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CRRNC RRR Sr

Welfare recipients in British Columbia
are being squeezed by the housing crunch
on one hand and the highly inadequate lev-
els of social assistance on the other, the
Social Planning and Research Council of
B.C. has reported.

The inadequacy of provincial GAIN
rates is revealed in the council’s annual
report on Welfare rates and living costs,
showing that incomes of recipients fall short
by as much as 75 per cent.

Both federal and provincial governments
are responsible, SPARC research director
Michael Goldberg has charged.

“Even with the (July, 1989) increase in
welfare rates, people are no better off,”
Goldberg said in an interview.

The 1990 report, entitled, Closing the
Gap, uses statistics from the provincial Min-
istry of Social Services and Housing, and
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corpora-
tion in demonstrating income shortfalls and
housing shortages, and it recommends the
government hike welfare rates substantially.

SPARC has recommended welfare rate
hikes in reports for the past five years. But
“despite the evidence provided, income
assistance rates have remained a legislated
form of deep poverty,” said SPARC’s
income security committee chairperson,
Sharon Manson Willms, in a release.

Hardest hit among the classes of recip-
ients are single parents with children, the
report notes in tabling figures comparing
shortfalls in the shelter portion of GAIN.

For example, of 15,510 single parents
with one child, 43.9 per cent found shelter
costs exceeded the ministry’s allowance last
January. For one parent with two children,
the figure was 43.8 per cent; three children,
41.8 per cent; four children, 42.5 per cent.

Of 27,223 single men, 37.4 per cent

‘reported excessive shelter costs, while 48.8
per cent of 14,840 single women faced short-
falls. The study found couples with children
ranging in number from one to more than
four coming up short by between 33.8 per
cent and 41.7 per cent.

A hike of roughly seven per cent in the
GAIN shelter allowance last July probably
helped marginally, but in the main that was
gobbled up by the astronomical increases in
housing costs due to the shortage, he noted.

How excessive where shelter costs over
allowances? The SPARC report, using the

social services ministry’s definition of affor- ’

dable housing, found a single parent in a
two-bedroom apartment (the suitable
accommodation) with one five-year-old son

see SPARC page 2

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Michael Goldberg, research director for the Social Planning and Research Coun-
cil, says this year’s SPARC report finds single mothers the hardest hit by the
housing crunch and caps on government spending. SPARC has called for a large
increase in GAIN rates and chides provinces for lacking the political will to
overhaul social assistance programs.

May 28, 1990
SO

Jobs in
doubt as
B.C. Ferries
sends work
offshore

The Social Credit government’s much-
publicized initiatives to re-vitalize the B.C.
shipbuilding with new ferry construction
are being thrown into doubt as B.C. yards
have been pre-empted in bidding and at
least one major engine contract has already
been given to a West German firm, ship-
yard unions charged last week.

The Socreds’ new ferry construction pro-
gram was announced last year following the
federal government’s cancellation of the
Polar 8 icebreaker program. It included the
construction of two new 85-car ferries and a
re-fit for the Queen of Burnaby.

The initiative also called for the estab-
lishment of an “action team” headed by
deputy economic development minister
Bob Plecas and including union and indus-
try representatives, to modernize the ship-
building industry based on the construction
of two new 470-car “superferries” for the
B.C. Ferry Corporation’ fleet.

So far, contracts for only one of the 85-
car ferries have been awarded, based on
Vancouver Shipyards’ low bid of $17.5
million. Versatile Pacific, the next highest
bidder, failed to get the second contract
because it did not meet bonding specifica-
tions, and because the gap between Van-
couver Shipyards and the third highest
bidder was so large, the corporation put the
second vessel out for re-tender. The Queen
of Burnaby re-fit has also yet the be
awarded.

But it is the government and ferry corpo-
ration manoeuvring on the super-ferries
that has most angered industry and union
representatives.

Marine Workers and Boilermakers
Union secretary-treasurer Bill Scott said
that the two ferries are “very sophisticated
vessels, unlike anything the ferry corpora-
tion has now.”

But despite those demanding specifica-
tions, the corporation only opened bids on
May 2 and announced a closing date for
bids of June 28 — a period of only eight
weeks. The specifications also call for the
vessels to be in service by the summer of
1992.

“It makes for an almost impossible dead-
line,” said former Marine Workers presi-
dent John Fitzpatrick, currently the
secretary of the Vancouver and District
Labour Council.

Industry and union representatives were
also told earlier this year by B.C. Ferry

see UNIONS page 8

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