Richmond's Mythical World

July 29, 2006: StrategicThoughts.com

Did sitting on the Speaker's Throne for four years affect Claude Richmond's judgment? The MLA for Kamloops, now Minister of Employment and Income Assistance told a Kamloops radio audience that only one in 30 children lives in poverty. He went on to assert that "even entry level jobs are paying in excess of $14 an hour."

The December 15, 2005, report from the BC Progress Board, that's the Premier's hand picked group of economic advisors, said: "In 2003, BC ranked last in Canada with 18.7% of families and unattached individuals with incomes below the low-income cutoff level." Not only is Richmond out of touch with his own economic advisors, he also appears to know more than Statistics Canada, which publishes frequency distributions of wages in its Labour Force Historical Review. According to that Labour Force Survey data, in 2005, 372,600 full-time workers in BC earned less than $14.00 per hour; when part-time workers are included that number jumps to 576,700 or nearly one in every four BC workers. That sounds a lot like the figure used by NDP critic Maurine Karagianis who took Richmond to task for living in a "mythical world". Richmond had his communications staff post a "fact sheet" to the government website titled "More Support for Low-Income BC Families". If Richmond is off by a factor of 750% on the number of children living in poverty, it is no wonder that he isn't helping poor children, many of whom live with their single working parent who is among the working poor. Poverty doesn't stop at the terribly low rate set for welfare benefits and eligibility.

© 2006 David D. Schreck.