Beyond ‘Deserving:’ An Examination of the Moral Regulatory Function of Welfare Policing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In this paper I argue that the Canadian government’s disproportionate spending on the policing of ‘welfare fraud’ constitutes a fiscal investment in the moral regulation of the larger populous. I propose that by reinforcing divisive notions of deservedness, the government seeks to foster capitalist subjectivities, a term which I define as a complacency with limited social welfare and compliance with capitalist norms of exploitation and productivity. However, as my research findings suggest, governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have undermined the regulatory function of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving poor’ metric, resulting in the expansion of anti-poverty discourse and calls for progressive social welfare reform.