BC Council for Families

by Tina Albrecht
Acting Communications Manager

The new year is traditionally a time for new beginnings, resolutions, setting goals and rethinking our values, but how many of us are really prepared to make a bold move? This January one BC man has chosen to undertake a challenge that will give him first-hand experience into what it is like to live in poverty. Currently half a million British Columbians are living in poverty.   

In early November the Raise the Rates Coalition issued a challenge to all BC MLAs, calling on them to see if they could live on $610 a month. The current welfare rate in BC for a single employable person is $610 a month. Surrey-Fleetwood MLA Jagrup Brar accepted the challenge and as of January 1st headed to a local homeless shelter to began his Poverty Journey.  He says:

As a father of two young children it's hard for me to imagine, that in a province as wealthy as ours, that we have 137, 000 children living in poverty.

It is hard for me to imagine that 70,000 British Columbians use a food bank every month. Almost one-third of those using food banks are children.

It is hard for me to believe that the gap between the rich and the rest of British Columbians has widened to the point that the top 10 per cent of BC families now earn considerably more than the entire bottom half of families. - Jagrup Brar MLA

W2TV: Jagrup Brar MLA Welfare Challenge (Day 3) from Sid Tan on Vimeo.