VICTORIA, B.C. - Today, the BC NDP announced amendments to income and disability assistance legislation, and poverty reduction legislation. The B.C. Green Caucus has issued the following statement:
“Simply put, poverty reduction is not good enough. We need a poverty elimination strategy, otherwise, we can’t take this government seriously,” said Sonia Furstenau, Leader of the B.C. Greens and MLA for Cowichan Valley. “At a time when people on disability and income assistance are falling far below the poverty line, this bill adds even greater bureaucratic demand with no recognition of the way in which these assistance programs are trapping people in poverty. We need entirely new thinking around how people with disabilities and on income assistance are served so programs are a path out of poverty and not a prison.”
“The cost of living, just the cost to be alive, is really having dramatic impacts on people, particularly on Indigenous people,” said Adam Olsen, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands. “We're not talking nearly enough about quality of life. The provincial government is not setting targets to create a greater quality of life for people, they're simply setting these targets to manage the truly unaffordable cost of living. This government should be setting a goal in order to create an equitable society, that includes poverty elimination.”
“We will thoroughly examine this bill and continue to push for an immediate raise in disability and income assistance rates,” continued Furstenau.
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Media contact
JoJo Beattie
Press Secretary
B.C. Green Caucus
+1 250-882-6187 | [email protected]