For the past 16 years the BC Liberals have hurt poor people and people suffering with addictions. My grandson, who is now 22 years old and clean and sober, needed to detox from hard drugs 18 months ago. We had enough money to get him into a private treatment centre immediately and this has changed his life. If we had to rely on the “public” system he would likely be dead. It takes several weeks to get into detox and then it often takes even longer to get into a treatment centre.
Many of the people on the street are people who have fallen through the cracks which our provincial government made much larger. One example is that people who need to be on disability do not have anyone to help them get on this program, and once they are on provincial disability they no longer have a worker assigned to them and must deal with a faceless bureaucracy.
I used to work as a special needs foster parent in the 1990s and when I had kids who qualified for disability supports I helped them through the paperwork and they were assigned a worker who would get to know them. Once Gordon Campbell was elected he eliminated workers for people on disability to save money and he cut funding for the Together Against Poverty Society, which would help people who required disability supports. I suspect the same was done to other similar societies throughout the province.
I realize there is no political gain to helping these people because few of them vote. I also realize that economically it is better to have 1,000 people a year dying instead of spending money helping people suffering with the illness of addiction. I’m glad the Green Party has decided to support the humanitarian approach of the NDP and not the dog-eat-dog philosophy of the BC Liberals.
Dave Connell
Saanich