We applaud the provincial government’s commitment to BC’s first Poverty Reduction Strategy in 2018 and today's renewed 10-year plan with a goal to reduce child poverty by 75% by 2034. While the Centre for Family Equity (CFE) is pleased to see an emphasis on employment, a range of robust and immediate measures that meaningfully reduce family poverty are needed to ensure no family is left behind.

“BC’s Poverty Reduction Strategy is an invaluable initiative to ensuring the health and well-being of all British Columbians and we commend the provincial government for laying out a renewed 10-year strategy,” commented Viveca Ellis, CFE’s Executive Director. "While the focus on employment is consistent with what we hear from our members, we also know parents and caregivers face many challenges in accessing the job market." 

We would like to see:

An increased focus on child, youth, and family poverty with an anti-discrimination lens

• More targeted measures are needed for families experiencing significant marginalization and higher poverty rates such as kinship caregivers, lone parent-led families, Indigenous off-reserve families, and newcomer families.
• An increased focus is needed on families raising their children and youth on Persons with Disability Assistance (PWD) incomes. Due to parents’ and caregivers’ disability status and low government incomes, children and youth in these families are sentenced childhoods lived below the poverty line, yet their plight remains largely invisible.

A priority focus to shift BC’s income and disability assistance program from a ‘payor of last resort’ to a system that tackles poverty reduction

• Increase income and disability rates to the Market Basket Measure and remove all earnings exemptions for those accessing PWD.
• Significantly increase the earning exemption for those accessing income assistance to increase a Supported Pathways approach into the labour market.
• End all income claw backs to ensure families on IA and PWD can maximize their incomes to mitigate the impacts of poverty and support their transitions.
• Address the unique needs of parents and caregivers on income and disability assistance who are impacted by PTSD with histories of trauma, such as those impacted by GBV and IPV. The vast majority of these families are lone-mother led families, who need deeper trauma-informed services and increased access to mental health supports to support their transitions.
• Transition all interested child care programs to $10-a-day sites to create up to 50,000 fully publicly funded spaces immediately and create a cohesive child-care system in BC that prioritizes the establishment of new $10-a-day ChildCareBC centres in child care deserts to ensure all parents and caregivers can work.
• Prioritize access to $10-day-spaces for individuals aiming to transition off income assistance and those accessing disability assistance.
• Support the expansion of BC’s existing child care pilot projects and provide fully integrated before- and after-school care on school premises at all elementary schools in BC enabling parents and caregivers to work.

Address the needs of at-risk, low-income families to ensure they are not disproportionately impacted by any State of Emergency in BC whether climate change induced or a global pandemic

• Designate child care an essential service for families identified as at-risk for severe economic hardship in any State of Emergency.
• Ensure emergency income supports are equitable, inclusive, and accessible to those on income and disability assistance and those who work precariously.
• Create a permanent Provincial State of Emergency Vulnerable Populations Task Force with a mandate to address the needs of low-income and marginalized children, youth, and families.
• Designate all intimate-partner and gender-based violence services, including transition shelters and legal aid, as essential services with guaranteed uninterrupted service during any State of Emergency.
• Develop emergency services protocols to ensure special-needs children and their families receive a continuum of essential services.

More measures to address affordability for low-income families

• Expand the Get on Board program up to age 18 so that at-risk, low-income youth and all youth can get everywhere they need to go and thrive.
• Expand BC’s universal school food program.
• Increase the BC Family Benefit and provide a greater benefit for those in the greatest depths of poverty including a new enhanced Early Years Supplement.
• Continue to raise the minimum wage until it is aligned with a Living Wage for BC.

Read our recent research report Justice at Work on lone mother poverty.

For more information or media inquiries email [email protected]