Send a Valentine’s Day card to your MLA
Last Fall, MLA Shane Simpson introduced a private member’s Bill proposing a BC Poverty Reduction Act. If adopted, it would see the government develop a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy within one year, including legislated targets and timelines to reduce the breadth and depth of poverty in our province. Today, MLAs are returning to the Legislature [...]
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Community Event: End Child Poverty Now!
British Columbia has had the worst child poverty rate in Canada for eight consecutive years and yet does not have a poverty reduction plan. To learn more about this issue, please attend this upcoming forum on January 25 at Langara College featuring speakers from two of our very own member organizations, Seth Klein of the [...]
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Surrey MLA starts month on welfare
When Raise the Rates challenged any BC MLA to live on welfare for one month, only one MLA took up the call. Surrey NDP MLA Jagrup Brar started his one month on welfare on January 1st with a backpack and two quarters. He has to find a place to live and survive on $610 a [...]
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If the BC government were a basketball player…
Check out this excellent one-minute video and please and pass it on via email, Facebook, Twitter or your favourite sharing tool. It’ll make you laugh, but there’s a serious message here for anyone who cares about poverty in BC. Video by Sean Devlin. Feb. 2011.
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Aboriginal leaders call for legislated plan
B.C.’s top aboriginal leaders are backing calls for a legislated plan to end child poverty in an open letter to Premier Gordon Campbell. The plan should include legislation aimed at ending child poverty and set measurable targets, leaders of the First Nations Summit, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the B.C. Assembly of First Nations [...]
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20th Annual Women’s Memorial March for Missing & Murdered Women
Vancouver, February 14th, 1pm The march will begin at the Carnegie Community Centre Theatre, 401 Main Street (corner Hastings, Vancouver) where family members will speak in remembrance. At 1 pm, the march takes to the streets and proceeds through the Downtown Eastside, with stops to commemorate where women were last seen or found; speeches by [...]
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Income Inequity and the Community Response:
A Video Conference Forum with Dr. Richard Wilkinson December 14, 2010, 9am – 12 noon Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George, Surrey, Abbotsford, Nelson, Duncan, Smithers, Terrace, Fort St. John, Prince Rupert This 3 hour forum will explore the question of why more equal societies do better on a variety of measures: health, wellness and productivity. It [...]
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Dignity for All Campaign Applauds Report Calling for Federal Poverty Reduction Plan
Dignity for All: the Campaign for a Poverty-Free Canada – a coalition of over 430 organizations from across the country – applauds the report from the Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities Committee which calls for the federal government to immediately commit to a federal action plan to [...]
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Your Chance to Make Poverty Reduction a BC Budget Priority
The BC Legislature’s Standing Committee on Finance is currently touring the province and collecting submissions (verbal and written) on what people think the province’s priorities should be for the 2011 BC Budget. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives economist Iglika Ivanova recently appeared before the committee last week. In “Our Priorities for BC Budget 2011? she [...]
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Municipal leaders want a provincial plan: UBCM resolution passes!
After recieving resolutions submitted by White Rock, Nelson, Grand Forks, Parksville, Vancouver, and Victoria this year at the annual Union of BC Municipalities Convention, the UBCM delegates passed a resolution calling on the province to adopt a comprehensive poverty reduction plan. Resolution B51 highlights “the need to provide adequate and accessible income support for the [...]