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Common Front for Social Justice |
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Front commun |
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Common Front For Social Justice 96, ave Norwood, #208 Moncton, NB E1C 6L9 Tel.: 851-7084 fcjsnb@nbnet.nb.ca |
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Bernard Lord,
Premier
Government of New Brunswick
Fredericton, NB
Re : Increasing of the Basic Social Assistance Rates
Mr. Premier Lord,
First, than you for your kind visit to the NB Common Front for Social Justice delegation in the lobby of the Legislature after we held a press conference on Friday, December the 10 th , 2004 to present a Social Solidarity Contract signed by individuals and groups representing more than 150,000 New Brunswickers. It was well appreciated. Thousands of other signatures are still coming in. All these people are requesting that you raised substantially the social assistance basic rates who have not been raised since 1997 in New Brunswick.
We know that the provincial government has committed itself in the 2004 Throne Speech to increasing social assistance rates during its current mandate. Over the last few years, your government has adopted a strategy based on three main points:
-maintain the income assistance rates as they are;
-reduce special allowances;
-and, grant supplements to target groups when pressure for an increase in income assistance become too strong.
That is the way your government decided in 2002 to grant a supplement to disabled persons, and just recently, an increase in the heating supplement to a certain group of recipients.
Although supplements might lead one to believe that it is a good way of increasing the income of income assistance recipients, they do not in fact meet the global objective that we are pursuing, that is to bring about an improvement in living conditions for all income assistance recipients.
They are, rather, a most imperfect solution that is tied to various restrictions and which carries many flaws. The only persons who can get supplements are those that meet the criteria, many of the recipients can't take advantage of them, which leads to disparities. That is the case, in particular, for those proprietors receiving assistance who do not have a mortgage payment to make. In the upcoming budget, we urge you to increase substantially the overall level of income assistance, but not through supplements.
Yours Truly,
The Co-Chairs
John Gagnon - 547-6061 (B) 545-6800 (M) Mary-Anne LeBlanc – 648-6989 (T) 633-9881 (M)
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