By Cheryl Jahn

Local Councillor on Anti-Poverty Group

Aug 1, 2023 | 2:55 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – BC was the last province in the country to create poverty reduction plan. The Together BC plan aimed to reduce overall poverty by a quarter and cut childhood poverty by half by 2024. But its tough these days.

“We exceeded our targets,” explains Sheila Malcomson, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. “But right now with global inflation, the cost of food, you know, people are struggling and there’s more for us to do. And so right now we’re in the process of updating that strategy and will bring the new poverty reduction strategy into the legislature next spring.”

And a familiar face will be at the table when the new poverty reduction strategy is inked. City Councillor Cori Ramsay has been appointed to the cross-ministry Poverty Reduction Advisory Committee.

“The Poverty Reduction Advisory Committee is a provincial committee that created the provinces together. BC Poverty Reduction Plan. B.C. was the last province to get a poverty reduction plan.”

To Your Health

Health Canada now requires warning labels on every cigarette

28m ago

Indigenous affairs

Search for unmarked graves at Lejac Indian Residential School site begins

1h ago

RCMP

National Police Week on until May 18

9h ago

The Union of BC Municipalities advocates for nearly 200 communities and Ramsay follows in the footsteps of former City Councillor Murry Krause with the original committee.

“So being, you know, a local government elected official. I have that under my hat. But I also spent my childhood living in poverty. It’s very common knowledge that I lost my mother to an overdose. And so, you know, being able to share my experiences living in childhood poverty and make recommendations to make sure other kids don’t have to experience that is something that’s really important to me,” says Ramsay.

The Province has set 2024 to achieve the original and this new committee will set out the new iteration of the committee and a new set of goals.

“You know, as a as a young female, as a person in northern B.C., a person who, you know, has living experience in poverty, there’s I think it bring a lot to the committee. “

The new committee has had its first meeting and Ramsay talks about how she would like to measure success.

“I’m really excited to see the outcome from this committee and the benchmarks that will be captured, the metrics that will be created so that we can measure how effective our poverty reduction plan is moving forward. We don’t want anyone to be experiencing poverty. And so I think this is really going to be important work, and I’m excited to dive in.”

And the Minister responsible for Mental Health and Addictions says, while there has been progress, more is needed.

“We continue to ask people across B.C for what they think the new targets should be and should we hone in on some of the groups that have had really more intractable poverty? Single men, for example? You know, for families and for children, we reduced childcare fees. We added the B.C. child benefit that really had an effect of lifting more, say, single parents or children out of poverty. But there are still, the evidence tells us, still some populations for which they haven’t had the lift that others have.”

Government will prepare annual progress reports by October 1 each year that describes the actions taken and progress made.