Members of the public had a chance today to speak their minds on how the government should address and reduce poverty in our province.
The Poverty Reduction Strategy meeting was at the PG Native Friendship Centre where people could talk about what should be a main focus when it comes to helping those who can’t make ends meet
Co-chair of the Minster’s Advisory Forum Dawn Hemingway says housing has been a critical discussion.
“The changes that took place in providing home support to people, such that it’s quite limited in terms of what’s available so people can stay in their own homes, so, there’s concerns addressed about that.”
There are 26 members in the forum from different communities, and they’ve seen a variety of issues brought up, like income, transportation, and education, but Hemingway added a big thing that the meeting is trying to get across is all these topics are linked and you can’t just have the government focus on one particular area to work on.
Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction Shane Simpson has stated Northern BC has a critical role to play in this strategy, unfortunately he couldn’t attend the meeting today because his flight was cancelled.