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Bus users decry ‘mean’ rise in disability payments

People using wheelchairs and walkers, leaning on canes and accompanied by caregivers made their way to the B.C. legislature on Wednesday to protest what they denounce as a puny increase in assistance once changes to B.C.
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People take part in the protest at the B.C. legislature on Wednesday.

 

People using wheelchairs and walkers, leaning on canes and accompanied by caregivers made their way to the B.C. legislature on Wednesday to protest what they denounce as a puny increase in assistance once changes to B.C. Transit subsidies are factored in for many of them.

More than 200 people with disabilities and their advocates rallied against a government decision to boost Persons With Disabilities assistance by $77 a month, while requiring many recipients to forgo $52 of the increase to pay for transit, starting Sept. 1.

“This is wrong, this is not fair and it’s mean,” Faith Bodnar, executive director of Inclusion B.C. said to a cheering crowd. It is time for the government to “get serious about addressing poverty for some of the most vulnerable people in B.C.,” Bodnar said.

Her organization represents 72 agencies involved with disability issues and “there was no consultation with anybody,” about the changes, Bodnar said.

The annual pass, currently $45, will be still be available to PWD recipients. However, after the change it will cost $52 a month, meaning all but $25 of the $77 increase given to those who opt for a pass will be deducted by the Ministry of Social Development.

“I got here on the bus,” said Eryn Rolston, 23, who lives with post traumatic stress disorder and a form of psychosis.

Her first reaction to the changes was “outrage,” she said, aggravated by the province “throwing the word choice at us.”

What will be left over from the $77 increase for Rolston will do little more than save one trip a month to the food bank. “I’ve been there and it’s hard,” she said.

Mishi Sillars, 27, who was born deaf and uses a wheelchair since a hit-and- run accident in 2014, said the $77 increase is well below the cost-of-living increases since the assistance was last upgraded.

Rates have stayed at $906 per month since 2010,

Delphine Charmley, attending with her 25-year-old son who has disabilities, said the final increase means recipients won’t cover “a box of Kraft Dinner a day.”

One protester held a sign depicting an airplane labelled “Air Christy” in reference to the $500,000 Premier Christy Clark has spent on private planes, taken mostly to her riding in Kelowna and back since she took office.

At the rally, NDP opposition critic Michelle Mungall decried the increased cost of taking the bus for PWD recipients when the top two per cent of B.C. earners got a tax break. “We’re not going to give up,” she told the crowd. “Are you?”

NDP leader John Horgan called the provincial decision “despicable and nasty.”

Social Development Minister Michelle Stilwell told the Times Colonist the fear and anxiety on the part of people with disabilities is being stoked by “misinformation” being led by the NDP.

Of 80,000 B.C. residents getting disability cheques, only 35,000 use Transit passes, she said, stressing it is important to offer fairness to the other 45,000, who may not live near transit services, but still need to get around, to those who seldom take transit or live where local monthly passes are less than $52. About 20,000 people receive special transportation subsidies.

The change is meant to create “fairness and equity” for all recipients, Stilwell said.

She said she knows people were hoping for a bigger overall boost than $77, but that will bring B.C. to the fourth highest disability assistance in Canada.

However, Bodnar said B.C. has the highest cost of living.

Even with the transit changes, all PWD recipients will get more money, Stilwell said, noting that B.C. had introduced reforms such as increased earning exemptions and gifts to PWD recipients without clawbacks.

“It’s not a takeaway — everyone is receiving an increase,” said Stilwell, adding she advocated hard to get the increase, the first in many years, “to ensure that we could make a difference in people’s lives.”

Bodnar said the answer is to give all recipients the $77 increase and leave bus passes alone.

“Eating or taking the bus is not a choice,” Bodnar said. “Having a disability is not a choice. “Raise the rate and keep raising the rate.”

Nearly 13,000 people have signed Exclusion B.C.’s online petition against the government decision.

Ken Armstrong, from Nanaimo, who has two grown daughters with serious disabilities, including Karen who was with him in her wheelchair, said the changes left him stunned.

“An extra $77 a month would mean a lot,” he said. “We’re constantly subsidizing our girls.”

Three Roman Catholic nuns attended to show their solidarity with people with disabilities. The province’s decision is “atrocious,” said one. “People do need to be justly and properly taken care of.”

kdedyna@timescolonist.com