Social policy analyst Ken Battle sowed seeds for the Canada Child Benefit

When Ken Battle was director of a federal advisory body called the National Council of Welfare, he decided it was time to write the first national report on welfare in Canada.The year was 1986 and programs providing supplements to the poor were being run primarily by the provinces and territories. They were shrouded in secrecy, says Sherri Torjman, a social-policy expert who was hired by Mr. Battle to conduct the research. “Ken said, ‘There’s hundreds of thousands of Canadians who rely on [welfare], and we just don’t know anything about it.’”