As one of its first acts since taking power, the Green-backed NDP minority government raised the amount people on disability and welfare can collect each month by $100.
With the higher monthly payments, income assistance is capped at $710 per month and disability payments at $1,133. The premier says this will take B.C. from the province with the lowest payments in Canada to the third highest.
Predictably, anti-poverty advocates are pleased with the news but were quick to add that it’s not enough.
And they’re right. The previous government took a laissez-faire approach to support for our most vulnerable while the cost of living in this province ballooned.
When it came to welfare rates, they proudly left them frozen for 10 years in the name of saving our pennies for a rainy day. Well, it’s raining now.
As changes in government policy go, an increase in social assistance rates is a relatively easy thing to do. It doesn’t require any major legislative changes. But this may be a signal of what’s to come from this GreeNDP government.
We won’t know for sure until they’ve had a good long look at the books to see whether B.C.’s finances are in as good a shape as the B.C. Liberals had claimed.
But if the unaudited financial statements trotted out by former finance minister Mike De Jong as his government flailed to stay in power have any truth to them, the NDP will have plenty of money in the bank to start making good on their very expensive promises.
They will be making it rain in areas like social assistance and education where the Liberals had enforced a drought for much of a long, dry decade or more before.
– guest editorial courtesy of the North Shore News
