In BC, How Unequal Are We?
The same day that it was reported that Jim Pattison's net worth had reached an estimated $7.39 billion, up $1.25 billion from last year, a man on the street in Victoria asked me to buy him a breakfast sandwich from a fast food joint.
Perhaps in his 60s, the man had a scraggly beard, hair to his shoulders and nicotine-stained fingers. His hand shook as he raised a paper coffee cup to his lips. The one time merchant seaman said he had a place to live at the nearby hospital.
When I told him I was working on a series of articles about inequality, he said Liberals and Conservatives are all the same and that it's tough for socialists to get elected, even though that's what's needed to address the issue.
To say there is inequality in British Columbia and in Canada is to state the obvious. While the wealth of our richest is the stuff of fawning headlines, the stories run beside others about the persistence of child poverty and the continued reliance of many on food banks.
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http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2014/01/28/BC-Income-Inequality/
