Slashing poverty is the aspiration of any functioning society
We must be vigilant of what the means are and which goals are set
Art by Rachel De Freitas
Poverty is an unignorable issue in British Columbia no matter what one does.
Whether it be visible — the approximate 3,150 unhoused people living in Vancouver out of the province’s estimated 26,240 unhoused population — or the not immediately apparent fact that in 2021, 126,000 B.C. children were impoverished or 12.5 per cent of households are food insecure.
It should not be a surprise then that Food Banks Canada failed B.C. in its annual national poverty report card. Nationally, the poverty rate is roughly 9.8 per cent which is up from the 7.4 per cent in 2021. Even if you don’t know it, poverty surrounds you on a daily basis. Most are aware of this harsh truth with the few who do not either being woefully ignorant or living in an extreme state of denial.
Last month the B.C. government introduced a legislation that will change three existing laws and set a series of goals for the next 10 years that will slash child poverty by 75 per cent, elderly poverty in half, and overall poverty by 60 per cent by 2034. The former two demographics will be prioritized first due to the increased vulnerability associated with children and older people.
Long-term plans such as this anti-poverty legislation is exactly what our province, other provinces, and countries in the world need to combat the detrimental effects poverty has on society. Politics is chock-full of short-term and ill-conceived band-aid policies that do little or actively worsen the situation. This could be what sets apart the poverty reduction legislation from other governmental programs, policies, and legislations. Heavy emphasis on “could” however.
BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau has expressed criticism over the plan’s lack of assistance rates for disabled and low-income earners.
“[The] bill adds even greater bureaucratic demand with no recognition of the way in which these assistance programs are trapping people in poverty,” Furstenau said in a statement published by the CBC.
Indeed, poverty cannot be truly solved or effectively mitigated when wages remain inadequate in meeting people’s basic needs. While minimum wage is set to increase again on June 1 from $16.75 to $17.40, the number still falls short of the estimated $25.68 needed to afford living in Metro Vancouver.
The strategy itself lists six priority targets with numerous sub-targets under each which include housing and rent reforms, daycare, pharmacare, education investments, income assistance, and tax benefits among others.
All are undoubtedly good things that B.C. will very well benefit from but exact details are sparse at the moment aside from these listed goals. The devil is always in the details, so the true effectiveness of the introduced legislation has yet to be determined until the specifics are made public. It can be assumed for the time being that most, if not all, of the listed targets will be reflected in the legislation.
This, along with other steps B.C. has taken including public housing initiatives and the aforementioned minimum wage hike, is yet another step in the right direction for the provincial government. The Eby government and ruling BC NDP have been generally good at stepping in the right direction for some time now. Yet it is tiring and somewhat frustrating that it seems taking small steps is all it has been doing.
Perhaps the outcomes have yet to fully develop and it may take another number of years before anything tangible becomes visible. But there are problems and crises happening now and stepping in the right direction can only solve so much at a time.
