BC’s Social Development and Poverty Reduction Minister made a stop in Prince George Monday.
Shane Simpson met with ministry staff and local agencies delivering mental health, housing, child care, public safety, education, and other social services.
“Talk o them about the services, about where they think the gaps are, and about how we can better collaborate as the ministry and as those service providers to make sure we’re all doing the best job we can for the people who need some help in the community,” he says, “It’s really learning from people on the front lines about how those things work.”
He says he’ll use this information to help create a province-wide poverty reduction strategy.
“We are the only province in the country that doesn’t have a legislative poverty reduction strategy and we’re going to change that in the next few months.”
Simpson hopes to have this strategy in place next spring.