Disabled, welfare kids to miss out on summer camp after funds froze: Victoria won’t help hundreds of families with their fees as it tries to cut spending
Vancouver Sun
By Jonathan Fowlie
June 18, 2009

VICTORIA — Hundreds of B.C. families with disabled children or on income assistance are scrambling to replan their summers after the provincial government froze a program that helps children attend summer camps…

The program, which subsidized camp fees, was frozen because of a provincial cash crunch. For many, it means telling their children they may have to stay home this summer.

“It’s not right,” Forseth said, explaining she is on income assistance and partial disability and can’t afford to send her daughter to a camp without assistance from the province.

“If the government is saying the kids are our future, why are they doing this?” she asked.

“There’s going to be a lot of disappointed families.”

The freeze on the annual camping subsidy program, which last year cost less than $360,000, comes as ministers in Premier Gordon Campbell’s newly re-elected Liberal government are reviewing proposals to cut at least $1.9 billion in administrative and other costs over the next three years, $589 million of it in this fiscal year….

The government said Thursday that last year, the camping subsidy program gave grants of up to $200 to about 1,800 families, meaning it handed out a maximum of about $360,000.

Minister of Housing and Social Development Rich Coleman said the program has been frozen until he can determine if it can fit into the ministry’s budget, especially given that there has been a significant increase in demand for social assistance.

“If we have more people on social assistance, some of the extras that we can do from time to time may be affected by budget pressures,” he said.

“Everything that pays for this — whether it be income tax or sales tax — is going to be off on the revenue side, so that means that to do your job sometimes you need to make tough decisions on the spend side,” Coleman said….