NDIS is being rolled out progressively, and
interest groups, such as Every Australian Counts, have been established to
pressure politicians and administrators to make sure the initiative is fully
funded, delivered as promised, and is the best it can be. In 2017, the gov-
ernment proposed to fund the program—which the Productivity
Commission has concluded would cover over 400,000 Australians at an
annual cost of about 22 billion AUD—via an additional tax on income
earners (Sloan 2017).
People volunteering their time and expertise can help alleviate social
welfare issues and government dependencies. Australians have a tradition
of volunteering in many areas of community life such as education, sport,
safety and emergency services, and welfare services—as exemplified by in
excess of six million people doing some voluntary work for the Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare each year (AIHW 2015). In addition,
informal carers of people with disabilities or the aged could reduce the
load on government welfare payments and services. In 2012, about 2.7
million Australians were informal carers, providing help, support or super-
vision to family members, friends, or neighbors with a range of physical
and mental health conditions and disabilities. Informal care can include
personal care (such as showering and support with eating), in-home super-
vision, transport, and help with shopping and medical needs. Most carers
(71 percent) lived with the person receiving care. The person responsible
for the majority of informal caring is called the primary carer, and nearly
two-thirds (65 percent) of primary carers found it hard to meet everyday
living costs because of their caring role (AIHW 2015). “Teething prob-
lems” are to be expected in the roll-out of any major welfare reform
(Palmer 2017), but early experiences of recipients indicate that as benefits
are tied to the acceptance by the government of an approved plan submit-
ted for each individual,5 it is the ability of the client or their agents to
shape and drive that plan that determines welfare outcomes. Additionally,
the plan hinges on things like varying levels of comprehension, education,
articulateness, and insistence and persistence of recipients and their
supporters.
5
A plan detailing needs such as carer or cleaner hiring, mobility devices, or installation of
infrastructure to keep one at home.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ampiaispesä
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Ampiaispesä
Kyläkertomus
Author: Veikko Korhonen
Release date: December 8, 2023 [eBook #72357]
Language: Finnish
Original publication: Oulu: Pohjolan Kustannus Oy, 1917
Credits: Anna Siren and Tapio Riikonen
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK

AMPIAISPESÄ ***
AMPIAISPESÄ
Kyläkertomus
Kirj.
VEIKKO KORHONEN
Oulussa, Pohjolan Kustannus-Osakeyhtiö, 1917.
I.
Maaliskuu oli lopuillaan. Kolmojoki oli luonut jääpeitteensä ja
virtaili tasaisesti lämpimässä auringon paisteessa.
Kolmojoki oli aikoinaan virtaillut koskemattoman metsän läpi.
Vähitellen sen rannoille oli muodostunut viljelyksiä ja taloja, ja nyt se
jo eroitti toisistaan kaksi kyläkuntaa, jotka olivat sen äyräille
muodostuneet. Kyläkunta olisi oikeastaan sopinut olemaan yhtenä,
mutta se oli jotenkuten eroittunut kahdeksi. Joen pohjoispuolinen
kyläkunta sai joesta nimensä ja eteläistä sanottiin Korpijoeksi,
koskapa sen kylän asukkaat vieläkin väittivät Kolmojokea aikoinaan
sanotun Korpijoeksi.
Korpijoen kylässä on ainoastaan muutamia huomattavia taloja.

Mikkola, kylän rehevin talo, on keskuksena ja siinä isäntänä Iisakki,
Hämeestä aikoinaan muuttanut vanhapoika. Mainittava on myöskin
Miirun talo, jossa toimeliaana isäntänä hääräilee Jooseppi. Hänellä
on vaimona teräväkielinen Eveliina ja Eveliinalla Eedla-niminen tytär,
ainoa talossa.
Kertomuksen vuoksi on myöskin mainittava, että Miirun peltojen

päässä on mökki, jossa asuu räätäli Romppanen.
Mutta joen toiselta puolelta näkyy myöskin talojen kattoja.

Näkyvätpä Ylä-Rietulan katot kaikkein kauimmaksi, ja savupiiputkin
ovat niissä lukuisammat kuin toisissa taloissa, lukuunottamatta
Mikkolaa, Korpijoen taloa.
Hieman alempana notkossa on Ala-Rietula, ränsistynyt

talopahanen, jonka päreillä paikatut akkunat katselevat kuin avuton
sokea kylään, missä talojen ulkomuoto paranee vuosi vuodelta, Ala-
Rietulan jäädessä yhä katselemaan puolisokeana edistyksen kulkua
Kolmon kylässä.
Vielä on mainittava Möttösen talo toisella puolella valtamaantietä

Ylä-Rietulan naapurina. Se on myöhemmin rakennettu kuin toiset
talot ja seinät kuultavat, vielä vaalean harmaina, kun sen sijaan
toisten talojen seiniin on aika lyönyt tumman värinsä.
Ylä-Rietulaa hallitsee Mooses Rietula, pyöristynyt vanhapoika ja

lautamies. Lyhyet raajat, jotka näyttävät kuin musertuvan
omistajansa painosta, ovatkin jo hieman vääristyneet. Kapeat hartiat
keskiruumiiseen verraten ja päässä takkuinen tukka, joka pörröttää
rikkinäisen viltin lierien alta sakeana pöyrynä. Lihavat kasvot
näyttävät ensi katsannolla hyväntahtoisilta, mutta lähemmin
tarkasteltua on niissä salakavala ilme, joka on samalla ärtyinen.
Mutta tästä huolimatta Rietula nauraakin joskus niin että vatsa
lainehtii.
Ala-Rietulassa liikehtii verkkaan viisikymmenissä oleva Vernand,

laiha ukon käppyrä. Vernandin kapeissa, luisevissa kasvoissa ovat
punoittavat silmät, jotka näyttävät aina ihmetellen katselevan
ympäristöään.
Vernandilla on myöskin poika, Hesekiel, joka on ilmetty isänsä

kuva, vain hiukkasta pienempi. Samat ihmettelevät silmät ja samat
luisevat kasvot. Liikkeissäänkin yhtä verkkainen. Emäntä on kuollut
Vernandilta eikä hän ole tullut vielä uutta ottaneeksi.
Möttösessä on isäntänä Eerikki ja hänestä ei paljoa kerrotakaan.

Hänellä on sitävastoin sisar, Taava, lihava vanhapiika, joka on
yrittänyt kolmasti miehelään, mutta aviotoveri on hänet aina
viimetingassa pumpannut takaisin Möttöseen ja siinä Taava on vain
veljensä taloa hoidellut ja paisunut entistään pyöreämmäksi. Taava
on sukkela suustaan, kuten tavallisesti savolaiset sisarensa. Ja
hänellä on tarkat korvat. Mikään juorujuttu ei mene hänen korviensa
ohi. Kuulemastaan hän tekee omat johtopäätöksensä, joihin toisten
talojen emäntien on napisematta mukauduttava.
Yksi kyläkunta, mutta kaksi nimeä.
Kyläkuntien väliä on vain muutamisen sataa askelta, niin että

selkeällä ilmalla saattaa pienempikin puhe kuulua yli joen toiselle
puolelle. Tästä huolimatta ovat kylien asukkaitten välit olleet riitaiset.
Salapuheet ja roskajuorut ovat asukkailla jokapäiväisenä ruokana.
Jos Kolmossa tapahtuu onnettomuus, niin siitä Korpijoella salaisesti
iloitaan, ja jos korpijokelaisia onni potkaisee, niin Kolmossa saattaa
joku isäntä tai emäntä tulla pahoinvoivaksi.
Mikkolan isäntä Iisakki, muutettuaan tänne Hämeestä, aikoi käydä

kylien pahaa sopua parantamaan, mutta toimenpiteestään joutui
kolmolaisten, jopa kyläläistensäkin, vihoihin. Ja kun Iisakki on
turpeasta olemuksestaan huolimatta hieman kumaraharteinen,
alettiin häntä ensin Kolmon puolella haukkua kyrmyniskaksi, ja
vähitellen tämä nimi tuli käytäntöön hänen omien kyläläistensäkin
keskuudessa. Asianomainen aikoi ensialussa harata nimensä
muutosta vastaan, mutta taipui vähitellen, ja Kyrmyniskaksi häntä nyt
sanotaan koko Kuivalan pitäjässä.
On mainittava, että kyläkuntiin tulee kerran viikossa posti, joka tuo

jokusen sanomalehden kylän vauraimpiin taloihin. Ja siinä on kaikki
henkinen viljelys, lukuunottamatta kituvaa raittiusseuraa ja kylien
keskeisiä juorupuheita, joilla asianomaiset ravitsevat itseään
kotoisista pelloista saadun viljan ohella.
II.
Lämpimät paisteet olivat sulatelleet hankia, ja päivisin tiet jo upottivat

ja kallistuivat yhä enemmän vinoon. Muutamissa paikoin näkyi jo
sulaa maata jalaksen uurnassa ja tiekin oli käynyt rapakoiseksi.
Kyrmyniska käveli verkalleen kallistunutta peltotietä ja myhähteli

itsekseen. Kevät näytti tulevan tavallista aikaisempaan. Päiväkulta
paistaa lekotti lämpimästi ja öillä oli taivas pilvessä.
— Kohta siitä alkaa kevätkalan pyynti, murahti mies ääneen,

tultuaan pihatörmälle, johon näkyi virtaileva joki alempana rannassa,
— joko lienee Rietula rysänsä tupannut joen alajuoksuun? murahteli
Kyrmyniska edelleen ja kuin vastausta saadakseen jäi katselemaan
Kolmon puolelle Rietulan peltoja ja pihamaata, jotka hyvin sopivat
näkymään Mikkolan pihaan.
Rietula näytti seisovan hänkin talonsa piharakennuksen nurkalla ja

katselevan Mikkolaan päin.
— Keh, mitähän se nyt siellä vahtaa, myhähti Kyrmyniska ja

silmäsi omille vainioilleen, joilla pohotti pitkä rivi lantakasoja, jotka
olivat olleet aina lukuisammat hänen pelloillaan.
— Niitä se siellä tarkkailee… kai lukeakseen. Saaneeko luetuksi.
Kolmekymmentä kaksi niitä on, ja viisitoista on vaan Rietulan
pelloilla. Heh, mitäpä tuosta. Olkoon mitä on, mutta kateena se niitä
katselee.
Iisakki pyörähti tupaan, otti orrelta talvella korjaamansa haukirysät

alas ja sitoi ne kimppuun. Vetäistyään rasvapieksut jalkaansa, painui
ulos rysänippu kainalossa joen rantaan. Saatuaan venheen vesille,
antoi hän sen hiljaa lipua virran mukana ja jäi katselemaan kirkkaasti
välkehtivää veden pintaa.
Iisakki oli ollut pahalla tuulella useita viikkoja yhtämittaa tietämättä

siihen syytä oikein itsekään. Jokin outo, ellottava tunne oli häntä
painanut. Oliko kyläläisten riitaisuus, jota hän oli koettanut voimiensa
mukaan musertaa, painanut mieltä, vai yksinäinen vanhanpojan
elämäkö kävi tympäiseväksi?
Mutta nyt siinä venheen keinuessa hiljaa eteenpäin, tunsi Iisakki

aivan yhtäkkiä käyvän mielensä hyväksi. Hymy herahti suupieleen ja
povessa sykähti niin kuin ennen nuorena miehenä.
Päivä paistoi lämpimästi, hanget alenivat ja Mikkolan vainiot

paljastuivat lumen alta tuoden esiin kauniit oraat. Hyvinpä olivatkin
säilyneet talven alla. Valtava vilja siinä taas lainehtii kesän tultua.
Iisakki tarttui airoihin ja vetäisi voimakkaasti rintaa paisuttavan

hyvän mielen vallassa. Mutta lahoneet hankavitsat rouskahtivat
poikki, ja Iisakin täytyi istua perään melomaan.
Iisakin suu kiertyi leveään hymyyn ohjatessaan venhettä joen

suuhun. Mistä se nyt tosiaankin tämä hyvänmielen tunne pulpahti
niin yhtäkkiä? Tämä kaunis kevätköhän se vielä saisi vanhat veret
liikkeelle? Heh, olipa mistä oli ja tulkoon mistä tulee, kunhan on hyvä
olla, eikä aina mieltä paina jäytävä alakuloisuus. Pistetään rysät
entisiin kalapaikkoihin, keitetään kalaa ja odotellaan kesää. Ja siinä
sivussa ojennetaan riitaisia kyläläisiä sovinnon tielle. Ojennetaan,
neuvotaan, vaikkapa siitä murtavatkin suuta ja haukkuvat
Kyrmyniskaksi.
Venheen kokka kahahti rantakaislikkoon, mutta Iisakki ei malttanut

vielä nousta rysiä laittamaan, vaan jäi edelleen miettimään.
Kymmenen vuotta sitä on jo Mikkolassa eletty. Mikä lienee silloin

saanut Hämeestä tänne muuttamaan ja kauniit syntymäseudut
jättämään. Niinkuin olisi muka täällä paremmat maat olleet ja
kalavedet. Kadutti kaupat ensin muutamia vuosia ja ikävä oli
Hämeeseen, vaan siinähän tuo on tasaantunut, ja talo on noussut ja
pellot kasvavat nyt jo niin että kuuluu kylälle asti.
Talonsa on saanut nousemaan, kun on puuhannut, mutta eipä ole

naapurein välit parantuneet, vaikka olisi kuinka saarnannut.
Riidellään ja hosataan yhtämittaa ja milloin ei julkisesti riidellä, niin
silloin takanapäin jurnutetaan ja puhutaan pahaa ja arvotonta
toisistaan. Mutta olkoon miten on. Eikö tästä puolin jääne
sovintoyritykset sikseen. Sekö heille ikänsä saarnaamaan! Heh,
riidellään sitten, kun kerran se on mieleisempää. Riidellään ja
hosataan ja tapellaankin, jos niin tarvitaan. On sitä
Kyrmyniskassakin sisua, jos niikseen tulee.
Iisakki pisti piippuunsa, sylkäisi, pisteeksi mietteilleen ja nousi

ketterästi laittamaan rysiä kuntoon. Jalka nousi keveämmin kuin
ennen ja hyvä mieli tuntui vaan paisuvan.
Iisakki oli saanut jo ensimäiset rysänsä jokeen ja aikoi viimeisiä
asettaa entisiin paikkoihinsa joen viimeisessä mutkassa, kun hän
hätkähti jo ihmeissään seisomaan.
— Kuka pirhana siihen jo ehti rysänsä, virkkoi katsellessaan

entisiä rysän paikkoja, joihin oli jo pyydykset pantuna.
Iisakki seisoi kysymysmerkkinä. Äskeinen hyvä mieli tuntui

alenevan.
— Kuka kehveli se…
Sattui siinä Iisakki kääntämään päätään ja huomasi rannalla

Rietulan seisomassa ja virnistelemässä.
— Kas kun naapuri on pistänyt siihen jo rysänsä likoon, virkkoi

Iisakki. Mutta mitenkähän se on, kun minä olen siinä tottunut ennen
pyydyksiäni pitämään?
Miehet kyyräsivät vastakkain. Rietulan leuka näytti värähtävän.
— Sinähän niitä olet tässä joessa parhaita pyyntipaikkoja tähän

asti pitänyt, vaan vuoro se on kerran minullakin, sanoi Rietula.
Iisakki näytti aprikoivan, alkaisiko haastaa riitaa vai koettaisiko

sovinnolla selviytyä naapuristaan.
— Lieneekö ne tässä rysänpaikat parempia kuin muuallakaan. Ja

kun minä tässä olen pitänyt ennenkin enkä ole sinun pyyntipaikoillesi
pyrkinyt, niin eiköhän sovittaisi pyytämään niin kuin ennenkin riitaa
haastamatta, arveli Iisakki.
Rietula oli tullut muutaman askeleen lähemmäksi ja kivahti:

— Elä puhu mitään entisistä pyyntipaikoista. Kun muutit
Mikkolaan, valtasit tämän paikan, enkä kehdannut pois ajaa, mutta
nyt ajetaan. Ja jos et sitä usko, niin koetetaan!
Ja Rietula sylkäsi kouriinsa valmiina käymään käsirysyyn, jos

tarvittaisi.
Iisakinkin mieli myrtyi ja hän purasi piipun vartta, joka sattui

olemaan hampaissa, niin että pala lohkesi suuhun. Mutta riitaa ei
mies sen pitemmältä käynyt haastamaan. Lähti astumaan ja virkkoi
mennessään Rietulalle:
— Tulehan aamulla Mikkolaan sampiaiskeitolle. Pistetään

kahviksikin ja vielä on putelissa pikkuisen, josta pulitetaan sekaan.
Olen parhaimpia vieraita varten säästellyt.
Rietula kuului kiroavan kiitokseksi lähtiessään soutamaan.

III.
Iisakki istui kamarissaan keinutuolissa ja antoi sen hiljaa liikkua.

Iltapäivän aurinko paistoi ikkunasta sisään ja muodosti kirkkaan
valojuovan lattiapalkeille. Könniläinen mittasi aikaa verkalleen.
Iisakin piippu oli sammunut ja sitä pitävä käsi valahtanut

riippumaan tuolin kaiteen yli. Miehen otsalla oli syvät mieterypyt.
Kyllä vain korpijokelaiset ja kolmolaiset olivat asettaneet hänet

kovalle koetukselle. Hän oli jo päättänyt, ettei kajoo heidän
riitoihinsa, vaan pysyy kaikista erillään, mutta myttyyn meni se
päätös.
Kylät olivat päättäneet perustaa yhteisen osuuskaupan ja asiasta

oli jo pidetty kokouksia, ja osuudet olivat merkityt, vaan paikasta oli
syntynyt riitaa. Kolmolaiset tahtoivat kauppaa puolelleen ja samoin
vaatimuksin esiintyivät korpijokelaisetkin, vaatien kauppaa joen
rannalle, jossa oli sopiva kartano heidän kylänsä puolella.
Korpijokelaiset olivat käyneet tänään miehissä puhumassa Iisakille

asiasta. Miehet tulivat kiihtyneinä, hiukset pystyssä vaatimaan
Iisakkia sovittajaksi asiassa ja pitämään heidän puoltaan
kiistanalaisesta kaupan, paikasta.
Kokous oli iltapäivällä Miirussa, ja hänen täytyi lähteä sinne ja
varustautua hyvään hyökkäys- ja puolustuskuntoon. Puheenlahjaa
hänelle oli suotu, eikä hänen tarvinnut sitä edeltäpäin valmistella,
mutta täytyi miettiä muitakin keinoja, ja senpä takia mieterypyt vaan
hetki hetkeltä syvenivät Iisakin otsalla.
Varmasti oli riivaajainen mennyt kumpaistenkin kylien miehiin, kun

viitsivät kinata turhaa moisessa pikkuasiassa. Eihän kahta kauppaa
voinut laittaa ja niin neuvoin täytyi toisen tai toisen puolen tulla
kysymykseen.
Joen yli johti leveä maantiesilta ja joku irvihammas oli viime

kokouksessa ehdottanut, että rakennettaisiin kaupalle kartano joen
sillalle ja muutettaisiin maantie toisesta paikasta kulkemaan.
Muutamat isännät, varsinkin Miirun Jooseppi, olivat asiaan
innostuneetkin luullen ehdotuksen tekijällä toden olevan
kysymyksessä.
Iisakki myhähti. Vähän niille oli järkeä annettu, miespoloisille, sen

näki kaikista heidän puuhistaan.
Kello löi kumeasti viiden lyöntinsä muistuttaen Iisakille, että

kokoukseen lähdön aika oli käsillä. Mutta edelleen istui Iisakki ja
keinahteli. Hänen sisässään oli alkanut kuohua.
Menen ja sanon suorat sanat heille kaikille. Sanon vasten naamaa

enkä selän takana jurnuta, niinkuin he. Sanon, että perustakoot
kauppansa vaikka hiiteen, vaikka Kittilän kirkon takapuolelle.
Puuhatkaa niin kuin puuhaatte, rähiskää ja tapelkaa, hunsvotit!
Se olisi niille parhaiksi.

Isäntärenki raotti kamarin ovea ja virkkoi:
— Mitenkä se on isäntä, kun se kokous kohta alkaa ja… menkää

nyt joutuun, hyvä isäntä… tässä on kunnia kysymyksessä.
— Minä annan perhanat sille kokoukselle! murahti isäntä

noustessaan.
Renki painoi oven kiinni ja ihmetteli isäntänsä murahtelua.
— Ei ole nyt meidän ukko oikealla tolalla. Viime aikoina onkin

istunut ja miettinyt… sitä akattomuuttaanko surenee.
Ja kun isäntä laskeutui portailta ja meni aitan ohi maantielle, arveli

renki vielä työnsä keskeyttäen:
— Ei se tänään kävelekään sillä tavoin, että siinä olisi puolensa

pitäjätä. Mikä pahus sitä vaivaa…?
Iisakki kävellä köhnysteli joen sillalle ja siinä vasta huomasi, että

oli tullut ohi Miirun tiehaarasta. Aikoi kääntyä, mutta huomasi nais-
ihmisen joella pesupuuhissa. Kukahan se olikaan? Pitääpä katsoa
tarkemmin! Miirun Eedla. Eikös ollut Eedla tosiaankin vaatteita
karttuamassa!
Iisakki sanoi hyvän päivän ja nojasi kaidepuuhun.
— Päivää vain. Kokoukseenko se isäntä oli menossa?
Eedla näyttikin vastoin tavallisuutta olevan puhetuulella.
— Sinnehän tässä… Sattui tuossa vähän viemään ohi.

Iisakki kaivoi housuntaskusta piipun ja pisti hampaisiinsa
muistamatta sitä täyttää.
No, johan nyt! Ja eikös ollut jäänyt tupakkamassikin kotiin!

Kaikkea sitä…
Eedla läiskytteli kartulla vaatteita eikä välittänyt Iisakin puuhista.

Oli kietaissut hameensa koholle ja pistänyt helmat vyön alle. Paljaat,
pyöreät pohkeat jännittyivät somasti Eedlan kumartuessa vaatteita
huuhtomaan.
Iisakki unohtui katselemaan Eedlan puuhailua. Somapa sitä olikin

katsella. Nuori, terve ihminen ja lisäksi isotekoinen.
Ja siinä katsellessa johtui Iisakille mieleen eukottomuutensa,

yksinäiset ikävät päivänsä.
Jo häntä on mies hullu, kun rupeaa eukotta ikänsä elämään ja

kitumaan, vaikka talo on kuin linna miehellä. On se. Ja mikä ihme
siinä mahtoi ollakaan, ettei ennemmin tuo asia ollut johtunut mieleen.
Mutta nyt sattui. Veti kuin vetäjäinen tähän joelle, jossa tuo Eedla…
Se on näyttävä ihminen, vaikka sanovat sitä hieman tuhmaksi. Reilu
tyttö, olipa sitten järeltään mikä tahansa.
Iisakki aikoi sanoa jonkun sanan Eedlalle, ennenkuin lähtisi

kokoukseen.
— Joko niitä on Miirussa kevätkaloja keitetty? kysäisi.
— Eikö mitä… Oli se isä pannut rysän jokeen, mutta oli jättänyt
kalasimen auki. Se ukko on välistä semmoinen toljake, virkkoi Eedla.
— Vai jäi kalasin auki, nauroi Iisakki.

Eedla oli saanut vaatteet huuhdelluiksi ja kietaisi nyt Iisakista
välittämättä hameen yltään ja pisti sen lipeätiinuun pestäväksi.
— Eedla kävisi siellä meillä kevätkalaa maistamassa jonakin

päivänä, virkkoi Iisakki lähtien menemään. Vielä lähdettyään hän
vilkaisi Eedlaa, joka siellä puuhaili vieraista välittämättä.
— Pahus, kun tuota Edlaa en ole ennemmin huomannut, pahoitteli

Iisakki. Siinähän se on emäntä Mikkolaan, mitä sitä sen kauempaa…
Kun nyt vaan ei ehtisi joku toinen ennen minua.
Sitä ajatellessa tuli Iisakin käynti kiireisemmäksi ja povessa tuntui

semmoinen outo, hiljainen kaikerrus.
Se asia täytyy ottaa käsille nyt aivan heti. Se on tärkeämpi kuin

osuuskauppa-asia ja kaikki muut kaiken maailman asiat yhteensä.
IV.
Rietula puuhaili myöskin lähtöä osuuskauppakokoukseen. Ylä-

Rietulan isäntä oli ennenkin osottautunut äkäpäiseksi ja kiivaaksi
mieheksi, mutta nyt oli osuuskauppa-asia saanut hänet aivan
raivostumaan. Nytkin karjui hän piioille ja rengeille, ja vanha
emännöitsijä Kustaavakin sai jo ukon mielenpurkauksista osansa.
Rietula oli lautamies ja, kuten sanottu, arka arvostaan myöskin

ulkoasuun nähden. Muutteli nytkin toista paitaa ylleen ja sotkeutui
jotenkuten paitaansa. Kustaavalta pääsi salaa pieni
naurunhytkähdys, mutta isäntä kuuli sen.
— Mitä sinä, akka, hirnut siinä! Lapa tiehes!
Pörröinen tukka ja vihasta pyörivät silmät näkyivät paita-aukosta.

Renki-Villekin alkoi hohottaa nähdessään sen ihmeen, että isäntä
sotkeutui paitaansa.
— Lempojako sinäkin, aikamies, kurnutat, kivahti isäntä ja paita

repesi riekaleiksi hänen käsissään.
— Ovatko ihmiset hulluja, kun nauravat tyhjälle! Minun nuoruuteni

aikana ei naurettu kun kerran tai pari vuodessa, mutta nyt
kurnutetaan lakkaamatta. Ja se on se puoli ihmisessä, jota minä en
kärsi. Minä en ole tyhjälle nauranut, mutta lautamieheksi olen
päässyt ja se on jotain, tiedä se, poika!
Villen poskilihoja nyki, mutta hän puri huultaan. Isännän sanatulva

oli taas ratkennut ja se oli hyvä merkki kokoukseen lähtiessä. Saavat
siellä taas kuulla Rietulan äänen ukkosena jyrisevän ja
huomautuksen siitä, että mies on päässyt lautamieheksi ja rikkaan
talon isännäksi pelkällä sanan voimalla.
— Joko minä valjastan isännälle hevosen? kysyi Ville.
— Sano lautamiehelle, oikaisi Rietula.
— Joko minä sitten lautamiehelle…
— Valjasta vaan ja ota ne kirkkokääsit ja se liinukka.
— Liinukka on ajossa, uskalsi Ville huomauttaa.
— Kuka lempo se on ottanut isännän hevosen! karjasi Rietula.
— Pekkapa tuon näkyi ottavan, totesi poika.
— Pahan hengen nulikka… vai meni tämä ottamaan isännän

hevosen. No, olkoon. Minä menen jalkaisin, mutta sano Pekalle, että
laputtaa tiehensä, ennenkuin minä tulen.
Rietula paiskasi ovea mennessään niin, että rämähti. Pihassa

kuului vielä mennessään jyrisevän piioille, jotka kaivolla pesivät
astioita.
Rietula oli viime päivinä tuntenut omituista pakotusta

sydänalassaan. Hierojakin oli käynyt muokkaamassa, mutta ei tullut

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Searching for New Welfare Models:

Citizens' Opinions on the Past, Present

Searching for New

Peter Demediuk Dennis Anderson

ISBN 978-3-030-58227-2 ISBN 978-3-030-58228-9 (eBook)

Cover pattern © John Rawsterne/patternhead.com

1 Searching for Welfare North and South 1

2 Welfare in Canada: Now and in 20 Years11

3 Welfare in the South: In 20 Years and Now33

4 The Future Welfare in Sweden53

5 The Welfare State: Will It Stay or Will It Go?69

Searching for Welfare North and South

Keywords welfare state • institution • New Public Management

“Public relief is a sacred debt.

© The Author(s) 2021 1

A Brief History of the Welfare State

The More Specific Motives Behind Our Search

great variety of forms, which is accompanied by a variety of owner-

introduction of the 30-hour working week; had it happened, the predic-

(Solli and Demediuk 2007). The choice of Canada was prompted by

1. If you could decide, how would the welfare be organized 20 years

Charmaz, Kathy (2006/2014) Constructing grounded theory. London: SAGE.

Welfare in Canada: Now and in 20 Years

Abstract This chapter contains the results of the interviews we conducted

Keywords Canada • healthcare • education • equality • care for elderly

In the face of the upheavals guaranteed by automation, cybernetics, and

© The Author(s) 2021 11

The Canadian study was the first in this three-country, transdisciplinary

Each interview lasted 40–60 minutes and was subsequently transcribed by

A Brief Sketch of the Political Situation in Canada

Canada has three major levels of government: national, provincial, and

Hello my name is Alan Lagimodiere, your Progressive Conservative candi-

compassion, integrity, and honesty—all traits that I want to bring to the

The general impression of an outsider, confirmed by many of the inter-

I want to offer Saskatchewan’s gratitude to Stephen Harper for his faithful

Indeed, Progressive Conservatives and Liberals appear to collaborate in

Are these the elements of welfare in the opinion of Canadian citizens

Healthcare (13 Persons)

The suggested solutions varied. Many of them concerned education: More

Another suggestion concerned the need for more emphasis to be put on

Education (12 Persons)

The other group considered university education unnecessary; it is prepa-

… what we probably should do is invest in things like reservations, an edu-

make a big difference because we have a really growing Aboriginal popula-

Some suggestions concerned the organization of the educational system:

In general, young people need to learn more about Canada’s “racist

General Corrections of the System Toward Equality (10 Persons)

immigrants, and rich immigrants. In particular, though, it was the

It needs to be added that another respondent, less optimistic about the

It would be an independent platform that could take in all those concepts

Care for Elderly (9 Persons)

Basic Income (Social Care) (8 Persons)

In late 2016, members of the Prince Edward Island (PEI—population

In 2017, the government of Ontario10 (population 13.6 million)

We return to the results of those experiments in the final chapter.

Environment Care (5 Persons)

Other issues mentioned were waste management, fighting pollution, and

… a lot of times the pipelines go through their [Indigenous people’s] land

One environment activist summed it up, pointing out that environmental

suicide rate. When you have people living in semi-primitive conditions, in

Also, more attention should be paid to local agriculture—a trend already

Housing (Social Care) (4 Persons)

… there has to be a national housing strategy. We used to have it in Canada,

1 Searching for Welfare North and South 1

2 Welfare in Canada: Now and in 20 Years11

3 Welfare in the South: In 20 Years and Now33

4 The Future Welfare in Sweden53

5 The Welfare State: Will It Stay or Will It Go?69