NDP won't take a left turn with Moe Sihota as president

Moe Sihota was a major supporter of Glen Clark during that 1996 leadership race. And Glen Clark relied upon a "Populist Left" campaign. Birds of a feather......

Oh yeah, Sihota was recruited by Carole James herself... whose popularity is only exceeded by her negativity in opinion polls. Sounds like the NDP better go back to the drawing board.

The main problem as usual is people who abuse the system.
As a working class hero I have no problem with a social system which helps those who need it. All too often I have seen employable men and women living off welfare when they could have been working. And this was during a period when store where looking for workers.
They have to come up with some type of system where the person goes out to work even if it doing communite work.
This will improve the persons mental state as well as showing the individual that if you work you can acquire some of life luxuries. Like a car or an LCD.
I think a better use of MY tax payer dollars would be an increase for the people who deserve it most.
Our retiree's. Why should they have to live below the poverty level? They are the ones who built this country

I don't buy the fact that government, of any stripe, is "directly responsible for B.C. registering the worst child-poverty record in Canada for six straight years." It's the deluded mindset of some of the mothers I have met here.

I'm a single mother, two kids, and I work my a$$ off everyday to look after them while sticking to a very tight budget. It's difficult but we're getting by and slowly gaining some ground. By comparison, I have a neighbour that is also a single mother of two who doesn't work as hard or budget as stringently. This woman will complain until the cows come home about how the world owes her something and her personal woes while coming over to me asking if she can borrow $20 to buy her kids milk while wearing a new Lululemon outfit. A few doors down the other side of me is another single mother who buys her son an X-box for his birthday and then complains about how they have no money for his soccer shoes. What is up with some of these people's priorities?

I moved here from Ontario a few years ago and I cannot get over the sense of entitlement that runs rampant in this city. My neighbours epitomize this deluded and self defeating mindset and when it's combined with their irresponsible spending habits it becomes very clear, at least to me, what is directly responsible for the child poverty problems in this province, and it sure isn't the government.

Helen
Surrey, BC

My recollection of the residency requirement introduced by the NDP was that it came in shortly before the abolition of the Canada Assistance Plan, a federal transfer programme that proscribed residence requirements for provincial welfare plans. The Feds found BC to be in violation of CAP and withheld federal transfer payments amounting to a total of $46 million. Meanwhile political pressure was mounting on the Gov't from within its own ranks. In fact a motion of censure was submitted by anti-poverty activists to the 1996 BC NDP Convention. To avert political embarrassment, and to avoid forfeiting the Federal dollars being withheld, the Gov’t announced the lifting of the residency rule during the Convention, whereupon the censure motion was withdrawn.

I don’t recall the residency rule having been struck down by the courts, although a Charter challenge may well have been launched. If so, I doubt it would have succeeded under the mobility rights section, which says that the right to move to and take up residence in any province and the right to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province is "subject to any laws providing for reasonable residency requirements as a qualification for the receipt of publicly provided social services.”

In any case, the BC rule was lifted for other reasons.

follow the aging baby boomers, and you see why the two parties act as they do...if your poor, single mother, working poor, disabled...your in for a rough ride for a long time, democracy...is not about punishing people who are in the disadvantaged minority status in this country...it is what it is...I think the grey power is selfess in their priorities and need to realize somebody has to be educated in this country to pay their pensions and health care bills, of course these political parties would not go near these issues in the fear that would alienate these votes...same thing at federal level...in most liberal democracies...no?

Wow, just wow. The NDP makes changes to welfare that are later deemed unconstitutional and you call it a 'tough-love' approach? Really? The mind boggles.

Every province in Canada, save for Quebec, deducts child support from income assistance payments. Draconian indeed.

Clearly you can see where my bias lies. I could only hope that you'll be more forthright with yours in the future.

Stephen,
Thanks for your comment. I adjusted the story to reflect what happened. I recalled the measure being struck down by the courts. It was struck down, but not on constitutional grounds. You can check out Mr. Justice Spencer's ruling on October 3, 1996:
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/sc/96/13/s96-1365.txt

Here's what the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre stated in its newsletter (it got the date wrong on Spencer's ruling, but you'll see BCPIAC's position):
http://bcpiac.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/newsletter1997jan.pdf

The NDP government then reintroduced the three-month residency requirement. The federal government eliminated national welfare standards, but retained the ban on residency requirements for collecting welfare for provinces that wanted funding under the Canada Health and Social Transfer.

The federal government withheld a $47-million payment to B.C. for 1995, which was well in excess of the $25 million in provincial savings from the residency requirement, according to a 1997 report by Jack Stilborn on the Parliament of Canada site.
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/bp379-e.htm

He went on to write:
"The federal government obtained British Columbia’s agreement to withdraw residency requirements by undertaking to bring the original penalty into line with the dollar-for-dollar penalties applied to other provinces; this meant reducing the penalty to just over $20 million (reflecting actual savings to the province achieved by the residency requirements). As well, it was agreed that a national multilateral process for considering issues of internal mobility would be established, with a two-year timeframe. It may also be noteworthy that the agreement about residency requirements coincided with a second agreement beneficial to the province, whereby federal funding for the settlement of immigrants would be increased by $67.2 million over three years.(68)

The fact that the residency requirement persisted for well over a year after the application of federal penalties may have reflected the political appeal of the requirement within British Columbia (the government portrayed its stance as a valiant attempt to maintain assistance levels, despite inflows of recipients from provinces that had recently lowered benefits, and despite the federal 5% cap on CAP transfer growth applying to B.C.). Also reflected may have been other circumstances, such as the apparent absence of a clear federal intention to continue penalization. In any event, it is significant that the requirement was not cancelled as a result of heightened federal penalties, but rather by more positive inducements."

If a political party is looking to destroy itself from within, go find an old experienced staff that started the destruction in order to complete it.
sihota came once, came twice and the NDP will be thrown in the bin of discarded political party just like the socreds. Thanks Moe. You are a hero.

When Sihota was Environment Minister, it was a free for all with the Protected Areas Strategy. New parks were being created and wildlands protected so fast the bureaucrats had trouble keeping up with the paperwork. Moe Sihota knows how to get things done.

The problem is there are some, more altruistic types, who don't approve of Sihota's style. Probably due to Sihota's tough stances and take no prisoners approach, he has made enemies outside of the NDP in the established right of centre crowd. The Sihota witch hunt of the 90's was unfounded and amounted to the law society of bc taking issue with a couple of "undotted i's" in a case where Sihota's client was not interested in pursuing any charges against the man, because Sihota had done nothing wrong and the woman was content with the work done by Sihota's firm.

If Sihota passed Carol James litmus test, she passes mine too.

Helen, S. Are you saying you support your family on, $8.00 an hour. You should put up a web site, and share your methods, with others. I, myself a senior on pension, below the poverty line, need that advise. As I sit now, with the HST coming in, I will lose my home. I had sold my car last year. to catch up on utility bills. I live up north, so my heat bill is sometimes $275 a month. I now set the furnace at 12 to economize. Next, my phone and Shaw TV, will have to go, as, they aren't necessary for life. So, if you have some tips I have missed to economize, please let me know.