Women Take Action: Against Government Cutbacks in British Columbia

Off Our Backs, Mar/Apr 2004 by Renard, Pat

I live in Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada. Campbell River is a small community of about 23,000 people on Vancouver Island. Our province changed governments a year and a half ago, and the new government has cut back on funding for services needed by many low-income women. The effect has been devastating, to say the least. I belong to a group called Women Taking Action, which was formed to raise public awareness of the effects of these cuts.

The major industry in our town is resource-based, so there are some low-income people and some people with a ridiculously high income. The wealthy people generally have no idea what it is like to be a poor person, and they don't understand why we are upset. It's as if they blame the poor for not being smart enough or something. It is these wealthy people whom we are trying to reach.

Women Taking Action is a group of low-income single mothers who got together because we decided that we had to do something about the recent cuts by our provincial government. The current administration won an overwhelming majority only because nobody wanted the previous government back. Since the election, our new premier (who leads the government) has gone back on his pre-election promises and cut services he pledged not to touch. Although there are a lot of people hurting because of these cuts, it seems as though the government cares nothing about people and only cares about business. Its primary concern appears to be attracting the 2010 Olympic games to Whistler, BC, at all costs. Whistler is a couple of hours away from Vancouver, and although it is a fabulous ski mountain, it is somewhat like Aspen, Colorado, in that it is already too expensive for most of us. For the vast majority of us ordinary people, I don't believe that bringing the Olympics to BC would help our lives at all. Unfortunately, the government is gutting everything else in an effort to raise the millions required to bid on the project.

Cuts to Income, Increased Poverty

Almost half of BC's single mothers and one-quarter of all BC women earn less than the low-income cut-off. Furthermore, the changes made to welfare as of April 1, 2002, have had a tremendous effect on women in the province. These are just some of the cutbacks that have occurred in our province over the past year.

Women Taking Action met for the first time in July of 2002 at the Campbell River Women's Center. At the first meeting, there were around 30 women. We spoke about how the cutbacks were affecting us personally, how they affected our families, and we brainstormed different ways of fighting back. We came up with some very good ideas.

The first action we undertook was an informational picket. Two other members and I stood in front of our local MLA's (he is our elected official in the provincial government) office for two hours. We wore sandwich boards which described some of the cutbacks. We had seven different handouts printed up that also talked about the cutbacks pertaining to seniors, women, and education. Our MLA's office is on the main street in our town, and there was a lot of traffic. People driving by honked and gave us the thumbs up.

Our elected member, of course, wasn't in the office that day, but when asked by the press he stated that he had no idea who we were or why we were there. So we had a meeting with him. We had drawn up a list of about fifteen questions concerning government cutbacks and their effects, and we met for an hour. He is a very smooth politician. A lot of words came out of his mouth, and he said very little. At one point, he got a little frustrated and said, "Our province is number two in Canada for taking care of its low-income people-how can you be upset with us?" I admit that at that point I lost my cool and told him "When we have no money to feed our children, who gives a rat's ass that we are number two in Canada?" He just didn't get it. I don't think he understood that there are people behind every one of those cutbacks.

Our next action was a Back to School Program. Being single mothers ourselves, we know how expensive it can be to get our children back to school. And because in August the government cut welfare for anyone who had more than three kids, we knew it would be especially hard this year. We started fundraisirig at the end of July, and by August 20, we had raised around $1,400. We went to Zellers (which is like Wal-Mart) and bought $20 gift certificates to be used for clothing or school supplies. We ended up helping out 66 children, and that felt good. Our local MLA, whom we had asked for help, gave us a letter of endorsement the day before we gave out the gift certificates but didn't donate a penny.

Our big project right now is a compilation of stories by people who have been hurt by the recent government cuts. We meet monthly and we are trying to coordinate with other advocacy/activist groups in our area to keep the pressure on.

Unfortunately, although there have been a lot of cuts so far already, the government has told us that this is just year one, and that the next two years will bring $3 billion more in cuts. But we have to try.