New voices in support of a BC poverty reduction plan
Two important new voices joined the call for a BC poverty reduction plan in the last couple days.
First, on Tuesday, BC Provincial Health Officer Perry Kendall released a special report entitled Investing in Prevention. The report received quite a lot of media attention. However, most of the coverage dealt with the common-space issues of healthy eating, exercise and smoking. Almost no attention was paid to two of Dr Kendall’s five key recommendations. Specifically, Recommendation 2 calls on the government to:
Recommit to early childhood development. The report 15 by 15: A Comprehensive Policy Framework for Early Human Capital Investment in BC, produced by the Human Early Learning Partnership, provides a blueprint for government to follow.
And Recommendation 3 says:
Look at those provinces and territories that have committed to poverty reduction (e.g., Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Yukon) and create a “Made in BC” program.
And more good news: this morning at the annual Union of BC Municipalities convention, the UBCM delegates passed a resolution calling on the province to adopt a comprehensive poverty reduction plan.