Campbell made a lot of cruel cruel cuts that hurt a lot of people, while lowering taxes for big business.The social safety net in British Columbia is going to collapse unless it get billions of dollars in additional government funding, says the executive director of the Federation of Child and Family Services of B.C.
Speaking to the legislature's finance committee in Victoria on Monday, Craig Meredith said the community social service sector is already crumbling as the government reduces its capacity to serve people's needs.
He noted that recent headlines in the B.C. capital give an indication of how bad the situation has become.
"Foster home site of tragic blaze, youths face stormy winter without help, homeless mum fears for daughter, 40-bed shelter to close Sunday, and on and on," he said.
Meredith represents more than 100 community agencies that do much of the real work for the B.C. social service system, dealing with everything from adoption to marital abuse to drug and alcohol addiction.
However, New Democrat MLA John Horgan noted business groups have been telling the finance committee to hold the line on new spending.
"What we hear quite often from the business community is debt reduction is a higher priority than dealing with the social deficit that you've outlined for us today."
Meredith said B.C.'s surplus should go into social services, noting the provincial government would have to increase spending by $2 billion a year to restore those services to 1980s levels.
Campbell should be so "proud" of himself, but guys like that do not care as the poor and unfortunate do not donate or vote for him.
Plus "Business Community" says "debt reduction" is the priority, :rolld: and that Gordon "Greed Hog" Campbell listens to them.
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