Where charity ended : a study of welfare in the Yukon Territory
Date
1994
Authors
McAleese, Shannon Margaret
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Abstract
The records of the Yukon Welfare program between 1917-1938 were examined to determine the nature of the programme. All new applications to the programme were closely examined, to build a profile of the clients and circumstances of their need for aid. Financial records were used to determine the scope of the programme in relation to other governmental expenditures. The programme was found to be an outdoor relief programme, which was used mainly as an equivalent to the Old Age Pensions offered in some southern Canadian provinces. The programme's cost rose from 0.008 % of the total annual expenditures in 1917 to 32% of total Government expenditures in 1938. Initially the head of the Yukon Government had singular authority to offer aid; in 1925 an administrative officer was appointed, using the R.C.M.P. as field officers. The provision of charity by the head of government could be seen as palliative measure, since the Yukon had an appointed government, rather than wholly elected and responsible to the voters.
Government charity during the Gold Rush entailed replacing lost tools for prospectors, to make them dependent again upon their own labour for support. After the Gold Rush, charity was given to any who asked for it, as the fierce northern climate could kill those without sufficient food, clothing or shelter. In the interwar period this same monthly aid of twenty dollars worth of food, plus fuel, clothing and medicine as needed, was given to the aging pioneer population. This was donated by the Yukon Government to the elderly who then lived out their later years in the Yukon without death from cold or hunger, after they could no longer work for a living. The public image of the Yukon was preserved by the government donations, as well as the myth of the Yukon as a neighbourly place.
Four groups were aided. The first was the old, formerly the working poor. The second was women without patriarchally legitimated access to male income: widows, deserted wives, unmarried mothers, and spinsters. The third group was partly native families, where one parent had died, and children required support. The fourth group was aided in 1933 only; they were older men affected by structural unemployment in the mining industry. Distinctions in the level of assistance rendered to various clients were based on the administrator's judgment of the client's level of fault for their own misfortune. Those applicants made dependent through aging were considered blameless; widows as well were absolved of responsibility for their own poverty. Women who had failed marriages, and morally suspect women were observed and coerced into more acceptable behaviour in order to continue receiving aid. Natives were excluded from receiving aid; those partly native were encouraged to emulate a non-native lifestyle to avoid scrutiny and racial slurs. Aid was not expected to be repaid, except where the client was considered able to earn income; the Keno miners of 1933 were aided as a loan from the Government, until they could find new work. This assignment of blame follows the pattern suggested by David Thomson in his article 'Welfare and the Historians.'