By David P. Ball
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On Tuesday, the provincial government announced it would be topping up disability assistance benefits by $175 a month starting in April — after having axed its disability pandemic supplement nearly twice as much just months earlier.

According to a press release from Nicholas Simons, the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, the increase would kick in starting April 1.

"More than 300,000 British Columbians will benefit from the largest-ever permanent increase to income assistance and disability assistance rates," the minister stated Tuesday. "This past year has been challenging for everyone, and especially so for those British Columbians already relying on assistance to make ends meet."

While the move is, however, a permanent raise to assistance for people with disabilities in B.C., advocates with the $300ToLive campaign say it still doesn't bring people up to even the poverty level, especially in Vancouver.

On Thursday, the campaign is holding an "Out of Poverty Parade" to call for deeper reforms to the province's assistance policies, including their demand that the top-up be raised permanently to $300 a month, which would be roughly one-quarter higher than current rates of $1,183 monthly— and still below the $2,000 a month poverty line in Vancouver.

Organizer Kier Gray told The Pulse on CFRO that changes are urgently needed not just during the Covid-19 pandemic but in a decades-long crisis that's left many people with disability forced to choose which bills to pay, whether to eat or feed their kids, or pay for essential medicines or treatments.

The rally on Thursday will be held at 12:30 p.m. at the corner of Hornby and Dunsmuir. More information is available on Facebook.