Minister has strategy to help the poor
The province’s first poverty-reduction minister aims to help the homeless and working poor. He spoke with Lori Culbert about his portfolio.
While toiling on the opposition benches for 12 years, Vancouver-Hastings NDP MLA Shane Simpson frequently criticized the former Liberal government over its treatment of society’s most vulnerable people.
Now, as the new NDP government’s minister for social development and poverty reduction, the longtime East Vancouver resident and community activist has the opportunity to help the very people he accused the Liberals of underserving.
A Vancouver Sun investigation earlier this year found B.C. has the highest rate of working poor in the country. And, for the 20th year in a row, one in five children here lives in poverty.
Despite those numbers, B.C. is the only province in Canada without a formal poverty-reduction plan. But Simpson is now tasked with changing that.
Q In opposition, you lobbied for such a plan. As minister, when will you make it a reality?
A The work has started already. I’ve been having conversations with a number of the organizations in the community — lots of them in Metro Vancouver, but organizations elsewhere in the province as well — that are advocating around poverty reduction ... I would hope to be able to bring legislation next spring, in the spring sitting.
Q How will the plan work when poverty is impacted by so many factors, such as jobs, wages, education, housing, health and child care?
A It is a complex issue. The latest numbers I’ve seen is we have about 678,000 people, the ministry tells me, who live in poverty today based on (Statistics Canada’s) market-basket (measure), and that is almost 15 per cent of the population of the province. About 120,000125,000 of those are kids. And kids don’t get poor by themselves. Poor kids means we are talking about poor families ... More than 40 per cent of those people have a full-time paycheque coming into the household, so they are the working poor … There are a whole variety of ministries that will play a role in this.
Q The premier has asked for specific timelines and targets for the plan?
A (The solutions) will be different in different places … Housing costs will be a much more compelling issue, probably, in Metro Vancouver and South Island, than it may be in some of the more outlying areas. In those areas, it may be access to employment or other things. So part of the trick is to figure out how to be a little bit nimble and a little bit innovative.
Q B.C.’s long struggle with housing affordability affects everyone from the working poor to those on the street. What is the solution?
A My short-term (priority) here is probably the most-vulnerable people, which is the homeless …. We’re looking at how to get at some of that in a much more quick way, and there are some strategies out there that we’re looking at and talking to people about. But on the bigger housing issue, I think that is going to be a bigger conversation. And it’s going to be about how do you get more rental built, how do you give people more options? There is no question for Metro Vancouver in particular, but I think much of the province as well, it is likely the single biggest challenge in the affordability scale.
Q One of the NDP’s first announcements was to raise welfare and disability rates by $100 a month, but when will you follow up on the rest of your campaign promise to index disability rates to inflation and increase earning exemptions by $200 a month?
A It’s still part of the agenda and it is moving forward. The earning-exemptions piece is in my mandate letter (from the premier). We are in the process now of dealing with that, and you should wait for the budget update on Sept. 11.
Q: Although the boost to B.C.’s low rates are welcome, advocates argue the $100 increases are still not sufficient to off-set Metro’s high cost of living.
A I understand that, and if I was sitting in their place I would be saying exactly the same thing. Our commitment with the $100 was to move very quickly to do two things. One was to put a little bit more money in the pockets of people who are the most-vulnerable and the poorest people in the province, to give them a little bit more money right away. And also to give the message that we are serious about this … We need to go further, but need to do it in a thoughtful way.
Q When will you start the promised pilot project for a guaranteed basic income, such as the one in Ontario that gives participants about $1,320 a month with the hope that it will improve their health, encourage work and reduce stigmatization?
A We are looking now at how to frame and structure this: What are we taking about in terms of communities, how do you do a random sample here, and people who are in the pilot and out of the pilot. We are being told it will probably take three years to collect enough data to determine whether it actually is affecting the kind of change you want to affect ... I’m hoping that we’ll be able to, by early new year, say: Here it is, here is what it is going to look like and here is what we hope to learn.
Q When will the B.C. Bus Pass program be fully restored?
A We are pretty close to this, and again I’m hoping that we will be able to announce that we have resolved this question of the bus pass, in a way that is equitable for everybody and fulfils our platform, over the next few weeks.
Q How will the first provincewide homeless count be conducted?
A I don’t think anybody is necessarily pulling this together and saying, ‘OK, who is doing (a count) in municipalities and jurisdictions across the province and who is doing it well, and where are the holes and the gaps, and what would it take to fill those?’ … My guess is (the provincial government is) way better off to work with local organizations or local governments to do it, because they understand their communities.
Q Your party has made many promises to change things. Where do the priorities in your ministry fit into the larger goals of the new NDP government?
A I’m feeling pretty good about it. The premier, he campaigned on affordability, services and a sustainable economy. We talked about inequity consistently … I think it is a big priority for people at the cabinet table.