Better busing for the homeless

Perhaps there’s some conceivably happier ending to the story of the two young homeless Saskatchewan guys who wished for a government- funded pair of bus tickets to Vancouver, were immediately greeted on their arrival there by Christian Samaritans ready to feed and house them, and were shortly after offered jobs by a local construction firm. For instance, it appears, judging from the national coverage of this story, that the two fellows did not happen to also meet the girls of their dreams upon arriving. Also, the weather in Vancouver Wednesday night could have been better.

Other than that, you might be forgiven for adding a grain of salt to the claim by far-left Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang that Saskatchewan social workers were “inhumane” to grant the two First Nations men those bus tickets. They were, after all, having a bad time in North Battleford. They had been told they no longer qualified for a shelter bed — although when asked, 23- year- old Charles Neil Curly could not explain why. But he figured he would be happier in Vancouver where “I don’t have to sleep in a snowbank.” He and his buddy Jeremy Roy had heard that there were free bus rides available and so, figured they’d try the coast, where they could “try to get a job and a place … and have a life.” They asked and they received.

One reason the two may have lost their shelter beds is that Saskatchewan is apparently in a standoff with Ottawa over which level of government must fund such services for First Nations. That may seem like somewhat small-minded squabbling in Vancouver, where roughly 20 per cent of homeless people are aboriginal, according to the Homeless Hub research group. But in Saskatoon, it’s more than double that rate and in Regina, it’s roughly quadruple.

Still, Curly and Roy could be more on the ball than the politicians and media are giving them credit for. The job market in Saskatchewan is getting tighter, with employment insurance claims jumping 37 per cent over last year ( more on that in a moment). B.C.’s employment situation, meanwhile, is popping, with job growth exceeding the national average, and the Conference Board of Canada now projecting that the province will lead the country in growth this year.

So it’s possible that Curly and Roy made a wise decision to leave. But not necessarily. It’s true that labour mobility has always been a problem in Canada. It’s why we’ve come to rely instead on global immigrants to fill job shortages rather than fixing policies that hinder the movement of Canadian workers, such as provincial licensing barriers and richer employment income benefits in depressed regions. And the problem is only getting worse: Calculations by Kevin McQuillan, a demographer at the University of Calgary, show that interprovincial migration rates have fallen steadily from 5.3 per cent in 1981 to 3.0 per cent in 2006, the last census data available. More importantly, among young workers (aged 25 to 34), rates have fallen from 8.8 per cent to 6.3 per cent. With unemployment levels ranging from 14.4 per cent in Newfoundland to 5.6 per cent in Saskatchewan, it’s clear that we need more Canadian workers making the choice to relocate.

That latter rate, by the way, means Saskatchewan still has the lowest unemployment in the country, even after the aforementioned jump recently in EI claims. So while the social workers in Saskatchewan are taking heat for allegedly not ensuring Roy and Curly had a secure place to land once in Vancouver (although, it seems the guys also lacked one in North Battleford), they’re unquestionably guilty of helping distort the economic calculation the two men had to make.

Curly and Roy’s decision to try their luck in Vancouver could only be properly made when the real costs of the move ( including travel) were weighed against what they estimate the benefits will be. Writ small, free out-of-province bus rides are the reverse of the economic problem caused when the federal government effectively induces Atlantic Canadians not to move west for better jobs by giving them unusually generous EI supports. And Saskatchewan isn’t the only province that does it: B.C.’s housing minister says it’s sometimes done in his province, too. But whether it’s tickets to get people out, or generous social supports that tether them to where they are, these handouts muddle up the market’s natural signals that tell workers whether it’s worth their time, cost and effort to relocate for better work or not.

Realistically, judging by the situation they were reportedly in, Roy and Curly would have had trouble anyway responding to those signals if they couldn’t afford to buy the $250 per ticket themselves. And yet, refusing two broke guys a little help and making them stay put in a tough spot could just as easily be considered “inhumane.” So, rather than just giving homeless people a free lift over the provincial border, social workers would do much better to instead lend them the money for tickets. Like student loans, it would at least then require the borrowers to make a decision about whether the money they’ll have to pay back in the future will make for a worthwhile investment today.

Yes, it might sound impractical. Obviously the delinquency rate among homeless borrowers would be dramatically higher than for student debt. An effective process to collect on the loan is something provinces would have to work their best to solve, and even then it would be far below perfect. But if we want to help workers, especially unemployed ones, become more mobile, a micro-loan program for interprovincial bus travel might be a policy worth considering. Had Roy and Curly been offered a loan rather than a freebie, they might have taken it and paid it back, or reneged on it. Or they might have declined. But either way, Saskatchewan would have at least spared itself accusations that its trying to tempt its transients into becoming some other province’s problem.

WE NEED MORE CANADIAN WORKERS MAKING THE CHOICE TO RELOCATE.