Can you imagine how your home heating system would work without a thermostat?

Ah yes...how to measure the "public good"? A question best left to the Cato Institutes of the world. But, who will measure the public good in the many more $Billions that flow to private sector enterprise? Not to even mention that the private enterprise could not survive without the public good of roads, water services, public transit, police services, fire services, paramedics, and the myriad of other "public" infrastructure provided to them in return for their ever-diminishing share of public revenue support (as None other than Paul Ryan noted this week). So...if we refuse to quantify and apply the proportionate value of the "public benefit" accrued to private enterprise (even tho it would be simple math of dollars in and out) why is it so crucial to try to do so with "people programs"?

and yet harm reduction programs which can demonstrate positive results, like InSite or the "wet" shelter for alcoholic homeless people in Ottawa, face endless resistance from politicians pandering to the uninformed opinions of their supporters.

This should ring a resonant note with Mike Crawley and the Liberal Party of Canada who decided in their big powwow to back Evidence Based Policies. Pleased we are not polarized l

Evidence based decision making with our current crop of legislators? Wouldn't that be a wonderful change of methods. But wait, scientists are muzzled, or laid off. Evidence as it exists is ignored in favour of ideological pursuits. Tough on crime me arse. Tough on Truth is more like it. What social program has a hope of uplifting the human spirit when we are surrounded by the mind numbed doublespeak that passes for governance these days? As for governments having inherent weaknesses in self evaluation, that's deeply biased and a whole crock of nonsense. The implication that private enterprise is better suited to quick response and self evaluation is further nonsense. Heads out of sand oh denizens of the free market myth. That's simply a load of obfuscation to disguise and conceal the rigging and manipulating that is so eagerly carried out daily by private enterprise to wrest control. Government is not a tragedy of the commons. Bing truth and accountability to the fore in all avenues of public discourse, all routes of endeavour. Foster an atmosphere of positive mind, and influence the "disenfranchised" by example, while at the same time maintaining compassionate evidence supported programs such as exist now or will be developed.

The education system reaches all families with children - already an underused yet viable system for supporting families and tracking the effectiveness.

I note you adjusted the headline online.

Suggesting we give them the money instead so they can move to a better neighborhood is specious, unhelpful, and revealing of the very elitist bias which gives rise to the atmosphere of antagonism we have today.

Good article, it is well beyond time someone looked at how we are wasting our money the govt won't.

Thank you for another well written article. You are the only one seeing the truth.

Maybe a little research on how the money for these programs is spent. I always remember being told that most of the money for welfare goes to administrative fees. You pay a counscellor $50k a year to tell the welfare case how to live on $15k a year. This is true of too many programs and I do wish Ms. Wente would stick to Canadian Data and not something provided through The Cato Institute whose only interest is cutting everything that doesn't provide comfort to the top 5%.

On the criticism of the headline, calling the helping agencies and those that are compensated by them ( helping professionals and other employees) an industry is exactly the point of the article. Agree with it or not it is not a bad headline.

Living a lifetime in the subsidized ghetto is actually more costly that private ownership. If anything, we need to revamp CMHC so that just about every Canadian can experience home ownership and its socially useful behaviour constraints on those with 'something to lose.' It's time to revamp our laws to ensure that everyone can work towards owning something, and encouraging every person to contribute to society however they can. And if CMHC has to stay on title for a decade or two, so what? We need to dismantle to poverty establishment.

Right on Margaret. The lefty crowd never want to measure the effect of spending taxpayers' dollars on a perceived problem. They just want to redistribute more of the taxpayers' money.

That was not how the headline was originally posted Stephanie....unlike in the hard copy. There was a "the" missing. As I recall it said "The awful truth about helping industries"

I don't generally agree with Ms. Wente but I think this is a good article. If we're throwing money at problems it would be nice to know whether we're getting the results we hoped for. I also agree with some other readers that our current federal governnment has no interest in the facts or even in the existence of facts. Cutting the long-form census, enacting "tough on crime" legislation despite evidence that it doesn't reduce crime, and cutting funding to scientists of all stripes will never get us to where Ms. Wente thinks we should be. Unfortunately, truth and dogma don't mix.

So it's come to this. To protect its ideological disinformation the Glop has to resort to putting its prized ideologue in a cage to protect her from irate readers. You won't publish this, shame.

No need to look south to see the results of wasted tax dollars on the 'poor'. One need only look at the east side of Vancouver to see how our tax dollars are shredded in the poverty industry.

Margaret -thanks for this informative article. Governments seem very nimble at monitoring and regulating the private sector, but not so adept when it comes to themselves. This needs to change -and they must be increasingly accountable to the taxpayers.

Let them take them take the $74.50 per person they get from social programs and Move To A Better Neighborhood. And Let Them Eat Cake.

There may be no proof right now that there is anything self-serving about many of these programs but the fact is that thousands of administrators, social workers, outreach workers, etc. have a vested interest in keeping the money flowing. How much of that money is helping the people that need the help?

What does Wente have on Stackhouse and the other amateur-hour morons running this rag that she finagled this kind of special treatment?