Life on social assistance in New Brunswick : If welfare owns you, you can't do nothing

Thanks are also due to the members of the Justice and Solidarity Committee and the various charity committees of the Moncton diocese, as well as to the managers and teachers of the Literacy New Brunswick network, who generously helped us to contact people and organize discussion groups in the different communities. [...] This study was conducted by the Action Research Laboratory at the Université de Moncton’s School of Social Work, in partnership with the New Brunswick Common Front for Social Justice (NBCFSJ).1 The two general objectives of the study were to gain a better understanding of (1) the reality of Francophone social assistance recipients in New Brunswick, and (2) the successes and difficulties encountere [...] The findings of this study arose from a series of five group interviews conducted with Francophone social assistance recipients in the southeastern and northern regions of the province in the summer and fall of 2004. [...] The idea of conditionality of assistance is not new (the unemployed have always had an obligation to try to re-enter the labour market), but because all the public assistance systems in the Western countries now require various types of considerations in return for benefits and operate on the principle of need instead of the principle of entitlement, it has become necessary to seek knowledge on th [...] A few studies have also focused on the effects of these social assistance reforms in Canada, and more specifically, on the challenges of making the transition from social assistance to the labour market, according to practical experience and the real impact of the mechanisms put in place to facilitate the transition (HRDC, 2000; Michalopoulos, C., Tattrie, D., Miller C., Robins, P. K., and Morris,