This paper examines British Columbia's residency requirement on social assistance implemented by the NDP government on December 1, 1995. The policy created a three-month waiting period for newcomers to the province before they could apply for social assistance. Because it violated ;the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), the residency requirement put the BC government at risk of losing, through federal penalty, many millions of dollars more than the intended savings. To explain the BC government's decision-making, I use a rational choice nested games approach. I argue that the residency requirement policy produced two sets of interactions in two separate policy arenas. In the principal arena, the British Columbia Social Services Ministry negotiated with the federal Department of Human Resources Development (HRD). The negotiations centred on the possibility of federal concessions in- exchange for BC withdrawing the residency requirement. In the secondary arena, the federal Department of Finance was consulting with its provincial counterparts regarding the' long-term funding formula for the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) set to replace CAP on April 1, 1996. Social Services interacted with the federal Department of Finance to influence the outcome of the funding decision. I propose that the BC government risked minimal resources in the primary arena to gain substantially higher payoffs from the CHST funding formula. The government linked these two arenas through a 'trade-off strategy that allowed them to apply the political pressure and communication generated by the residency requirement and negotiations with HRD to the Finance arena. This enabled them to. increase the possibility of a favourable payoff in that arena. I find that the rational, choice approach produces an explanation that reflected the government's actual decision-making more closely than other theoretical approaches.

This paper examines British Columbia's residency requirement on social assistance implemented by the NDP government on December 1, 1995. The policy created a three-month waiting period for newcomers to the province before they could apply for social assistance. Because it violated ;the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), the residency requirement put the BC government at risk of losing, through federal penalty, many millions of dollars more than the intended savings. To explain the BC government's decision-making, I use a rational choice nested games approach. I argue that the residency requirement policy produced two sets of interactions in two separate policy arenas. In the principal arena, the British Columbia Social Services Ministry negotiated with the federal Department of Human Resources Development (HRD). The negotiations centred on the possibility of federal concessions in- exchange for BC withdrawing the residency requirement. In the secondary arena, the federal Department of Finance was consulting with its provincial counterparts regarding the' long-term funding formula for the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) set to replace CAP on April 1, 1996. Social Services interacted with the federal Department of Finance to influence the outcome of the funding decision. I propose that the BC government risked minimal resources in the primary arena to gain substantially higher payoffs from the CHST funding formula. The government linked these two arenas through a 'trade-off strategy that allowed them to apply the political pressure and communication generated by the residency requirement and negotiations with HRD to the Finance arena. This enabled them to. increase the possibility of a favourable payoff in that arena. I find that the rational, choice approach produces an explanation that reflected the government's actual decision-making more closely than other theoretical approaches. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate