Surrey-Fleetwood MLA Jagrup Brar has accepted Raise the Rates’ challenge to live on the basic income assistance rate for a single person of $610. He is doing this for the month of January. Mr. Brar will write a daily diary which will be posted on mlaonwelfare.com and there will be regular media coverage.

While his experience differs from most people living on welfare as he is in good health, has adequate clothing and will only live in poverty temporarily he will nonetheless have to endure struggling to make $610 last for one month.

The aim of the challenge is to raise public awareness about BC’s inadequate welfare rates and the income assistance system’s barriers to access. People who need income assistance should not be forced to live in poverty. Raise the Rates hopes to gain public support to encourage the Province to improve the system and raise welfare rates.

In addition to focusing on basis income assistance, Raise the Rates also wants Mr. Brar to hear the experiences of people living on provincial disability benefits. If you are interested in sharing your experience with him about living on disability benefits please come to:

Thursday, Jan 26
Carnegie Centre
401 Main Street, Vancouver
Classroom 2, top floor
10:00am – 12:00pm

 If you would prefer to remain anonymous when you meet Mr. Brar, that’s fine. Raise the Rates will also ensure that any media present will respect your privacy if that is your preference.

If you are going to attend, it would be most helpful if you could let Robin Loxton know by emailing him at povpost.bccpd.bc.ca.

Please take a moment to read the following missing person’s report for Violet Puskas:

http://vpdreleases.icontext.com/2012/01/10/missing-person-for-location/

Violet is a good friend of the BCCPD and we are all very worried about her. Please share this on your social networks and keep an eye out for Violet. If you think you may have seen her, please notify the police.

Do you have headaches? If so, do you want to learn more about your headaches? You can now from anywhere in the world with a new iPhone application developed by a research team at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The app has a pain diary that allows you to conveniently track your headaches whenever they happen and provides helpful reports to help you to identify your headache patterns.

The study is entirely electronic, so you can participate no matter what country you are from. Follow this link if you would like participate in the research study to test out the application: http://crfh.ca/whi

Participants will be reimbursed with a $20.00 CAD gift card for their time.

Principal investigator:      Dr. Patrick McGrath
Coordinator:                       Dr. Anna Huguet
Contact:                               Wireless.Headache@gmail.com