Finance Minister Carole Tay­lor claims that the new budget ensures that all British Columbians share in the benefits of the province's thriving economy. Not by any stretch, counters the director of UBC's school of social work and family studies.

Prof. Graham Riches told the Georgia Straight that there is something fundamentally flawed in the way the B.C. Liberal government carved the budget. “It's not a policy of redistribution,” he said. “It will prove inadequate.”

Riches noted that the rich and middle class received $1.5 billion in tax cuts so that, according to the government, they'll have more money “to meet their housing challenges and help them with the high cost of housing in B.C.”. This amount constitutes three-quarters of the four-year $2 billion package, which the Liberals trumpeted as a housing legacy.

People at the bottom scale of the social ladder or those who depend on welfare will get an additional $50 a month for their shelter needs. It's the first increase in the shelter rate since 1992. Jean Swanson, coordinator of the Carnegie Community Action Project, noted to the Straight that some won't even get to the see the $50. “For some people, the government does send the shelter part of the cheque directly to the landlord,” she said.

People on welfare will also receive an additional $50 per month, which, according to the government, is meant to “provide adequate resources for food and other necessities”.

“Even though $100 seems to be a large amount, one wonders what kind of calculations went into this,” Riches said. “This is hardly enough to ensure that people in receipt of social assistance will be able to pay the rent or to eat nutritiously.”

Riches said that the situation is indicative of a collapse of B.C.'s social safety net.

“This is not only a moral outrage,” he said. “My interpretation is that the B.C. government is in violation of its obligations under international law to respect, protect, and fulfill the human right to food and housing on behalf of its most vulnerable citizens. We are living in a province where our social legislation is designed to keep those judged to be undeserving in poverty.”

When the Straight sought an interview with Taylor, her office passed on the request to the office of Housing Minister Rich Coleman. A media officer at Coleman's office said the minister would call, but he did not.

Instead, Paul Woolley, the ministry's communications director, called the Straight and said that all that needs to be known is in the three-year fiscal plan outlined by the government. That plan indicates that 250 new social-housing units will be put up between 2007 and 2008, but not with money from the provincial government. These units will be constructed through surplus funds provided by the federal government.

Seth Klein, B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, described the budget as a “lost opportunity”.

“With $400 million a year, you can build 2,000 units [of social housing] if that's what they had chosen to do,” Klein told the Straight. “They chose to put it into tax cuts.”

Klein also said that although 250 units of social housing will be built, the B.C. Liberal budget also provided for the conversion of 750 existing units into assisted living spaces. “It's actually a net reduction in the stock of basic social housing,” he said.

Woolley said that it's up to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance to answer questions about whether or not people on welfare should expect more increases in the near future on top of the $100 raise they got.

Riches noted that the government now relies on charity to meet the needs of the poor, and that “such an approach is supported by the media, including the CBC, which annually supports food-bank drives”.

“This constructs the issue of hunger and poverty in our province as a matter of charity and not of politics or human rights,” Riches said. “Such actions enable governments to look the other way and neglect their domestic compliance with their obligations under international law.”