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A Systematic Approach
to Discrimination in the
Provision of Social Services:
South Vancouver.
By: David Sangha
From: Currents Summer 1987 pp. 8-9
© 1987 Urban Alliance on Race Relations
The provision of public services to visible minorities is tainted
with discrimination. In earlier times, the discrimination was blatant and
the intent to harm members of certain groups was very obvious. Now, many
of the sources of discrimination are unintentional, often very subtle and
result in practices which are largely the result of two factors. First,
the allocation of resources which do not reflect the changes in the cultural
and racial make-up of the country, and secondly, the improper use of discretionary
power by social service workers. These two factors have produced discriminatory
effects in the provision of social services.
Resource Allocation
Social service administrators have continued to allocate their resources
to programs directed at the majority society. This is often done in spite
of the fact that the potential consumer base of their agencies is increasingly
from ethnic/cultural minority groups for whom these programs have little
meaning. At a means level, governments continue to allocate the same proportion
of funding to these main stream organizations while continuing to distribute
either little or no funding to agencies providing specialized services to
the growing ethnic and racial minority populations.
One example of this function of systemic discrimination in social service
delivery at a more micro level can be found in the social service delivery
system presently in place in South Vancouver.
South Vancouver is a community which has undergone a dramatic demographic
change in the last twenty years. During this period, Indo- Canadians have
gone from about one per cent to almost 10 per cent of the population of
this area. If one were to include other visible minorities, the proportion
may well be close to 16 per cent. 1
However, the programs offered by individual organizations, the four community
centres, and the two libraries in the area, do not adequately reflect the
changing composition of the population. None of these organizations have
specialized programs which meet the needs of these new groups and their
staffs do not reflect the ethnic/ racial composition of the area. The staff
of the two Ministry of Human Resources offices in the area are almost all
from the majority culture, and therefore do not reflect the multicultural
reality of their client population.
The one "mainstream" agency which has made some changes in its
delivery system is the South Vancouver Neighbourhood Home. In a present-ation
to the Special Committee on Visible Minorities, the director of Neighbourhood
House noted the commitment which the House has exhibited towards the Indo-Canadian
community through the establishment of an ethnic worker position to provide
services (such as English as a Second Language) to the Indo-Canadian community.
But upon closer examination of this program, we find a less clear commitment
to serving the needs of minorities than might at first appear.
The ethnic worker's position is one of the very few in the agency which
is reliant solely on various federal government work schemes. The salary
in comparatively low and the reliance on grants ensures a tenuous existence
for the program. It is not surprising, therefore, that the agency has had
difficulty attracting professionally trained workers for the position. Because
of the weak financial base, the range of services offered by the ethnic
worker has been limited to a few programs for immigrant women. As a result,
the implementation of services for other important target groups, such as
immigrant children and adolescents, have thus far not been attempted.
Further to this, other generic programs for youth, seniors and ado- lescents
would appear to have under gone few changes to make them more attractive
to a culturally different clientele. It would also appear that Neighbourhood
House does not have any future plans to develop programs to meet the specialized
needs of various sectors of the ethnic client "market" such as
heritage language programs, literature groups etc. If the needs of the ethnic/racial
groups are not being met by these "mainstream" organizations,
then where are they being met?
In the main, the social service needs of these groups are either being met
by the local temples or by the Immigrant Services Centre. It is
important to view the work of this latter agency from the macro perspective
of its position in the South Vancouver social services delivery system to
show how it serves as a symbol of the exploitation of immigrants by various
levels of government.
The Immigrant Services Centre serves virtually all of the social service
needs of the Indo-Canadian community in South Vancouver. Besides providing
integrative services such as English as a Second Language and citizenship
classes, the Centre also provides counselling, job training and advocacy
services. A reasonable argument could be made that other agencies should
also be able to undertake at least some of these services in order to meet
the multicultural reality of the area.
However, the clearest example of this lack of change on the part of agencies
is the fact that the bulk of the activity of the Centre's staff focuses
on translating and providing cultural information for other statutory agencies
such as the Ministry of Human Resources, the local Canada Employment Centre,
the Vancouver City Police and Health and Welfare Canada (e.g. pensions and
family allowance applications). When one considers the obvious differences
in funding and number of staff, it is remarkable that none of these agencies
has been willing and/or able to recruit a multicultural, multilingual staff
to handle these situations to date.
Thus, despite the fact that much of the Immigrant Services Centre's work
has to do with a provincial government agency (Ministry of Human Resources),
the provincial government provides no funding for this agency. The federal
government has provided year-to-year funding for one position (at sub-standard
wages) and the City of Vancouver provides funding for one other position.
And despite the multiplicity of roles which the Centre provides, including
facilitating other agencies to fulfull their mandates, its case is typical
of other immigrant serving agencies and organizations forced to function
on a year to year basis. As is the case with the ethnic worker position,
one cannot help but wonder how such a state of flux an tenuosity will affect
the abilities immigrant serving agencies and their personnel in the long
run.
Discretionary Powers
The second major complicating factor lies in the improper use of discretionary
power by social workers employed by statutory agencies such as the Ministry
of Human Resources (M.H.R). These workers are often given mandates which
allow them great deal of freedom and discretion to intervene in various
situations in ways which are clearly not in the best interests of visible
minorities.
From a systemic view, the issue is not so much the attitudes of social workers
but rather the lack of appropriate training in cross-cultural situations
and the wide discretionary powers afforded them under the present Family
and Child Service Act and accompanying regulations.
The Ministry of Human Resources also has considerable discretion in deciding
the appropriateness various support services for families in crisis. Interestingly
enough, the M.H.R has rarely, if ever, entered into a special services contract
with any of the local ethnic self-help groups, despite their history of
excellent service provision which has often been provided on voluntary basis
to the Ministry. Instead, the M.H.R prefers to pay other"mainstream"
service providers for the provision of services to racial and ethnic minorities
even though they often lack the same level of expertise.
Further to this, a great deal of discretion is afforded to financial assistance
workers in the provision of income assistance and specifically in deciding
which applications are entitled to "crisis grants". According
to the experience of a B.C. senior social worker in the M.H.R, this discretionary
power has been used to disallow (proportionately) a larger number of Indo-Canadians
from acquiring these grants. Again from the systemic view, the problem revolves
around the vague regulation surrounding the provision of such grants.
Systemic Remedies
Despite their tax dollar "investment" into the "welfare
state", it appears that Canada's racial and ethnic minorities have
been left virtually unserved by the country's social service systems. Most
agencies have not changed their staffs or service delivery systems to meet
the needs of the changing populations they are supposed to serve, as illustrated
by the case of South Vancouver's Indo-Canadian community. Instead, these
agencies leave much of the task to immigrant service agencies which an funded
on the most tenuous of bases.
Perhaps more serious still is the fact that although social workers have
traditionally seen their profession as being in the vanguard of the movement
for better conditions for immigrants, they may nevertheless be using their
discretionary powers to hinder immigrants rather than help them.
If social workers are to become part of the solution, they too will have
to advocate for systemic remedies. With solid research and a partnership
with previously disaffected groups, social workers can play a leading role
in beginning the process of dismantling systemic barriers to adequate services
for all groups in Canadian society.
David Sangha is an MSW graduate from the University of British Columbia's
School of Social Work and is active in the race relations field in Vancouver.
Footnotes
1 Reg Robson, Ethnic Conflict in Vancouver, p.l5.
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