CCPA Policy Note

Entries Tagged as 'welfare'

Congratulations to Jagrup Brar: Time to raise welfare rates

February 3rd, 2012 · · No Comments · Poverty, inequality & welfare

On Tuesday, BC MLA Jagrup Brar wrapped up his month living on a basic welfare income of $610.  He has returned to his family and a comfortable home. But we owe him great thanks. And kudos as well to the folks at Raise the Rates, who issued the challenge that MLAs try living on welfare [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··

Poverty reduction: What other provinces are doing

June 8th, 2010 · · Comments Off · Children & youth, Poverty, inequality & welfare

BC has much to learn from other provinces when it comes to poverty reduction. Six provinces now have poverty reduction plans, although most are still fairly new, and therefore we don’t yet have data to tell us what kind of success they are meeting with, the exceptions being Quebec and Newfoundland. What their plans and [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

Vancouver’s poverty rate leads country

April 5th, 2010 · · 2 Comments · Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Thanks to Jean Swanson for drawing to my attention a new report from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities called Mending Canada’s frayed social safety net: The role of municipal governments. The report looks at key social indicators in 24 Canadian municipalities, and contains some stark findings for Vancouver. Jean summarizes these in a blog post [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··

Healthy eating put out of reach for the poor

December 16th, 2009 · · 5 Comments · Children & youth, Health care, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Remember the Premier’s “Great Golden Goal” (G3?) about healthy eating? True, we don’t  hear so much about it these days. But it was a laudable goal. Eating a healthy diet is important if we are to improve the overall health of the population, and thereby help to slow rising health care costs. And it’s particularly [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

Food Bank use takes a distressing jump

November 19th, 2009 · · 3 Comments · Poverty, inequality & welfare

On Tuesday, Food Banks Canada (the national association of food banks) released its annual Hunger Count report. While the report received some good national coverage (particularly on CBC), I was surprised to see no mention of it in the Vancouver Sun. The report, which surveys food banks across the country every March, found that in [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

Yet another case of our government delaying the release of important data

May 12th, 2009 · · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Media, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Less than a week after BC’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA) report raised serious questions about secrecy in government (see Keith’s comments here), The Tyee reporter Andrew MacLeod has uncovered another case of important statistics not being released on time. The culprit this time is the Housing and Social Development Ministry, which typically [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

Government report on welfare leavers at odds with narrative

May 1st, 2009 · · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Kudos to the Tyee’s Andrew MacLeod for extracting a long delayed report on welfare leavers from the provincial government. The report can be downloaded here. Andrew’s Tyee article about the report can be found here. The report uses tax data of BC welfare leavers between 2000 and 2005 to see how people have done. Comparing [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ···

The Premier speaks out on labour issues

April 30th, 2009 · · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Employment & labour, Privatization, P3s & public services

On April 27th I posted about the BC Federation of Labour’s report on the impacts of changes to BC’s workers compensation system under the current government. Today Tom Sandborn writing for the Tyee posted a story quoting Premier Campbell’s response to health and safety issues. The story also dealt with the NDP and labour issues, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ·········

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words

March 27th, 2009 · · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Children & youth, Housing & homelessness, Poverty, inequality & welfare

Or twenty thousand as the case may be. The CCPA published a number of major studies in recent years about BC’s unacceptably high levels of poverty and homelessness, as well as provincial welfare policies that contribute to hardship and homelessness. These issues are brought to life in a series of narrated slideshows created for the [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··

BC leads country in rising EI claims

March 24th, 2009 · · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Economy, Employment & labour

According to today’s Statscan release, unemployment insurance (EI) claims were up 47% in January 2009 compared to January 2008. This makes BC the leader in Canada when it comes to rising EI claims. I don’t think that was one of the Great Golden Goals. There is a lag in the EI numbers, since the most [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··