When I was a student at University in Kingston Ontario almost 20 years ago, one of the local manufacturing plants announced layoffs over 25 years in to their seniority list. Men in their 50s, who had spent most of their lives working suddenly found themselves standing in line at the social assistance offices.

I was in the waiting room one morning when one of those men stepped through the door. Everything about him said he was confused, bewildered and overwhelmed by the circumstances he found himself in. Following the instructions, he stood in line waiting with his forms in hand, only to be treated rudely by the civil servant standing behind the counter.

“I don't really have time for this,” the young woman snapped, “you're wasting my time . . .” There was something he'd missed, and he hadn't brought the proper information with him. Turning to walk away, the man looked like he was about to cry.

After a lifetime of working in a factory where he assumed he would retire from in a few short years, he suddenly found himself looking for help and received instead only rudeness. What stuck with me witnessing that encounter, was the disservice done to this man, and perhaps a dozen others just like him, by a well meaning civil servant who had momentarily lost perspective on why she was sitting at the counter in the first place.

Our social assistance programs from EI through to WCB are intended to help us through the tough spots in our lives when we find ourselves in need of help and support. That help and support might be financial, but more often than not, what is most needed is a word of kindness and some encouragement that we are being heard.

Recent events in Edmonton are a vivid reminder that being heard and valued is central to the social assistance continuum of services. While I would never advocate walking into an office with a gun, my own experiences, and reflecting on those of others including that anonymous man in Kingston almost 20 years ago, reminds me of the level of frustration and anger that is possible in the system as it is currently configured.

Conservative Senator Hugh Segal recently appeared on The Sunday Edition on CBC Radio, and acknowledged that our system is often judgment and rules based. Segal advocates the implementation of a guaranteed income supplement to help those “people who earned beneath a certain level need to be topped up for a temporary period of time.”

Citing examples of applicants forced to watch videos on why they shouldn't be applying for welfare or EI, and the enormous expenditures involved in holding someone responsible, or ascertaining need, Segal suggests a more humane and cost effective solution. Topping up cheques to an appropriate and livable level would, in Segal's opinion, give people the help they need and be good for business, and much easier on tax payers.

Yet such a solution is often rejected because it represents too much of a departure from our current system. Over and over though, we see the evidence that our current system simply doesn't work.

More rules, tighter security, more staff, and strong regulations will not help to avoid future incidents like that in Edmonton when frustration boils over and desperation sets in. Instead, helping people escape the trap they find themselves in by supplying them with a few hundred dollars of additional income will lessen their stress and reduce the need to spend even more money on building up a bureacracy that is, in many ways no longer working.

In the mid 70s the Mincome experiment in Dauphin proved that a Guaranteed Income Supplement works to help those in need, and has the spinoff benefits of helping local businesses, schools and the community. The investment of money directly to where there is a need, will as Senator Segal notes, “help get people through the tough times in thier lives.” And that would be money well spent.