MLA Jagrup Brar accepts MLA Welfare Challenge

MLA JAGRUP BRAR STATEMENT ON RAISE THE RATES WELFARE CHALLENGE

On May 25, 2011, I received a thought-provoking letter from Raise the Rates entitled ‘MLA Welfare Challenge’.  

Raise the Rates, a coalition concerned about poverty, inequality and homelessness in British Columbia, invited me to spend a month living on the welfare.

After much consideration and support from my family, stakeholders and colleagues, I decided to accept the Welfare Challenge to experience first hand what life is like for 180,000 B.C. families and individuals who live on welfare.

I will begin to live on provincial income assistance for a month beginning
January 1, 2012.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with social activists to discuss the issues tied to poverty and income assistance.

I’ve received many letters from people living on welfare, sharing, their
heartbreaking stories of a life of poverty.

The cost of poverty, both socially and economically, is a detriment to our society and I want to get at that through this experience.

The last time a member of the legislature accepted such a challenge was in 1986.  Emery Barnes, then New Democrat MLA for Vancouver Centre, accepted a four week  challenge from a coalition of low-income and social action groups to live on a fixed income in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Emery Barnes lived on $350 a month 25 years ago. Today, I will be challenged to find a place to live and survive on $610 a month, the
income assistance amount designated for a single person who is expected to work.

Over the month, I will meet with people living in poverty and on welfare, listen to their stories and share those stories with British Columbians.

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.

We have a wealthy society and we can afford to narrow the gap.

I recognize that addressing poverty is not simple.  But we do have choices. We have a choice to close our eyes and accept the status quo and that is not the choice of many British Columbians.

We have a choice to show leadership and start addressing these issues with a pragmatic approach, that is the path I would like pursue.

I am sure that British Columbians can do better and they want to do better.  

I have chosen this path believing that through this challenge I can gain a
stronger understanding of the underlying causes of poverty and how poverty affects the lives of the people around us and better address these issues in my community and around the province in my role as a Member of the Legislative Assembly.

In the end, I would like to thanks Raise the Rates, other stakeholders and my colleagues for their support and encouragement to take this challenge.

Huge thanks to Constance Barnes for sharing with us a powerful story of her father’s time on welfare. 

Last but not the least, thanks from the bottom of my heart to my beautiful wife Rajwant and my son Fateh for their support and for letting me do this.

Special thanks to my daughter Noor for saying, “do it and make a difference.”