"6 Pensions were not only Ontario's first "gender inclusive" social program, but also the first "gender inclusive" social program in Canada.7 Although both men and women were paid from the start of the old age pension program, "the gender politics of pensions were inextricably entangled with the ideal of a family income and the reality of women's more irregular attachment to and earlier withdrawal from the labour market."8 Women were still in a more unstable financial position than men, even with state support in their old age. The provincial government very reluctantly launched the old age pensions program in Ontario, and did not want to provide much political support. This meant there was a lot of administrative problems and bureaucratic preparation with the program.9 .
In 1945, the welfare state moved from old age pensions to studying the effect of welfare state programs on citizen responsibility.10 According to socialist political theorist John Keane, "welfare state bureaucracies have in effect tended 'to encourage the passive consumption of state provision and seriously to undermine citizens' confidence in their ability to direct their own lives.'"11 It was assumed that the welfare state creates an alienation that citizen participation may be able to fix, but social activists attempted to prevent this alienation all together.12 "These social activists were the promoters of 'public,' or state-funded, recreation. In their opinion, playgrounds, clubs,, and other such organized leisure pursuits were welfare services whose particular 'helping' role was to foster active citizenship."13 In other words, local communities should be self-sufficient. This particular experiment was performed in Brantford, Ontario, using the 'recreation movement,'14 which "belonged to social work and was connected only tenuously and sometimes contentiously with sports.
