Welfare has to go

General Forums Prince Rupert Forum
21

Abuse is a problem, although the system has problems as well, hell, it may have even created those very same problems.

I grew up in the Inlander, my mother was a great worker at BC Packers for years, we had a house, never wanted for anything, then we went off the highway and she got messed up, pain pills led to more pills, led to booze, and finally drugs.

When she died I was orphaned, welfare at the time was very different from now. When I needed help I went to them, I got to see a worker within the hour of me asking, I got my rent, support, clothes, dishes, and furniture all in the same day! Becuase I was treated so well, I had a job in a week, and was off welfare within the month.

Now, the system is all screwed up, you cant see a worker unless your on fire, and even then they’ll prolly tell you to call the 1-866. People (often with their children) sit and wait hours to see anyone, and ussually are told we cant do anything, call the 1-866. For all those holier than thou, please bring down 3-4 kids, 1 or 2 babies, and sit inside that office for 3-4 hours, make sure the kids are hungry, bored, and tired. Oh and make sure you havent eaten that day, wear the clothes you had on yesterday, bring no diapers or milk, walk down in the rain, and then to top it off dont bother going to the counter just walk out with nothing, becuase thats what happens most the time, but not before sitting on hold on the 1-866 for 1-2 hours first, just rub in the salt alittle.

Before you could earn $500 and still get assistance, now every cent counts against you, what kind of incentive to work is that? How is someone who is poor, hungry, stressed, tired, and maybe even homeless supposed to get a job? Especially when competing against well off peeps? Who do you think is going to get hired first , a late teens/early 20’s female or a late 40s female? Get real, you know who gets hired first here. Seriously, take a look, alot of places only hire perky teen/20s females. Dont get me wrong, Im not here to knock teens, or females, or businesses hiring, maybe those teens are just really good workers, determined to get and keep a job, maybe Im only looking at the jobs that suit a teen/20s female, or maybe the businesses have just had really good expeiences with hiring those types.

Also, one arm of the government doesnt know or seem to care what the other is doing, at one point one ministry demands this and that conflicts with what this other ministry wants, the results one way, starve on the street, the other, lose your family.

I believe the work for welfare could work, but it needs to be voluntary, and the earnings need to be a supplement to a regular cheque. Getting grandma to clear road brush to buy her tea is prolly not a nice idea.

For all those educated/rich, can you please tally the number of jobs total in prince rupert, then the total that are available, and then the total unemployed, then think about that before you start knocking people.
For all those business owners/managers, please let us know how much you love to have an endless stream of useless resumes show up daily.

Heres a clue, all those young women having kids, guess what, humans reproduce, all them do, not just the rich living on Graham. Long ago being a mother was something to honor, now some of you talk like they are akin soldiers shooting themselves in the foot to avoid war. Rich or poor, you were all born to a mother, and if only the rich had kids, then the race would die out, since only 1% of the pop would qualify.

For the poor, try making your own job, learn something that someone would pay you to do, learning superhost for the 10th time doesnt count, learn to fix a toaster, a bike, a computer or a car…

We are all creations of our enviroment. So while your pointing fingers go stand in front of the mirror and try it, becuase in the end, we are ALL to blame.

22

mostly_harmless, you’ve articulated some very valid points. However, IMHO your comments about young women having babies misses the mark. I doubt very much that these girls are planning on raising a family to earn themselves some spending cash BUT I think it’s unfair for the children to have to start off their life in such desperate conditions.

It’s not just the lack of money for proper food, clothing, and shelter but also the parenting skills of these young mothers who often are rasing the child on their own or with help from their own parents, further stressing the household monetary situation and the family dynamic. I’m not condemning these children at all nor calling their condition hopeless but simply stating that this local trend of 14 - 18 yr olds having babies is not healthy for the children nor their mothers.

Shooting themselves in the foot? In this particular analogy, I’d liken it to shooting the BABY in the foot.

23

Taking a swing at the poor is common and unfortunate. Labeling them as lazy and opportunistic may have some measure of validity, but the disadvantaged are not alone in having these characteristics.

How much would be recovered by denying minimal sustenance for these people?

Think what could be gained from recovering these new City Senior Admin wages, as a start. The opportunistic wastes from Mayor Jack and his Band of Councillors could cover quite a few of Rupert’s poor.

24

[quote=“dailymews”]Taking a swing at the poor is common and unfortunate. Labeling them as lazy and opportunistic may have some measure of validity, but the disadvantaged are not alone in having these characteristics.

How much would be recovered by denying minimal sustenance for these people?

Think what could be gained from recovering these new City Senior Admin wages, as a start. The opportunistic wastes from Mayor Jack and his Band of Councillors could cover quite a few of Rupert’s poor.[/quote]

Exactly. Welfare abuse is peanuts compared to the complete and utter abuse of our tax dollars by our politicians. between 100 and 700k in yearly expenses per MP on top of their already engorged salaries would in my bet add up to a whole fuckload more than welfare abuses.

People ripping off the system pisses me off too but lets get real and go after the fat cats doing the real pillaging instead of the morons ripping off welfare for a few extra peanuts for their booze/drugs.

25

Praise be to jesus!

26

I have said in an earlier post that we need to let our goverment know we are unhappy with the system and we have to let them know we are unhappy with their actions as well. The abuse and waste is incredible and gets more unreal as you go up the food chain. I agree, welfare slackers are peanuts but it is easy to lash out at that cause we see it under our nose. I am guilty, i voted but i have not written any of my politicans to let them know how i feel. This subject keeps coming up on HTMF and i just noticed the absence of Ayjaye other than the orginal post, did he post just to get us going???

27

Ajaye is what is described as a troll.

28

Heh true, and not to mention he’s not genuine on everything he types.

He doesn’t really care about people he claimed to be. =.=’

29

You answer your own question. You’re a taxpayer. You exist to pay. That’s what we do!
Sux donut?

And remember that ‘render unto Caesar’ line.
Once you render, it’s Caesar’s money not yours. HIS tax money, not yours.
You’re supposed to be thankful you get to elect Caesar every four years or so.

30

Lots of free food on this site for the trolls. Kind of like welfare for trolls. The amusing part is that people feed the troll yet complain when it keeps coming back.

31

I like welfare. It pays for cheesies and cream soda.

32

yeah and coke a cola and pampers… oh I forgot ichiban…

33

u forgot slot machines

34

Terrace would be a ghost town if they got rid of welfare. OMG in 4 years I’ve only met ONE person there working. And I just found out from him yesterday he took a buyout…
Nor have I met so many single Moms since they shut down the Wooden Barrel in Burnaby back in the 70s.

35

[quote=“herbie_popnecker”]Terrace would be a ghost town if they got rid of welfare. OMG in 4 years I’ve only met ONE person there working. And I just found out from him yesterday he took a buyout…
Nor have I met so many single Moms since they shut down the Wooden Barrel in Burnaby back in the 70s.[/quote]

Would be interesting to see the stats … I think Rupert would fold without welfare as well…

36

Perceptions? Holy shit, I was just on a site where the Yanks are all in consensus that welfare recipients, like criminals are not productive members of society and therefore should be denied the right to vote. They’d like to run the country like you run a corporation!

37

Oh i couldn’t resist a chance to jump in on a nice heated one like this, and here is my two cents for anybody who cares.

I’ts easy to tell somebody not to be lazy and to get off welfare, it’s even easier to tell a group of people this, however, it isn’t quite that simple for some.

I grew up in Alberta and in the mid 90’s Ralph Klien strip mined the provinces social systems, education, and hospitals in an effort to get the books back into the black. my mom was support 4 kids on her own and worked for the board of education, and her position was terminated. That left one lady with no income to try and survive with four children. Welfare didn’t do a dam thing for us, we collected it just so the rent could get paid, but most of our meals came from the food bank, or from money extended family had given. My mom fought endlessly to find work and support her family, so we wouldn’t end up homeless, and we had to use welfare for a couple of years until she could get work.

It’s not always about people spending the money on booze and smokes and being to lazy to work, there are alot of families like mine that get thrown to the wolves, and would kill to land work, and be able to support thier families. Had thier been a program like the one being discussed here, my mom would have signed up instantly, as she is one of the hardes working people i’ve ever met, and she would have done anything to keep our family afloat.

There are those that abuse systems like welfare, but then there are others that need it to survive.

38

[quote=“rollins”]Oh i couldn’t resist a chance to jump in on a nice heated one like this, and here is my two cents for anybody who cares.

I’ts easy to tell somebody not to be lazy and to get off welfare, it’s even easier to tell a group of people this, however, it isn’t quite that simple for some.

I grew up in Alberta and in the mid 90’s Ralph Klien strip mined the provinces social systems, education, and hospitals in an effort to get the books back into the black. my mom was support 4 kids on her own and worked for the board of education, and her position was terminated. That left one lady with no income to try and survive with four children. Welfare didn’t do a dam thing for us, we collected it just so the rent could get paid, but most of our meals came from the food bank, or from money extended family had given. My mom fought endlessly to find work and support her family, so we wouldn’t end up homeless, and we had to use welfare for a couple of years until she could get work.

It’s not always about people spending the money on booze and smokes and being to lazy to work, there are alot of families like mine that get thrown to the wolves, and would kill to land work, and be able to support thier families. Had thier been a program like the one being discussed here, my mom would have signed up instantly, as she is one of the hardes working people i’ve ever met, and she would have done anything to keep our family afloat.

There are those that abuse systems like welfare, but then there are others that need it to survive.[/quote]

Welfare was suppose to be for people such as your mother or those truly unable to work due to health issues…
What has occurred is that the ingenerational nature of welfare in so many cases has eaten up so much of a resource that was meant to be used as a last resort… There should be a lot more for people such as your mother and my heart goes out to you… and thank you for sharing what you have.

39

In a similar vein, but on a different topic, is the issue of EI benefits. Every year we hear Joy Thorkelson crying out in the wilderness about the embattled fishing industry worker who cannot make the minimum hours to qualify for EI. The question begs answering: should seasonal workers who do NOT expect to work anywhere else for the rest of the year reasonably expect to collect EI?

I’ve paid into EI forever and have never collected; I’m fortunate. However, I know that the support workers for the school board (secretaries, childcare workers, etc) who get laid off for the summer are expected to be out actively job hunting for July and August. In some cases this year, the childcare workers were REQUIRED by EI to take a sanctioned course in order to continue receiving their benefits. These are people who have a guaranteed job to which to return in six weeks, who are (for the most part) unable to take holidays throughout the rest of the year (other than unpaid school breaks, of course), and who in all reality are NOT going to find a short-term job to cover the summer months. These workers barely break the poverty level of earnings (22K or so) but work ten months of the year AND are under scrutiny of EI…why should a fishing industry worker qualify for EI with less than the minimum of hours?

Maybe these are two separate issues…apples and oranges. I just don’t hear Joy standing on her soapbox about the childcare worker who gets her EI cut because she went camping for two weeks over the summer and thus was unable to “be actively out searching for a job”.

40

[quote=“Uncle Stumbly”]In a similar vein, but on a different topic, is the issue of EI benefits. Every year we hear Joy Thorkelson crying out in the wilderness about the embattled fishing industry worker who cannot make the minimum hours to qualify for EI. The question begs answering: should seasonal workers who do NOT expect to work anywhere else for the rest of the year reasonably expect to collect EI?

I’ve paid into EI forever and have never collected; I’m fortunate. However, I know that the support workers for the school board (secretaries, childcare workers, etc) who get laid off for the summer are expected to be out actively job hunting for July and August. In some cases this year, the childcare workers were REQUIRED by EI to take a sanctioned course in order to continue receiving their benefits. These are people who have a guaranteed job to which to return in six weeks, who are (for the most part) unable to take holidays throughout the rest of the year (other than unpaid school breaks, of course), and who in all reality are NOT going to find a short-term job to cover the summer months. These workers barely break the poverty level of earnings (22K or so) but work ten months of the year AND are under scrutiny of EI…why should a fishing industry worker qualify for EI with less than the minimum of hours?

Maybe these are two separate issues…apples and oranges. I just don’t hear Joy standing on her soapbox about the childcare worker who gets her EI cut because she went camping for two weeks over the summer and thus was unable to “be actively out searching for a job”.[/quote]

Oh I agree 100% when I left the fishing industry back in 89 it was starting to get tough then to get the hours required… Seasonal Workers who know that their time is limited and don’t intend to look for other work possibly should not get EI, but many of them are unskilled for other things would end up on Welfare… People should look at retrainning away for fishing… I agee that laid off school district employees are very unlikely to look for other work, but those people many so poorly paid and work all but the summer I am not as against them getting EI… lots of contradictions in this issue!