Login / RegisterCarole James: B.C. needs poverty reduction plan
As the New Democrat critic for social development, I see and hear the challenges vulnerable people in our communities face each and every day. The stories I’ve heard while in this role are often heartbreaking, and they reinforce the need for a real strategy to address inequality in our province.
People who live in poverty come from many different backgrounds and experiences. A variety of circumstances, often beyond their control, have brought them to a difficult time in their lives. They work hard to survive with the resources they have. For those on income assistance that means finding a place to live, food to eat, and any other basic expenses on $610 a month. They also face the discrimination that comes from reaching out for government help.
For 10 years people on income assistance also faced an additional roadblock on the way to self-sufficiency in the form of a Liberal policy that clawed back any money they made by working from their next assistance cheque. This backwards policy, which was brought in by the Liberals in 2002 while Christy Clark was the deputy premier, actually punished people for trying to get back into the workforce.
Premier Clark finally reinstated earnings exemptions for people receiving income assistance. While this change is welcome, given the fact that B.C. was only one of two provinces in the country without these exemptions, the Liberals are only playing catch-up.
But the government also made another change—extending the waiting period for applicants needing income assistance from three weeks to five weeks. People go to income assistance as a last resort. This change will hurt people when they’re at their most vulnerable and put further strain on community organizations like shelters and food banks that will have to fill in the gaps.
New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix has been calling for the Liberal government to follow the lead of governments across the country and bring in a poverty reduction plan that examines issues like housing, childcare and education and how they contribute to reducing poverty in British Columbia. Regardless of whether the plans were brought in by Conservative, Liberal or New Democrat governments, they have been successful in tackling poverty and providing opportunities to those in need.
As part of our plan to reduce inequality, New Democrats are committing to bringing in non-repayable, needs-based student grants so that everyone has an opportunity to get the training they need to be successful in our twenty-first century economy. Right now we have people without jobs, and jobs without people—which is why we need to make investing in higher education and trades training one of our top priorities. Giving people the opportunity to improve their lives through education is good for both the individual and for society.
Addressing inequality is good for families, good for communities and good for our economy. Everyone deserves the opportunity to succeed and New Democrats are committed to improving opportunities for every British Columbian.
Carole James is the B.C. NDP critic for social development and the MLA for Victoria-Beacon Hill.
Poverty there is embedded in a ghetto of drug addicts, prostitutes, and the mentally ill. Poverty is reinforced by drug dealers and pimps who need a churning cycle of despair to stay in business. The DTES has a higher rate of HIV/AIDS than Botswana. We all know why.
Poverty is enabled by those who rationalize the drug dealers and the pimps as part of the status quo they defend. These enablers defend the status quo by opposing outsiders, donut shops, mixed housing, and economic opportunity. For them, the only answer to all these problems is state housing, and more state housing. That's a dead end. It has failed.
That view is, literally, hopeless. We need to de-institutionalize poverty in the DTES. We need to break the ghetto mentality, and replace it with hope and a chance to get out of the craziness.
It's important for the NDP to tell us how they will end the status quo in the DTES. Until they do so, nothing important will change, and the drug dealers will remain in control.
I am looking to each party to spell out in detail and with proposed timelines, key parts of their provincial policies and funding commitments e.g., for workers to earn a living wage, for families to access a universal and affordable child care system, for those in need to access welfare and disability programs at rates that actually allow people in need to afford to eat nutritious food and access decent housing, grants etc for those wishing to further education and training to be able to afford educational opportunities and more......
We are falling farther and farther behind and we need to support our provincial government to take some giant steps that will truly make BC a better place to live and a more caring society. And of course we need to pressure the municipal/regional and federal governments to do their share too with our tax dollars.
The government ...and society...has to stop leeching every penny from the lower income sectors of society. Every cost of living increase is immediately followed by everyone single person on the food chain of those people raising their product/service by an even higher amount. None of the increase results in an absolute betterment for the indigent. We see this every single time.
The Liberals can't and won't change this sad situation re: poverty; it is up to the NDP (or the Conservatives) to start contributing to possible solutions. You don't have to be elected before you can effect change change in some way. If you start now, you'll have a much better chance of getting elected later.
Nor does it account for the fact the LIBs removed rental controls, allowed developers to capitalize on speculation, and helped drive the cost of living in this province through the roof while ignoring the province's poor!
At least the NDP kept the cost of living down, instead of heightening it by adding service fees to govt services.
Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. But teach a man about welfare and he'll eat your fish for a lifetime.
What is needed is a Revolution and then things will be all right because when it comes to First Nations things are a disgrace on a National scale.
Nobody wants welfare unless they have no where else to go, another criteria for collecting welfare. That is what is needed is a Revolution then things will be all right because the poverty affects all on the system and not those just on the DTES, everyone forced to live on welfare, because that's right it is a last resort but the only resource for many as the disabled health is in serious jeopardy while others take their lives forced to live in misery and without dignity in their final years of illness.
Fishing classes now give me a break because when it comes to education and training the low income are pushed to the side while immigrants picking up a condo or two is more what the province is fishing for than British Columbians in need of jobs and training and a living wage.
and just watch productivity rise and poverty fall
Lets teach the people to fish? But the sockeye are dying and are waters are in jeopordy and your right something is fishy around here as the rich keep getting richer and poor are dying off with all that free health scare?
Some years back, the head of the Royal Canadian Mint, David Dingwall, was accused of padding his expense accounts. His reply? "I'm entitled to my entitlements'. It was arrogance beyond belief.
Today, we have drug addicts in the DTES defending their addictions as a "lifestyle choice" and insisting that they are entitled to free heroin, for life. They don't want to get clean. They want a state-subsidized 'lifestyle'.
The real 99% see no difference between these entitlement mentalities. They are equally obnoxious.
Real revolution begins by accepting responsibility. Those who are truly disabled (physically, emotionally) deserve dignified lives far from the ghetto of the DTES.
Those who want us to pay for their 'lifestyle choices'? Forget it.
In BC the Ministry uses any underhanded accounting methods and treatment to get its hands on what little money is allotted to its receipients. Its because the province gets to put any excess into a slush fund.
All this rain and it makes you wonder is this the future in BC, rain 9 months of the year. I sure hope not. It is time to build a boat and property prices will surely decline as rain puts a damper on real estate buys because people are feeling the rainy day blues.
student loan debt sentences are hurting everyone. my 3 year BA has left me with a 20 year debt. i'm happy to have a great job, but my new income is all paid back instead of forward. add me to the list of those who will never have a home, car, pension. not much of an economic stimulus program, is it?
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