Single Mom Slams Clark on Clawbacks: ‘She Has Zero Idea’

Premier says economic growth will help parents like Jessica Sothcott, whose child support is deducted from her disability cheques.

By Andrew MacLeod, May 15, 2014, TheTyee.ca

Jessica Sothcott could work and earn as much as $9,600 a year without it affecting the amount she receives in disability payments, but every dollar she receives in child support from her daughter’s father is deducted in full from what the government will provide.

“I was shocked,” said the mother of two who was at the British Columbia legislature with her 14-year-old daughter Rosalie on Wednesday to draw attention to the issue.

Sothcott said she raised the matter with the office that administers the province’s Person With Disability benefits. “When I finally got on PWD, I went there and I said, ‘Why are you taking my child support off my cheque still, because I’m allowed to earn $800 a month?’ And they said, ‘Oh, you don’t earn that money.’

“I walked away,” she said. “I didn’t know what to say. I’m like, well, I’m pretty sure I do.”

Disability payments from the government cover Sothcott’s rent in subsidized housing in downtown Victoria, leaving $500 a month for everything else, including nearly $200 for medication to treat what she described as a workplace injury.

The child support payments that the government claws back are $187 a month, she said.

“Having that money would mean a lot for both of us,” said Sothcott. “It would mean more food. It would mean maybe being able to go out to a beach somewhere, pay for gas. It would mean her having pocket money to spend time with her friends, go to movies, do normal teenager stuff and not have to worry about what we’re eating for dinner.”

‘It’s so dumb’

“I think the clawback, that whole thing is ridiculous,” said Rosalie, a Grade 8 student at Colquitz Middle School. “Why are you taking a 14-year-old girl’s money? I just think it’s so dumb.”

Rosalie has a 21-year old brother who has had difficulty finding work. He eats with Rosalie and her mom, but sleeps at his stepfather’s house. “We don’t skip meals, just my mom does,” said Rosalie. “She has to sometimes not eat so we can have enough food.”

Over the past month, the provincial New Democrats have hammered the B.C. government for clawing back child support money from single parents who receive disability or welfare payments, making the point that many people, mainly women and their children living in poverty, are in the same situation.

“There are many children who are impacted by this policy who can’t share their story, they’re too young,” said Michelle Mungall, the NDP critic for social development.

“For as long as their parent is on income assistance — and for many it will be for their life because their parents have disabilities that prevent them from working — those children will not be able to access their child support,” she said, noting it’s courageous of Rosalie to share her story.

Growing economy will help: premier

Sothcott said she wasn’t interested in politics and has never voted, but seeing the NDP fight to end the clawback of child support was inspiring. “I’m seeing it in a different light now,” she said. “I think it’s time people stand up and start fighting… That’s hopeful because the current government is wrong on so many levels.”

With the Sothcotts watching, NDP leader John Horgan raised the issue in the legislature.

“Being a single parent is difficult,” responded Premier Christy Clark, who is divorced from the father of her 12-year old son. “Any of us who experience that on a day-to-day basis know how hard it is, but for some parents it is a lot more difficult than it is for others.”

At the same time, the government needs to be fair both to people who are dependent on the system and to people who pay taxes, said Clark, who as premier makes around $180,000 a year.

“The reason that the government asks for that money back is because it’s income,” she said. While some parents might receive quite a bit of child support, others receive little, she said. “We want to make sure we’re fair across the system.”

The main thing the government can do is help parents get back into the workforce, she said. “We believe on this side of the house that the best and the only way to lift people out of poverty, to lift families out of poverty, is to grow the economy.”

Horgan said it’s ludicrous to tell someone the government has acknowledged has a disability and needs support to find a job.

“I thought it was impossible, but somehow the premier just said liquefied natural gas is going to help people on disability income assistance feed their children,” he said. “I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but apparently in the world the premier lives in, that’s the case.”

Clark later told reporters she favours raising assistance rates, particular for people with disabilities, once the provincial economy and government budget can sustain the increase.

“We need to do it when we can afford it, and it needs to be done across the board,” she said. “When it comes to child support payments, some are quite small, some are quite large. I don’t think taxpayers across the province would say that in the case of every child support payment, they would like to add on their support for people who may or may not need it.”

Change ‘comes at an expense’: minister

B.C.’s Social Development Minister Don McRae told The Tyee that while he’s sympathetic, the government can’t afford the roughly $17 million it would cost to allow parents receiving government benefits to keep child support payments.

“You know what, I would like to continue to reform income assistance opportunities or programs in the province,” he said. “One of the things I’d like to do is grow the economy so we can make these choices. There’s lots of good ideas out there, by all means.”

Asked why child support payments are clawed back while money from earned income is not, McRae said, “That was a policy decision based before my time.”

He added, “Income assistance is income of last resort. The first responsibility is for the parents to pay for the children’s needs. That’s what we want to happen in British Columbia.”

McRae left the door open to making the change. “When we brought the first phase of reforms two years ago, we never said we were done reforming right, so there’s always ways to sand the edges on a policy to make it better, make it more responsive to the needs of people,” he said.

“I can’t say today we’re making a change tomorrow, because every time you make a change, it comes at an expense.”

Clark has ‘zero idea’, says single mom

In the end, Sothcott said what she heard during Question Period was insulting. “It’s clear to me they don’t care,” she said. “They do not care about the children of B.C., they do not care about my child. They don’t care.”

She questioned how much Clark understands about the reality people like her face. “I’d love to be a single mom in her position,” she said. “Guess how much I made last year. Less than $10,000. I’d like her to take my place and talk about being a single mom.”

Nor did Sothcott, who worked until she was injured in 2012, find Clark’s get-a-job approach helpful. “I should get a job, right,” she said. “It’s unbelievable to me. She has zero idea, she has no idea what real life is like.”

She did, however, say she hoped her daughter would learn it’s important to fight for what’s right and to not get discouraged. “I’m happy we came,” she said. “That woman needs to change the policy. It’s wrong.”

The NDP last week introduced a poverty reduction and economic inclusion bill, symbolic legislation unlikely to win support from the BC Liberal-dominated legislature.

“I’m the product of a single parent family,” Horgan said that day. “I’m the product of being raised in poverty as a young child, and I now stand before you because of the opportunity that was given to me by faith communities, by neighbours, by community and by government, to say that I want to be the next premier of British Columbia. That speaks to giving opportunity and hope to people who are living in poverty and mired, in some cases, in cyclical poverty.”

The NDP supports a model where child support payments do not count as income and therefore do not reduce a family’s income assistance, he said. There are all kinds of places the government could find $17 million to help those families, he said. The provincial budget is in the order of $44 billion.

Smyth: NDP still vulnerable on economy, a year after election debacle

By Michael Smyth, The Province May 12, 2014

John Horgan, the new leader of B.C.’s NDP, must find a way to assure voters that his party will not damage the economy in its efforts to protect the environment from damage by megaprojects such as the Site C dam.

 

One year ago today, pundits and pollsters everywhere predicted the imminent demise of Premier Christy Clark and her Liberal government.

One year ago tomorrow, those same political prognosticators sat down to a super-sized meal of humble pie, as Clark pulled off the greatest comeback in B.C. history.

The election of May 14, 2013 — exactly one year ago Wednesday — confounded analysts mesmerized by the 20-point lead in pre-election polls enjoyed by Adrian Dix and the NDP.

How did the NDP blow such an advantage? One year after the shocker, a couple of answers emerge.

For one thing, despite what voters might tell pollsters before an election, most people don’t make up their minds on how to vote until the sustained heat and glare of a campaign.

It’s clear now that most of those voters didn’t think much of Dix once they took a good look at him. One image that sticks in my mind: the way Dix slouched against his lectern during the televised election debate. Not a good look for him.

But perhaps the greatest lesson of last year’s election-night surprise was the proof it provided for an old political axiom: It’s the economy, stupid.

From the beginning of the campaign, Clark hammered home an optimistic message of private-sector investment, thousands of new jobs and unparalleled prosperity for B.C.

Will even a fraction of her grandiose promises — such as a trillion-dollar natural-gas gold rush and enough riches to wipe out the province’s $60-billion debt — come true?

It’s still too early to say, but enough voters dared to believe Clark’s utopian vision to give the Liberals another majority-government mandate.

A year later, it’s easy to see how the Liberals plan a repeat performance in the next election: by painting themselves as the party of prosperity, and the NDP as the party that will say No to jobs and investment.

Clark will continue to promote her liquefied-natural-gas miracle. And now the government appears poised to back another megaproject: the $8-billion Site C dam on the Peace River.

On Monday, new NDP leader John Horgan attacked Site C in the legislature, insisting B.C. doesn’t need the new power it would generate.

While Horgan demands that the project be turned over to the B.C. Utilities Commission for more study, it appears Clark’s Liberals will push ahead with it anyway.

And that’s just the way Clark likes it: The Liberals saying “Yes” and the NDP saying “No” all over again.

Here is Horgan’s new challenge: If he chooses to fight controversial megaprojects such as the Site C dam, the Prosperity mine, and the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines, he must find a way to simultaneously reassure voters that the NDP will not damage the economy.

Horgan must also learn another lesson from Clark’s victory of a year ago: Attack ads work, and the New Democrats can’t go easy on her.

Horgan has vowed to “highlight the shortcomings of the Liberals,” saying the NDP’s failure to do that was a “singular failing” of the 2013 election campaign.

A year later, Horgan has only begun to fight. Clark will be ready for him.

B.C. Liberals refuse to look at alternatives to putting Hydro customers on $800 million hook

May 12, 2014

VICTORIA – Today, the B.C. Liberal government shut the door on independent expert review of the Site C project proposal, leaving B.C. Hydro customers on the hook for a loss of $800 million should the project go forward on the government’s timeline.

According to the panel’s report “B.C. Hydro projects losing $800 million in the first 4 years of operation,” under the government’s project timelines.

“Families are already facing a 28 per cent rate hike because of the B.C. Liberals’ complete mismanagement of B.C. Hydro,” said B.C. New Democrat leader John Horgan. “Now families will be on the hook for an $800 million loss because the B.C. Liberals are steamrolling ahead before the demand is there.”

The Joint Review Panel for the Site C project released its report last Thursday, recommending that the B.C. Liberal government “refer the load forecast and demand side management plan details to the B.C. Utilities Commission,” and have the BCUC review the proposed project’s costs.

Today in Question Period, B.C. Liberal Minister of Energy & Mines, Bill Bennett refused to refer the project to the BCUC to independently investigate alternatives that would limit ratepayers’ liabilities.

“Right now, we have Liberals telling Liberals what Liberals want to hear,” said Horgan. “That’s a reckless and irresponsible approach to such a massive project. We need an independent expert review to protect the ratepaying public.”

We Lose When B.C. Government Listens To Bond Raters Over Citizens

  Susan Lambert     Past President, B.C. Teachers’ Federation

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca    05/05/2014

Peter Cameron’s warnings that the economic skies of B.C. will fall should government negotiate a fair contract for B.C.’s teachers reminded me of Doug Foster’s testimony in the historic court case won by the B.C. Teachers’ Federation this spring.

Foster, assistant deputy finance minister and unabashed fervent apostle of “free market” based economic policy, testified that the province invites bond raters to advise as provincial budgets are developed. That advice is designed to “keep taxes low and constrain spending” in return for a good credit rating.

Foster testified the bond raters are wary of all spending, including capital projects, and are staunchly opposed to deficit budgets. The net zero mandate was approved of by these raters who promised to maintain the triple AAA rating only with the caution that the mandate be maintained.

Foster also testified that government agreed with the raters that the economy was fragile, even though this analysis was contradicted in the government’s message to the people of B.C.

Colin Hansen, the finance minister at the time, painted a rosy picture of the economy in the province, talking about B.C. as one of the strongest leaders in economic growth in Canada attributable to the success of the Olympics, the ability to pay down the debt by $9 billion, and projections of personal income increases of three to four per cent among other favourable indicators.

So Cameron’s warnings connect some economic dots for me. Seems like the bond raters, firms like Standard and Poors found to be complicit in the 2008 global economic crisis, are once again “advising” government. These are the people in favour of an alternative vision of Canada, (one in which the 1% have both economic and political clout and can dictate policies that increase the numbers of homeless, impoverished and dispirited in an increasingly mean world), who are coercing our government with the financial equivalent of the fabled carrot and stick.

Rather than charting our own course as citizens of this province and probably this country, we are being held to ransom by the rogues and villains who profit from low taxes, smaller government and free markets.

These are the greedy charlatans who preach “trickle down” economics and promote private rather than public services. Who are supported by corporations with production and supply lines in Bangladesh where there are no regulations or unions to protect workers from exploitation, violation and death in order to profit when these goods are sold for enormous returns here in B.C.

And what effect has this “free market” driven economic policy had on public services in this province? You don’t have to look further than your local school board struggling to identify yet further cuts to the programs and services that once made the system the strongest in the world.

We have the highest child poverty rate in the country. Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond has recently revealed that we have, across the province, fewer services for children than there are in the city of Calgary.

As this government heeds the advice of free market economists, so does our investment in public services decline. These neo-liberal economic policies are supposed to be beneficial for all, but we see the stark reversal of that promise.

The hope of jobs is fading as the promise is pushed further and further back on the horizon. Public services are declining. And costs to ordinary citizens are increasing. When will we ever learn?

Follow Susan Lambert on Twitter: www.twitter.com/susant8404