Humane Social Assistance.

For discussion:
-Every able-bodied unemployed adult citizen living alone should get a monthly amount for rent determined via housing rental averages of the community in which they reside, aside from an adequate living allowance. One big lie often bandied about by the neo-feudalist crowd is that welfare money mostly goes on booze or dope when in fact it's mostly spent supporting local businesses by reinfusing that cash into grocery stores, rentals etc.
-Every able-bodied unemployed adult citizen living with parents should get half of what people earn monthly on minimum wage.
-Every single parent should be allowed at least $500 extra income from part-time work WITHOUT deduction or penalty, making life harder for poor children is criminal negligence on a par with Dickensonian England.
-Those on social assistance should NOT be harassed with time-limits, limited schooling options, or arbitrary cuts. If circumstances dictate a person must live on welfare for years so be it. If they can work, they'll frustrate at having no extra cash and try for jobs. By no means should anyones' physical existence be imperilled; this is CANADA with a vast natural resource treasure-chest making it EASILY affordable to feed and house the poor and unlucky for life. Canada is sold around the world as a near utopia, it's time to live up to that image.
-Provincial governments should institute a better variety of voluntary skills training for welfare recipients, especially "mini-courses" to earn them attendance certificates while they stabilize. This would go a long way to developing aptitudes, interests, self-confidence. Many provinces have lengthy bureaucratic criteria for schooling or have even frozen out most education for social assistance, quite a bizarre turn of events since the best chances for employment usually lie with gaining education. Has there evolved an unspoken trend to regarding people as "surplus"? If this is so, a most dangerously slippery social slope...
-An often improperly tapped spirit of volunteerism DOES exist amongst poor folk and should be fully explored, therefore most "workfare" programs ought to be better managed and kept voluntary. If forceably proscribed, at least ensure workfare is used on community service projects versus just cheap labor for sleazy politically connected businessfolk.