We're sure government policy makers rely on some principle to defend clawing back payments to moms on social assistance who receive child support payments. Sure, the child is probably the one who suffers, but there's a principle involved.
Forget the fact that prior to 2002 government policy allowed single parents to receive up to $100 a month in child support payments before having any deductions to their income assistance and disability cheques. Forget the fact that welfare and disability rates have been frozen for the past seven years while living costs have escalated.
Perhaps the government policy gurus believe that single moms with disabilities will be encouraged to seek work if they can't feed their kids. Perhaps, for some, that's true. But for others it means they will sink deeper into poverty.
B.C. continues to have one of the highest rates of child poverty in Canada, and the sad fact is that children living in poverty are usually kids of single moms - moms who need more help, not less.
And why shouldn't we trust the government's decisions on these matters?
After all, only this week we learned the government has spent more than $1.5 million over the last three years to house a team of "testers" in Victoria tasked with fixing the province's frequently troubled internal computer system. The travelling test squad, according to media reports, consists of as many as 24 ministry employees who work to troubleshoot the ministry's computer system, which continues to run at limited capacity.
Oh, and did we mention the government has paid an average of $514,000 annually for hotels, meals and flights for testers to commute when needed to the capital since 2011, out of money earmarked for the system's operating budget?
No wonder it doesn't want to let poor single moms be able to use child support to feed their kids. We're sure there's a principle involved.
Perhaps Christy Clark should change her slogan from"Families first" to "Meals for testers of broken government systems first."
