“That’s what families do.”
That was the refrain heard over and over during the week from Finance Minister Mike de Jong after delivering the province’s new budget.
De Jong was defending the government’s action of creating a $100 million prosperity fund for the future. He compared it to “what families do” when putting away some cash in the savings account for a rainy day. We don’t know what families Mr. de Jong hangs out with, but the families we hear from most of the time are the ones that are having a hard enough time just managing to make ends meet – let alone put much in a savings account.
And if grandpa or grandma needed some money to pay their rent, we think most families in B.C. would rather help them out than stash money in a savings account.
But this new budget isn’t really built for the average family. It’s built to make the province look good on the books and boost business.
The measures intended to help make housing more affordable are, basically, a new condo developer’s dream. The changes that see buyers save up to $13,000 from B.C.’s property transfer tax if they buy a newly built home for $750,000, will encourage new townhouse and condo development but ignore the fact that a large percentage of homes on the market are not newly built.
The province could have helped create incentives for social housing projects, more rental units, even modern co-op housing plans. It could have looked at foreign ownership regulations. It could have done a lot of things that would have made a sincere difference. But once again it has defended a stale status quo that leaves most British Columbians out in the cold.
Now, on the positive side, the province did promise to add 100 social workers to help with a broken Ministry of Children and Families. And it did increase the disability income assistance rate for the first time in nine years, boosting the monthly rate by $77 to $983. But it was so cheap about it that those who have bus passes or transit assistance will get a lesser increase.
So, to Mr. de Jong’s statement that “that’s what families do.” We say the Liberals should just stop with all of the the family references. Whether it’s Christy Clark’s “families first” or now de Jong’s statements, the comparison actually mocks what families do.
Families care for their most vulnerable or elderly, they don’t stuff cash under the mattress when granny can’t find a decent place to live, and they sure don’t tell their kids to go to the food bank for lunch.
