The Social Safety Net

THE HILL TIMES TOP 100 BOOKS OF 2024

Canada’s social safety net is fraying. Why does it feel like everything is collapsing?

Canada is at a crossroads. Social services and politics have been transformed to serve market economies, while Canadians struggle to pay rent, buy food, and find a stable job that pays well enough to cover daily costs. Everywhere we look, things are falling apart, but there’s still time to reverse the decline.


The Social Safety Net, the first book in the Canada in Decline series, tracks the forty-year attack on Canada’s welfare state. As neoliberalism has matured, Canadians have seen the impact of these attacks: unreliable healthcare, crises in education and social services, and a society that feels like it is losing cohesion.


This series tells the story of Canada’s untenable status quo and the forces that have led us to where we are today. It outlines the choices we need to make to fix all that is crumbling around us as well as the possible paths forward.