The Martlet

Public energy and new government accountability could stop rising poverty and homelessness in B.C., according to a report released in December by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Report author Seth Klein finds hope in the polling results on which the report was partially based.

“My sense on this [is] ... people are forlorn about poverty and homelessness,” said Klein. “They are ashamed and they wish it wasn’t so, but you also encounter this feeling of resignation — that this is the new normal; that nothing can be done.”

Many things can and should be done, according to the report, but the most important is government accountability to a series of timelines and targets. Without this, Klein says all other measures may be destined to failure.

“Part of that accountability is having benchmarks in your targets that are frequent enough that governments can be held accountable — minimally within their mandate, if not every year,” Klein said.

Of course, government accountability only works if there’s someone to be held accountable to. A recent CCPA-sponsored nationwide poll revealed the majority of B.C. residents polled were behind poverty reduction.

“One of the things that emerges [in polling on poverty-related issues] is that we face a bit of an info gap sometimes with the public,” said Klein.

Klein said that when a question is prefaced by information, the answer changes.

“We did some polling a few years ago ... on welfare in B.C., and one of the things that emerged is that if you just cold-polled people [and asked] ‘should we increase welfare rates?’ [responses] were split right down the middle.”

He said the 50-50 split changed to 75 per cent for an increase in welfare when the respondents were told what welfare rates actually were.

“People think welfare’s easier to get than it is and they think it’s more generous than it is. And when they hear the truth, they don’t like it, because it’s dissonant with their values,” he said.

Response to the CCPA plan reveals hope for B.C.’s poor and homeless, Klein said.

“If we faced a values gap, that’s tough, man, that’s tough; that’s hard to change. But an information gap? That’s not so bad.”

Klein puts the onus on concerned citizens and interest groups to make government accountability to a poverty plan a May election issue.

The report was followed by a letter in early 2009 asking for government action, signed by over 200 associations in B.C. including the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group (VIPIRG).

The letter can now be seen and signed by members of the public at bcpovertyreduction.ca.

“Once [people] sign on, we’re going to be recommending all kind of actions they can take between now and May that are basically about making sure that people tell their candidates this is what they want,” Klein said.