Surrey MLA to live on welfare for one month
Posted November 28, 2011 2:25 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – Could you live on $610 a month? That’s the reality for many people on welfare and one local MLA has accepted a challenge to do just that.
The amount is the welfare rate for one person who is considered employable and Surrey-Fleetwood MLA Jagrup Brar says he will live on that amount for one month. It will cover his rent and all other expenses like food and transit.
“I will meet with people living in poverty and on welfare; listening to their stories and share those stories with the people of British Columbia.”
Brar will split his time between Vancouver and Surrey. He’s allowed to go home once a week, and he says he won’t let his friends buy him things.
News1130 chatted with some Vancouverites who say the task is impossible to accomplish. “Rent itself is already past $600. In Vancouver, that’s a ridiculous rent rate that it’s pretty all the money you’ll use for living, just for your house,” says one man.
The organization Raise the Rates, a BC coalition wanting governments to end poverty, is behind the challenge.
Originally, former MLA Emery Barnes lived on welfare wages for a month 25 years ago. His daughter, current Vancouver Park Board Vice-Chair Constance Barnes, remembers watching her MLA father live on $350.
“I watched my father lose over 30 pounds,” she recalls. “I watched my father stand in lineups to get food. I watched him sleep on the floor. I remember taking him some red beans and rice with hot sauce, which is his favourite thing, and he would not take it.”
Barnes says it’s one of the most famous things her famous father did in his political career.
“He refused to take gifts. He refused to do anything other than what these people living on welfare do. He was in pain.”
Barnes is thrilled to see Brar step up to the plate.
“I think the really sad thing is that 25 years later we’re having to address this situation again.”
She adds, “We’re here in Surrey because this isn’t something that is just happening on the Downtown Eastside. This is happening across the province of British Columbia.”
