Thoughts on BC Politics and More

If a society hopes to manage welfare safety nets and economic policy intelligently then it’ll need clarity on who’s poor. Governments will often define poverty using some kind of poverty threshold representing the minimum costs of providing the basic needs for a given household type in a given location. Families earning less than that amount are considered “poor” and, therefore, entitled to financial support. In fact, until just a few years ago, things had been steadily improving on the poverty front. This chart represents the percentage of persons in low income households using Statistics Canada’s Low Income Measure. If you ignore the COVID weirdness, you can see things are now heading in the wrong direction ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Conservative MLAs say the NDP government has lost control of the healthcare crisis in British Columbia, as local governments from Merritt to Nanaimo are now escalating mental health and addictions issues to Ottawa out of sheer desperation. IMAGE CREDIT : Neuroscience Institute “When mayors start writing to federal MPs instead of the Health Minister, it just proves the provincial government’s inability to deal with the crisis,” said  Claire Rattée , MLA for Skeena and Critic for Mental Health and Addictions. “Addictions, poverty, and mental illness are colliding across this province. The system is underfunded, unaffordable, and dangerously inaccessible,” Rattée continued.  “Experts say mental health should make up 12% of the health budget, BC isn’t even close. And now Merritt’s mayor is appealing to Ottawa because the province won’t act. This is all happening amidst a larger healthcare crisis in BC. We don’t just have gaps, we have total breakdowns.” In Merritt, ...

C anada’s national poverty rate climbed for the fourth year in a row to 10.2%, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. Blacklock's Reporter says new methods of calculating poverty expected this year would push the rate even higher, to 10.9%. In its Canadian Income Survey 2023 Final , the agency reported about four million Canadians lived below the poverty line last year. An additional 10 million — 25.5% of the population in the provinces— experienced some level of food insecurity, an increase of nearly 1.3 million people from the previous year and the third consecutive annual rise. The figures for 2023 reflect a continued reversal of progress made earlier in the decade >>> CLICK HERE for the full story  

  Nearly a decade after Vancouver city council approved the 2014 Downtown Eastside Plan, critics question whether the social and rental housing zone in a key area around Oppenheimer Park is working to improve the neighbourhood – or instead stalling growth.   When Bob Rennie was marketing the Woodward’s condos and social housing development in 2006, he had a bold prediction for the Downtown Eastside.   “This is the new downtown ’cause it’s got nowhere else to go,” Rennie told Global News in March 2006.   Seventeen years later, the Downtown Eastside is far from Vancouver’s new downtown ... CLICK HERE for the full story

On Monday (November 5 th ), the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, announced : Cities looking for more federal cash and a more regular flow of money to tackle poverty are being told that they will be able to tap into $1.25 billion over the next nine years through the Liberal government's cornerstone homelessness strategy. Elsewhere , they claimed that they would pull 2 million people out of poverty by 2030. Do the math … $1.25 billion over 9 years = $138.9 million annually, and that’s to help 2 million people.   It works out to $69.44 per person per year. That’s enough to buy 8 cans of cat food a month; not the kind of thing to get people dancing in the streets.   The non-government charities, struggling to help the homeless and poor, are tired of platitudes and promises. Put up the cash to allow them to build better facilities, and expand their services, or shut up and get out of the road. Political posturing won’t grow cattle, grai...

Liberals detail homelessness program, set to unveil anti-poverty law -- Plan will set an official poverty line for Canada for the first time The Canadian Press / CBC News   ~~   Nov 05, 2018 Cities looking for more federal cash and a more regular flow of money to tackle poverty are being told that they will be able to tap into $1.25 billion over the next nine years through the Liberal government's cornerstone homelessness strategy … revamped homelessness strategy, dubbed "Reaching Home," will come into force early next year, which is when cities will be able to apply for new funding. Municipal governments administer most of Canada's housing programs but construction and rent subsidies are expensive so the cities rely on provincial and federal governments to support them … CLICK HERE for the full story PLEASE STOP … … building more bureaucracies … subsidizing cities … pretending you can deal with poverty and ho...