Nice spin on the clawback. I have more respect for Sam Sullivan’s view on this. He lives with a disability every day and is actually well spoken on the subject unlike Horgan.

Sullivan is also rich so his perspective is different than poorer people who live with disabilities.

When they took the bus pass away,, They added money to their income check.. Which adds up to more money than the yearly bus pass.. Also, those who do not use the bus pass,, get the extra money. Which help in other ways of transportation.. The people who need a bus pass,, could use that money,, Which was given for transportation!!

Does not change the fact that over 3,500 disabled people in BC could not afford the fare increase and had to give up their bus passes!

ht tp://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-fee-prompts-3500-people-with-disabilities-to-give-up-bus-passes

Imagine that, 3,500 disabled people having to give up their bus passes, not because mobility issues and transportation wasn’t important for them, but because these poor people had to make the difficult choice between paying the new $52 dollar bus fee per month, or have it go towards food and shelter.

Obviously the disabled in BC are not high on this Christy Clark Liberal Government’s radar!

You are correct sayitaintso; starting last February there was a $77 per month increase in Persons with Disabilities (PWD) income, however, the February increase did little to lift those living on a disability benefit out of poverty.

The 35,000 People with Disabilities who currently access a subsidized annual bus pass see an increase of only $25 per month. The announced $77 per month increase is offset by an increase in the cost of transportation, from $450 a year to $669 a year.

The 20,000 people who currently access the Special Transportation subsidy see an increase of $11 a month. Only the 45,000 who received no subsidy previously see the full $77/month increase.

Even at the highest rate, Persons with Disabilities are expected to live on less than $1000 a month – approximately 40% below the poverty line for Vancouver, in 2011 dollars. Those on welfare receive no bus subsidy, so are living at about 60% below the poverty line. Taking the recent bus pass claw-back into account, Persons with Disabilities have received an increase of 2.8% since 2007, while rents have gone up 12% and food 23% in that period.

Let’s make this perfectly clear; Person with Disabilities living in BC live on less than $1,000 a month income while Persons with Disabilities in Alberta receive over $1,500 a month in Disability Benefits.

ht tp://phabc.org/health-voices/bc-welfare-and-disability-rates-threaten-residents-health/

Sullivan is a liberal mla which forces pwd to live in poverty in bc, so no he’s not for the common person. His government has had years to get people enough money to live on and have done nothing. Until the recent increase, pwd were living on $906 per month, with $375 for rent. Where you gonna get rent for that amount? Appalling record on disability.

There was a time when a visually impaired person registered with the CNIB, received a gratis transportation pass, for while they were fully functioning, they were unable to drive. The provincial government cancelled that.

A person I know who is visually impaired and not on disability, works either full or part-time, but has to pay his own transit. Lack of a driver’s license restricts him from many jobs already, plus, while transit has improved here, it isn’t perfect, nor are the hours it runs, so he relies on friends or fellow employees for later shifts.

There are many people who have “invisible” disabilites who are trying to do the best they can and not “free-load” off the government. I wish more people, including politicians, would remember that!

Stevie Wonder has a disability …… but he has other abilities which compensate and allow him not only to enjoy excellent financial security but also excellent emotional well-being.

There are many others who lives at that and even higher levels of “happiness”.

Once more, we have a word which defines many – people with different level of disabilities.

The question is, who is helping them discover the abilities they have to get them out of the psychological “dark” space many are in and move those who have the other capacities out of that into a live they can enjoy much more with more financial security and emotional well-being.

To people like BH, I ask them why they are consistently so negative, blaming lack of adequate government hand outs.

Talk more about the real capacity that humans have to help themselves, with the right kind of assistance, get over the life that fate dealt them.

Yes, there will be those hard-core cases which are virtually impossible and they must be assisted financially for the rest of their lives. But those are the minority when one looks at the situation in more detail rather than speaking in nonsensical generalities. It is evident form some of the posters that the generality does not apply to them or some of those they know.

“I am particularly saddened that thousands of people with disabilities in British Columbia lost their access to transit this year because of Christy Clark’s bus pass clawback.”

So, it seems from posters on here that Horgan does not know what he is talking about. It is like a US presidential candidate not knowing where Aleppo is.

Does he really think he has a chance?

Same old crap every 3.5 years. Whoever’s in opposition comes out of their hidey hole, starts thumping their chest, starts telling us how bad the other party is and promise to change things and make things all better.
Wish the NDP had a stronger leader instead of this weak knee.

Oh are the NDP getting back together for another election appearance? Haven’t seen them in years. What a pile of hot turds.

Same old, same old, do the research, present the facts that shows this government is a peddler in “human misery”; child poverty, kicking the disabled in their financial teeth, etc. and the response we get on here is “weak kneed” “pile of hot turds” name calling.

“When people start hurling insults, you know their minds are closed and there’s no point in debating. And so you disengage yourself as quickly as possible from the situation.” ~ Judith Martin