B.C. MLA takes $19 a week welfare challenge, then expenses $61 a day

VICTORIA • B.C.’s parliamentary secretary for poverty reduction billed taxpayers $61 a day for meals during a welfare food challenge in which she had promised poverty groups she’d live on only $19 a week.

Mable Elmore, the NDP MLA for Vancouver-Kensington, announced Wednesday that she would repay $244 in meal allowances she claimed in November 2017 when she had voluntarily signed up to a welfare food challenge and agreed to try to live like others at the poverty line.

“I’m confident that I followed the rules and the expenses are claimed as a matter of course, submitted by the staff,” Elmore told reporters. “But in the spirit of the welfare challenge I’ve decided to pay back the per diems for that week.”

The repayment came just a few hours after Elmore was caught out by the Opposition Liberals during question period at the legislature. The Liberals had matched Elmore’s publicly available food-allowance report with tweets she’d made during the poverty challenge.

In one she shared a picture of two hard-boiled eggs as her breakfast on Day 2 of the challenge.

It was an embarrassing retreat for Elmore, who had spoken in the legislature at the time about the difficulty of living on so little.

“I advised my family of this on the weekend, and my mother asked if she could bake some cookies for me to help me through the week, but that’s not allowed,” she told the legislature on the first day of her challenge Nov. 1, 2017.

“You can’t accept any charity or any other provisions beyond your budget ... I think it’s going to be a challenge, but certainly, I’m committed to really having that insight into the experience and the hardship of people living in deep poverty and, really, the depths of poverty — to understand that.”

Elmore said Wednesday that her staff automatically claimed her meal per diem, which is allowed as part of a capital city living allowance available to cover rent, food and living costs for MLAs in Victoria. Elmore also signed off on the expenses personally.

The controversy highlights past criticism of the MLA meal allowances, which are tax-free, require no receipts and no proof that the money was actually used for food.

Elmore didn’t say whether she spent the money on food during the challenge or simply kept the per diem as cash.

The Canada Revenue Agency recently ruled that it will consider the $1,000 cash housing allowance paid to MLAs in Victoria as a taxable benefit on top of the base MLA salary of $108,105. As parliamentary secretary, Elmore makes an additional $15,216 a year.