MUNGALL WORKING FOR CONSTITUENTS AND BC’S VULNERABLE

Liberals back down on plans to cut funding from programs for survivors of domestic violence.

Programs that help survivors of violence were faced with the threat of having to reduce or even eliminate services. Funding for community services, to the tune of $440,000, was in the roster of recent cuts being made by the Provincial Government.

Michelle Mungall, MLA for Nelson Creston and Chair of the NDP Opposition Women’s Caucus along with NDP colleagues, community groups and city councillors, put the pressure on the Liberals to back down. Budgets will remain the same for the upcoming fiscal year. However, 1.2 million is still slated to be chopped for next year.

Mungall said that it is great to see that the funding will remain in place for the rest of this year, but she is worried that the Liberals approach to the budget is disorganized at best. “They’ve placed a band-aid on the cuts to services for victims of domestic violence. It is really going to hurt if they pull it off next year. That is why we must keep standing up for these important services. ”

Dina Bambrick of Kootenai Community Centre in Creston was very pleased to hear the good news. “It’s gratifying that politicians like Michelle really understand the dynamics of this work and how important it is,” she said. “They are willing to champion our cause and express how vital these services are. They spoke out and the Government heard!”

Salmo Community Services, while already delivering services on a thin budget will see no changes to the number of service hours per month that they are able to deliver. Citizens in Kaslo will not have to lose the support provided by North Kootenay Lake Community Services, but both of these centres will be facing severe limitations should next year’s budget come short again.

Lena Horswill of Nelson Community Services Centre says that it has taken years to build up their programs and they just cannot afford to backtrack and loose those services. “Cutting funding doesn’t make sense in the long run. Funding should be increased, not decreased”.

Michelle Mungall and the New Democrats will continue to hold the BC Liberals accountable for breaking their election promises to protect this province’s vital services.

Here's Michael Smyth's take in The Province on October 1.


Liberal backdowns just keep coming
Heed rushes to restore funds for battered women and kids

Sometimes it's not a bad thing for a rookie Opposition critic to get publicly upstaged by the government. Just ask Michelle Mungall.

Mungall, the first-term NDP MLA from Nelson, was just about to hammer the Liberals' cuts to domestic-violence programs this week when Solicitor-General Kash Heed stole her thunder.

Literally minutes before Mungall was to speak at a Tuesday news conference, Heed's office dropped a press release saying the government was backing away from the $440,000 cut to programs for family-violence victims -- mainly battered, abused and fearful women and children.

Heed, of course, insisted the timing of his flip-flop was coincidental.

He also said it had nothing to do with a scathing report from the province's independent watchdog for kids and families just a few days earlier that criticized the government after 70 domestic-violence-related murders in just five years.

The decision to restore the funding, Heed said, came after the government realized the cut was going to hurt front-line services to victims. He also said his own pre-politics career as a police officer gave him first-hand knowledge of how important the services are.

Which makes you wonder why the government cut them in the first place. Don't they analyze the impact of their cuts before they make them?
Cutting first and asking questions later might be part of the equation. But I suspect the more critical decision-making calculus here is how much political damage the Liberals absorb from their critics and the media.

If Mungall and children's commissioner Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond hadn't raised hell -- and if the media hadn't paid attention -- I doubt these nameless victims of violence would have seen their funding restored.

This is becoming a pattern from the Liberals. Consider these other politically-driven climb-downs:

- Hot-lunch program for poor school children: The government announced the grant for this program was being cut by $2 million. Many negative headlines later, the education ministry announced it was topping the budget up.

- Outreach van for sex-trade workers: The van patrols the streets of Metro Vancouver to assist and protect prostitutes. Cut by the Liberals in June, the agency that runs the service staged a summer-long media campaign and funding was restored in August.

- Three-year gaming grants: Cancelled after the government suggested its own letters to community groups confirming the grants were not legally binding contracts. Reversed after a question-period shellacking.

- Summer-camp subsidy for poor and disabled kids: Restored after a public outcry.

Get set for more of these as the Liberals' summer of cutbacks turns into a fall of discontent. As the weather gets colder, the government is still wearing the flip-flops.

Actions Speak Louder than Words: Liberal Government's latest lies

Today the Liberal Government said that they support literacy, but are cutting several literacy programs, including adult literacy and funding to rural reading centres like that in Riondel.

They also said that they are committed to supporting the most disadvantage citizens during tough economic times. Women and children survivors of violence are among the most disadvantaged in our porvince.

Yet, Liberals are cutting $440,000 from Stop the Violence, Children Who Witness Abuse and Outreach/Multicultural Outreach front-line services known to intervene and prevent further domestic violence. That's just this year. Next year the cut is $1.2million between two different Ministries: Solicitor General and Housing and Social Development, as services have been split up between the two Minisitries.

This years cut will likely equate to a loss of 17,600 counselling hours for women and children survivors of violence, as reported by service agencies.

The NDP Opposition has been asking questions about these cuts and the raising the issue important of services that stop violence against women and children.

Watch online at :

Michelle Mungall, MLA – QP clip: Funding for Domestic Violence Programs – Sep 22, 2009

September 23, 2009 - Question Period - Dawn Black

Carole James-Domestic Violence Question Period September 24, 2009

Maurine Karagianis-Domestic Violence-Question Period September 24, 2009

Mable Elmore-Domestic Violence-Question Period September 24, 2009

Dawn Black-Domestic Violence-Question Period September 24, 2009

On the Radio

For Glacier-Howser Creeks – CKNW Vancourver 3:30 PM - September 9, 2009

New Democrat MLA for Nelson says government ought to pull the plug on Glacier Howser power project

Announcer: A private power project in the Kootenays has been halted because of environmental concerns raised by the provincial government.
Reporter: The Environment Assessment Office is worried the controversial Glacier Howser development will hurt local fish habitat. Lee-Ann Unger with the West Kootenay Eco Society says the project is not dead but this decision is a victory.

Lee-Ann Unger: It’s a really significant step and it really shows AXOR, the project’s proponent, hasn’t done their homework and that there are such serious risks to the environment that the government had to stop the clock on the process.

Reporter: Unger says more than 11 hundred people recently attended a public meeting on the project in Kaslo, a town with a population of 1,029.
Announcer: Meanwhile, the New Democrat MLA for Nelson, Michelle Mungall, says rather than simply delay approving the project, the B.C. government should just kill it.

Michelle Mungall: It’s had overwhelming opposition. We clearly don’t want this private power project in our region. AXOR, the proponent, has failed to comply with the environmental assessment standards twice now.

Announcer: She says more than 90% of submissions received by the government so far have opposed the project.

On the HST, Government Deceit, and the First Two Weeks in the Ledgislature - CIDO, Creston Valley Independent Radio, September 11, 2009

Listen here: http://crestonradio.ca/archives.html