Historic Breaks in Canadian Welfare as Expressions of Internal Crisis and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Efforts to Address Them Quiebres históricos en el bienestar canadiense como expresiones de crisis interna, y gestiones del primer ministro Justin Trudeau para encararlos

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the gradual decomposition that Canada’s traditional social bastions— education, health and housing, which made the country an international moral power in the 20th century and a paradigm of social justice—have undergone over the previous decades. It emphasizes that this dismantling of the welfare state’s pillars has occurred under the administration of both conservative and liberal governments without partisan distinction. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, its effects have been unavoidable for the federal government of the liberal Justin Trudeau, who was forced to face the crisis to seek emerging solutions. However, the seriousness of the situation reinforces our hypothesis that this crisis represents a historic break in Canada, which has been brewing since at least the mid-eighties when the state decided to reduce resources to redirect them to other productive sectors and thus stimulate the arrival of private investment in strategic social areas. Hence, some social costs derived from these decisions will be exposed.