LETTER: No simple answers to welfare question
Your reader poll asks a simple question to which there is not a simple answer (Do welfare rates need to be raised?, South Delta Leader Jan. 6, 2012).
Neither yes nor no is not a sufficient answer for this open-ended question. Your question is analogous to one person asking another person how old is old. The answer lies in the asker's age and the asked's age. To a person 65 years of age, a person 75 years of age might seem to be old whereas a person aged 75 years might well be considered young by a person 95 years of age. Without a standard base on which to gauge the question and render an answer, all answers are nebulous.
Is the current rate of $610 per month reasonable or does it need to be raised?
The quick answer is no, but for some, that monthly amount might be adequate if housing was not an issue whereas for someone who needs to find suitable accommodation, $610 per month is inadequate.
Media reports have brought to the fore the plight—real or imagined, I cannot say—of an MLA (Surrey Fleetwood's Jagrup Brar) who claims to be living or trying to live on the current $610 per month allotment. What is not given in these reports is how well fed the individual was or how well supplied with clothing or how well supplied with bus fare or how well supported this person is by family and friends who might pass along a free meal or a basket of groceries or a warm coat or a week's worth of transit tickets.
Without all the ingredients, we simply do not know whether or not this individual MLA's attempt to live on the monthly dole is fact or fiction.
The simple question remains but a simple answer eludes us.
Bob Orrick,
Richmond
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