BRITISH COLUMBIA

By DAN KEETON

The scene on the television footage
shown shortly before last Christmas was
Shocking, violent and poignant. And it
raises anger.

The video cameras had been trained on
the seemingly endless line of people filing in
the back door of Christ Church Cathedral,
home of the main depot of the Vancouver
Food Bank. Each prospective recipient of
the weekly bag of groceries held in his or her
hand a small white stub.

Then the inevitable happened. Volun-
teers at the makeshift counter had to inform
the hundreds still in line that the week’s
groceries had run out.

For one young man, it was too much. In
a rage directed at noone in particular, he
tore up the ticket, hurled the shreds to the
floor, turned on his heel and departed.

It’s scenes like that that have the food-
banks, the epitome of relief organizations,
raising their own voices in protest. Spurred
by a United Way report that last fall
revealed Lower Mainland welfare recipients
are living anywhere between 33 and 52 per
cent below the Statistics Canada poverty
line, they’re joining with churches, com-
munity groups and organized labor to
demand the rates be hiked.

“The tragic reality for large numbers of
British Columbia residents is that they do not
have adequate income for a life of dignity.”

So wrote Rev. Dirk Rinehart of Christ
Church Cathedral to Jean Swanson, staff
worker for the provincial Solidarity Coali-
tion in late November last year.

“The roots of many social problems are
poverty,” Rinehart went on, “I believe it isa
disgrace that our present government main-
tains a social welfare program which falls
Significantly below established poverty
guidelines.”

Rinehart’s missive was not simply an
exercise in griping. His organization is one
of several in the province organized into
coalitions to demand the provincial govern-
ment do at least one positive thing for the
province’s poor and long-term unem-
ployed: raise welfare rates to the statistically
established poverty level.

There are currently three coalitions of
trade unions, churches, food banks, unem-
ployed action centres, poverty rights organ-
izations and community groups organized

around this demand. While some members

argue that much more needs to be done, all
agree that hiking welfare rates is a priority.

As the number of jobless in B.C. has risen
to passed the 15 per cent mark — with
216,370 British Columbians dependent on

- welfare as of September, 1984. — the Social

Credit government has shown its complete
indifference.

An example was provided by Vancouver
Food Bank director Sylvia Russell who

_ complained that the Ministry of Human

Resources was sending applicants to the

already overtaxed depot after refusing
financial aid.

It was the realization that the MHR was
using the charities as a dumping ground
that impelled several organizations in two
coalitions to hold press conferences just
before the Christmas season to make the
call for raising the welfare rates.

Couched in the language of charity dur-
ing the season of giving, the testimony of
doctors, welfare recipients and community
activists was revealing about the daily lives
of Vancouver’s poor.

Speaking to reporters at the Little Moun-
tain Neighborhood House Dec. 5, Dr.
Adrienne Ross of the east end REACH
health clinic noted that “it is not uncommon
for me to see people who haven’t eaten fora
couple of days.”

Ross reported increases in cases of stress,
depression, violence child abuse and drug
abuse among her y
mainly underprivi- f
leged patients.

Welfare recipient
Ted Williams told
the press conference,
organized by the
Solidarity Coalition
and several partici-
pating groups, exact-
ly what his meagre
monthly — welfare ,
cheque bought in MIKE PRONIUK
terms of groceries, rent and clothing.

Observing that no employer “will hire
someone in Salvation Army clothes,” Wil-
liam said MHR told him to “sell his 10-
speed” if he found himself short of funds.

“You get to feel that you’re institutional-
ized into the trade of collecting welfare, said
Williams, a volunteer at the Vancouver
Unemployed Action Centre.

One week later the staff and volunteers of
the Food Bank, a teacher and child care
worker and a member of the United
church’s B.C. conference were repeating the
demand for hiked welfare rates.

Teacher Ken Piercey, one of the members
of the Coalition for Survival, was telling
reporters that when visiting the homes of
some of his students “I observe that the
fridges and cupboards are bare indeed.

“We may have a subculture of young
adults in the very near future who have a
very different set of attitudes than those of
our generation have,” he warned.

Chairman Leslie Black, a community
worker with the United Church, said the
coalition aims to eduate the public and
build “ta wide network of people to see what
solidarity there might be.

“‘We want to see a community where
everyone is able to work,” she said.

All three groups — the Solidarity Coali-

tion, which sends out letters under the name

“End Legislated Poverty,” the Coalition for
Survival and the labor-led Lower Mainland

Regional Unemployment Coalition
(LMRUC) — did come together in a dem-
onstration against unemployment Dec. 13.

Called “End the Hunger,” the demon-
stration which was organized by LMRUC
heard speakers demand job creation or rais-
ing the welfare rates to poverty levels.

Carpenters business agent Marty Smith
acts as a spokesman for the regional unem-
ployed coalition. Formed on the initiative
of Vancouver’s action centre, the group has
little formal structure as yet but has already
sponsored the demonstration and has been
lobbying Lower Mainland MLAs.

Whether Socred or New Democrat, all
MLAs “acknowledged there is a growing
problem,” said Smith. But there the similar-
ity ended, he related.

“When we asked the Socred MLAs if
they would do anything to raise the welfare
rates, their standard response was, ‘Well,

=} we'd like to, but we
{couldn’t find the
money.”
| LMRUC is com-
» | posed of the unem-
| ployed action centres
of Vancouver, New
Westminster, Maple
| Ridge and Gibsons,
the unemployed
committees of the
: B.C. Teachers Fed-
JOHN CASHORE ration and several
unions, and members of the First United
Church. It also includes the centres’ Jobs Or
Income Now campaign, endorsing JOIN’s
far-reaching program of job-creation and
tax changes to benefit low-income people.

The JOIN campaign was launched
almost one year ago by the VDLC’s unem-
ployment action committee, following then

‘ recent cuts to welfare rates. But the cam-

paign aims at far more than increasing
social assistance, according to JOIN spo-
kesman Mike Proniuk.

“We think better welfare rates are impor-
tant, of course. But our campaign also takes
a trade union position in seeking long-term
solution to end unemployment.”

“These are groups that deal with unem-
ployment daily. They decided to strengthen
the voice of the individual organizations
and make that voice more effective, in an
organized, political way,” said Smith.

On another front, the coalition formed
under the auspices of the Solidarity Coali-
tion has been actively soliciting the support
of municipalities for the demand to raise
MHR’s monthly cheques.

Under the letterhead of End Legislated
Poverty, the group has been sending letters
and making petitions to city councils asking
them to write Human Resources Minister
Grace McCarthy to raise the rates.

Solidarity’s Jean Swanson reports the
group has received “supporting letters”
from the councils of Burnaby, Cumberland,

Courtenay, New Westminster, Port Alberni,
North Vancouver district, North Cowichan
and Duncan.

Even councils somewhat shy of associa-
tion with the Solidarity Coalition have
responded, Swanson noted. Cumberland,
for example, wrote McCarthy to suggest
that while aldermen “do not wish to appear
aligned with these groups, we do think wel-
fare rates should be raised.”

Both member and non-member organi-
zations participate in the coalition, which
includes the United Church, the B.C. Asso-
ciation of Social Workers, the Downtown
Eastside Residents Association, the B.C.
Tenants Rights Coalition, unemployment
action centres and several other groups.

Eighteen of those groups scored the most
telling victory Feb. 5 when they addressed
and won the unanimous support of Van-
couver city council, which agreed to write
McCarthy urging a “substantial” increase
in the GAIN rate.

While the welfare campaign may not yet
have the intensity and broad support
enjoyed by the schools cutback fight, Rev.
John Cashore of Vancouver’s First United
Church thinks there will be bigger things to
come in the near future.

Cashore, who is involved with the
church’s Outreach program, said a recent
weekend session on poverty held with the
Federated Anti-Poverty Groups had to
turn away people at the door.

Among the seminar’s offerings was a par-
ticipatory exercise called “The Poverty
Game.” Invented by a group of single par-
ents from Dawson Creek, the game invites
participants to assume the role of a welfare
recipient. The roles are based on actual
experiences.

“Tt isn’t too long before you start think-
ing about fraud to make ends meet. I saw
participants from what I’d call fairly strong
moral backgrounds actually considering
fraud.” While poverty “is no game, through
simulations people can learn what it’s really
like to be poor.”

In Cashore’s opinion there’s nothing
intrinsically wrong with food banks, which
appeal to an individual’s sense of charity.
“But if someones sees that as a return to the
good old days, I think it’s a cop-out.

“We can develop a comprehensive social
assistance system only if it delivers services
for all.”

The minister says he sees the provincial
government’s restraint program as losing
favor among the public — “I don’t see
many people saying we’ve got to ‘hold the
line’ these days” — and thinks more public
energy should be put into writing the
government demanding changes.

“Tm for restraint if it’s applied approp-
riately,” he said, naming the Socreds’ costly
megaprojects — Expo 86 and the hugesum
spent last year to.retire the B.C. Railway
debt — as suitable targets.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 13, 1985 e 3