Cut offs and behavioral standards in Quebec’s social assistance program, 1990-2005
Between 1989 and 2005, the social assistance system in Quebec included obligations relating to the occupation of a job or participation in employability measures. During this period, tens of thousands of claimants saw their benefits reduced for failing to comply with certain behaviors expected or prescribed by a Ministry official. This article proposes an analysis of the decisions rendered on appeal by the Administrative Tribunal of Québec towards sanctionned recipients, highlighting the irruption of neoliberal order in the social assistance system, and looking at the way in which the new injunction to work take shape in the practices of State officers.