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BRITISH COLUMBIA.

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RETRAINING PLANNED

a place to live for a month

saad shelter
male welfare re

‘Crackdown due
on welfare fraud

Continued from pagel

to try to find

task Monday will be nets t :
allowance for single,
cipients 26 years and

sy lities,”” he said. ‘You
kno eh Lan . (but) I would ete:
1 ‘Credit governmen

t the Socia
me as much as an NDP government

would.” rience
opes his expe
ape erie way a substantial

will docum: i ns live.
Maines’ home address i EOE portion of BUSH Co mate |
Moody. He said he not just EM sident fin four sur-
Vancouver — about one B. C. re
wathin' ne ancouver Centre riding — Vives below the eer’ sere est im
Ww lace to live. McCarthy said she at Aint |

“CRACKDOWN” STORY... .facts refute allegations, correspondents say.

-MHR crackdown on ‘fraud’
_ misguided attack on poor

Peter Ramsey, Victoria, writes: Grace
McCarthy raised the ire of the poor and
unemployed in B.C. recently when she
announced that she planned to “crack
down” on welfare fraud and hire more
investigators to pinpoint alleged abuses
of the system.

Our organization, the Federated Anti-
Poverty Groups of B.C., (FAPG) hired
students last summer to research welfare-
related issues and found that of the
214,414 people on income assistance in
1984, just 202 were charged with welfare
fraud. More than 8,000 persons were
formally “investigated” by the Minister
of Human Resources in that year. Less
than .25 per cent were actually charged. I
don’t know how many of these were
found guilty.

True, unscupulous employers do hire
welfare recipients and pay them “under

-the table”: but this creates a real night-

mare for the worker — he or she can’t
complain, join a union or demand higher
wages. In fact, working while on welfare
could result in serious criminal charges

_ for the recipient.

_ As editor of the FAPG Advocate I am

constantly asked how can people on wel-
fare actually survive without cheating.
The average rent here in Victoria is about
$300 per month but the single welfare
receipient gets just $375 of which only
$200 is allowable for rent. Each month,
many of the poor are forced to eat in
soup kitchens or pick up hampers at the
foodbanks. No wonder welfare recip-
ients often find it tempting to work on
the “blackmarket.”

I urge all welfare recipients to arm
themselves with the knowledge about the
welfare appeals system. Under the
appeal, your benefits will be continued
pending a decision of a non-governmental
board. The best solution, however, is to
continue the fight to raise the welfare
rates. Even more desirable, of course, is
the creation of full employment. Our
society has the productive capacity to
create the conditions for jobs for all.

While the rich hire accountants to take
advantage of tax loopholes, the poor are
condemned to sign away their rights
under the welfare system and allow the
government to look into their bank
accounts, their homes and even their
sexual relationships.

Figures refute allegations

Christopher J. Walmsley, executive
director, B.C. Association of Social
Workers, writes: The Honorable Grace

_ McCarthy, Minister of Human Re-

sources, recently suggested that income
assistance recipients have become more
fraudulent in their declarations of addi-
tional income. The minister has implied
that this practice has become so extreme

| that it prevents the provision of higher

benefits to income assistance recipients.
It is difficult to understand the ratio-

_ nale for these remarks in light of the

| ministry’s own statistics on fraud. The

ait

| latest figures, for the 1983-84 period,

- Show that of all basic income assistance
__ Cases, 7 per cent were reported for inves-
- tigation fraud. As a result, .188 per cent
or less than two cases per thousand, had

charges laid. Since 1980 the number of
fraud charges laid has decreased while
the number of recipients and investiga-
tions has more than doubled.

Out of court settlements, another
measure of the incidence of fraud (or
error), involved only 1.6 per cent of

income assistance recipients in 1984.
There has been no increasing trend dur-
ing the past five years.

The amount of money recovered
through investigations in 1983-84 is
equal to the five year average of 2.33 per
cent of income assistance benefits paid
out.

Recent U.S. studies indicate that the
overpayment of income assistance benef-
its can result from four factors: adminis-
trative error, administrative fraud, client
error and client fraud. These factors
apply in all large institutions, both public
and private.

There is no doubt that fraudulent
behavior should not be tolerated. The
claim that welfare fraud is a serious and
growing problem in British Columbia
appears inaccurate and dangerously mis-
leading.

The minister’s statements suggest a
punitive motivation and a desire to ques-
tion the integrity of the overwhelming

majority of income assistance recipients
in B.C.

Many disfranchised
in school election

The order-in-council governing the snap
school board election called last month by
Education Minister Jack Heinrich has
turned up another example of democracy,
Socred-style — thousands of eligible voters
in Vancouver may not be able to cast a
ballot on voting day Jan. 30.

The order stipulates that the voters’ list
that applies for the election is that estab-
lished for the November, 1984 civic
elections — some 14 months ago.

That means that in order to vote Jan. 30,
residents must have been continuously resi-
dent in Vancouver from Jan. 1, 1984 to
June 15, 1984. ;

“If you’re a tenant and you moved into
the city on Jan. 2, 1984, you won’t be able to
vote,” Vancouver city clerk Bob Henry con-
firmed iman interview Jan. 20.

Asa result, hundreds, perhaps thousands
of people who moved into the city from
elsewhere in the province in the last two
years — even if they fulfil the normal
requirement of~six months’ residency —
will be disfranchised.

Similarly, those who came of legal voting
age — 19 — since the June 15, 1984 cutoff
date for the last civic eléction will also ‘be
disfranchised.

The news isn’t quite so bad for
homeowners because the owners’ voters list,
drawn mainly from assessment rolls, is
updated annually and presumably all those
on the current list — including the few
homeowners who might have turned 19
since the last election — will be able to vote.
At least that’s the way the city sees it and
city officials will be going to court this week
to seek a court ruling to that effect to head
off any future court challenges.

.extension of —

CARMELA ALLEVATO..
voters’ list urged.

But because the enumeration is only —
beginning this March for the 1986 voters’ ~
list, thousands of tenants who are eligible —
but not on the voters’ list will be outofluck. —
And the Social Credit government undoubt-
edly considered that fact in calling the elec- —
tion when it did. Z

“In effect, anybody not on the 1984 —
voters’ list is disfranchised — it’s just
another example of how undemocratic the —
Socreds are,” charged Carmela Allevato, a —
candidate for the Committee of Progressive _
Electors in the Jan. 30 election.

Allevato said that COPE would be mak- _
ing a representation before the court to pro- —
test the disfranchisement. 7

She also called on the government to —
broaden the terms of the order-in-council to
allow eligible voters not on the old list tq j
cast affidavit ballots. @

School budget cuts top
issue in Cowichan vote

COWICHAN — The Jan. 30 school
board elections are generating a lot of inter-
est in the continuing campaign against res-
traint in this Vancouver Island community.

‘ Nineteen candidates are competing for
the nine trustee positions. Of those, five will
be elected for a 10-month term and four for
22 months.

Eight of the can-
didates were on the
board that was fired
by Education Min-
ister Jack Heinrich
in May of last year,
including five, for-.
mer chairman Jerry
Joyce, Dominique
Roelants, Ann Ander-

son, David Garnett
and Janet Broad- DOMINQUE
land, who voted ROELANTS

against complying with Heinrich’s budget.

Unlike the Vancouver election, there are
no campaigns underway to elect a slate of
candidates, but former trustee Roelants said
he will be conducting his own campaign in
opposition to education cutbacks. He will
also invite support for the other four former
board members who voted against cutbacks
and for two newcomers, Wanda HopWo
and Jim Ayres.

“We have to elect a majority to the board
that will speak up against cutbacks. A vote

for those candidates calling for cee |

co-operation with the provincial govern- —
ment is to say okay to cutbacks and more of —
them,” said Roelants.

He is also concerned that the Siindsti of 4
Education has not yet provided the board
with the finance figures for the next year, —
“It’s just introducing confusion into the —
campaign. We can’t make arguments to the —
electorate about school board funding —

when we have no idea what the budget will . |

be,” he said.

“We also need the right to tax commer- ©
cial and industrial property returned to —
local boards,” he said, stating that in the
Cowichan district some 70 per cent of the —
land tax base is industrial property. 4

Cory Holob, the trustee appointed by the. E
provincial government last May, has left the

board with a $250,000 deficit but has app-
lied to the province for the deficit to be —

declared as a forgiveable deficit as there

were 120 students more than estimated in __

the school district.

Activity around the election by pane
and teachers is just getting underway. The
local parents’ organization will be sponsor-
ing an all-candidates meeting in the final
week of the campaign. Holob, in a move
that has puzzled local residents, is also
organizing an all-candidates meeting — on 4
Jan. 20 at Cowichan oe School. v