BC Government selling women’s lives to the lowest bidder: June 2003

BC Coalition of Women's Centres

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Media Release
June 10, 2003
For immediate release

BC Government selling women’s lives to the lowest bidder

BC – The BC Coalition of Women’s Centres is calling attention to the outrageous actions of the BC Ministry of Human Resources, which is now measuring its success by the number of people entering crime, hitting the streets, or dying.

The BC Association of Social Work – Okanagan Branch*, has uncovered contracts worth millions of taxpayer dollars to private, pre-employment contractors – contracts which allow these contractors to collect money for the “disappeared.”

According to the BC Association of Social Workers, a Freedom of Information request has produced contract #cesp46075030486, which could be worth almost $17.4 million in billings to the Ministry of Human Resources' program. The contract specifies that "Payments will be made to the Contractor on achievement of the cumulative full months a Participant is independent of Income Assistance". The Association states, “The Ministry of Human Resources has confirmed that payments would continue if the client died, moved out of province, or otherwise disappeared.”

In other words, pre-employment and “job placement” contractors in BC are paid simply for any client that never darkens the doorstep of MHR again. Whether women are employed, in jail, in hospital, on the streets panhandling, selling their bodies, or involved in other crime, with or without their children, as long as MHR never sees them again, the BC Government will declare it a success. On top of this, no one is tracking clients, so the Ministry has no idea where women will end up.

Pre-employment and employment contracts have been given to the lowest bidder, which leaves women vulnerable to those who may be out to make a quick buck at the expense of women’s lives.

This lack of concern for the well-being of clients may lead to women finding themselves under increased pressure to enter (or re-enter) the sex trade, to return to (or enter into) abusive relationships in exchange for financial support, or to engage into other dangerous and potentially illegal situations. Contractors will be earning money every time a woman is murdered and her death goes unreported to the Ministry.

It is conceivable that a private contractor could unwittingly wind up profiting from another incident similar to the horror of the Missing Women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

This, combined with Ministers and senior bureaucrats getting ‘bonuses” for numbers declining in Ministry of Human Resources, is morally reprehensible.

Although the Government of BC claims that, in three “Exit Surveys” done with former clients, 50 to 67 per cent left for work, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in a report on welfare policy released yesterday, the Ministry’s surveys have only ever achieved a response rate of 32 – 33 per cent. Of those sought for the surveys, 40, 46 and 48 per cent, respectively, did not have a phone number in service, while another quarter to one fifth were either “unavailable” or declined to be interviewed.

The BC Coalition of Women’s Centres has obvious concerns about the concept of anyone profiting from the vanishing of clients. What is even more concerning is that it will inevitably cost taxpayers more to pay these private contractors, than it would have cost to keep women, and their children, alive and in reasonable health. We are convinced that the citizens of British Columbia do not want our province’s most poor and vulnerable women and children to be treated like our highways, and sold to the most interested bidder.

If the Government of BC is truly concerned about helping women enter or re-enter the workplace, then it will ensure women have access to quality and accessible child care, transportation allowances or bus passes, and a higher minimum wage. It will ensure women have access to appropriate long-term training and education, and it will concern itself with building an economy that supports all of our citizens, and not merely a privileged few.

*Correction: this information was mistakenly cited as being from BCASW. It is from an article by David Schreck.

If you have questions/comments for BCCWC, please e-mail us at bcwomen@telus.net For other contact information, please go to our Information Page

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