The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Lord's Bounty Food Bank volunteer Dennis Hydamaka is taking a wait-and-see approach to the impact of a boost to Manitoba welfare rates. Starting in February, the province will increase social assistance for single people, the disabled, and childless couples by $20 a month. The government will also stop reducing assistance cheques for parents by the amount of federal child benefit payments they receive. "It has to be a positive step, but whether it's enough or not, I don't know," said Hydamaka, food distribution chairman for the food bank. Between 85 and 90 per cent of the food bank's clients receive social assistance of some form. "It could have an effect on the number of times our clients will need us," said Hydamaka. "I really don't know at this point in time." The welfare boost will bring the general assistance rate for a single adult to $466 per month, while a single disabled person will receive $696 per month. Parents on welfare will see more substantial increases since their cheques will no longer be reduced by the amount of their child benefit payments for children aged 12 to 17. Cheques were being cut by $68 for one child, $114 for two, and another $43 for each additional child. While some poverty activists saw the boost as a step in the right direction, others attacked it as being insufficient. "I expected the NDP to move faster," David Northcott, executive director of Winnipeg Harvest, told the Winnipeg Free Press.
