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Finally, I want to congratulate all of the members of this organization, the Executive Board and all of the volunteers who make the success of Burnaby Family Life possible.  Without you, there would be no organization and our community would not receive the benefit of the programs you work so hard to provide.

I’ve been asked to speak on how social services issues are affecting the quality of life in Burnaby.  That is not a pleasant topic but, unfortunately, it is a topic that needs to be addressed.

We are living in an increasingly complex and sophisticated world.  Without the skills to deal with these issues, people are effectively handicapped in their efforts to make their lives better.

I have never believed that we can make people equal in our society.  People are born with different abilities, different desires and different ambitions.  But we can treat people equally and we can give them an equal opportunity to succeed in life.  I think that is what Burnaby Family Life is all about ............... giving people the tools they need to improve the quality of life for themselves and for their families.

The two basics for equal opportunity are health care and education.  Healthy, well-educated people have the most chance for success, do the most for their community and contribute the most to their country.

That’s why Canadians prioritize health care and education.  They know they are the foundations for social and economic well-being.  But realistically both health care and education are expensive.  They require significant investment and the funding is continual and expanding.  Even more realistically, the alternative to spending money on health care and education is also very expensive.  Poor health and lack of education are the precursors of poverty, crime, dependence and dysfunction.  Like the old Fram Oil commercial it’s “pay me now or pay me later”.  If you don’t invest in prevention, your community will suffer the disease.  Obviously, cities with their limited tax base cannot fund social services, health care or education.  Instead, we receive the impact of decisions to reduce support in these areas.  We get more crime, homelessness and family problems.

Very few people, with the exception of those here tonight, understand the problem of poverty in our communities.  Burnaby is suffering from increasing poverty, decreasing social services and a gradual erosion of a social safety net for those in need.

New immigrants are entering our community all the time, but there is a real lack of settlement services, language instruction and job-training.  People who want to contribute can’t do so because of language and cultural barriers, isolation and an inability to enter the mainstream of Canadian Society.  In my view, it is irresponsible to have people enter Canada without any plan to make their lives meaningful.  (Jeanne Fike tells me that Burnaby Family Life can speak 24 languages, but they were asked to serve people in 53 languages in just the last year.)  I’m very impressed by the number of languages spoken by Family Life staff, but I’m amazed at the number of languages spoken in our community.

Even if you are not one of the people who faces the daunting task of learning a new language and new customs, poverty can be a quagmire that offers no escape.  With land prices so high, it is almost impossible to find affordable housing in the urban centre.  Add the high cost of transportation and childcare - it almost makes it impossible to break the cycle of poverty and dependence.

That’s why it is so important for agencies like Burnaby Family Life to receive support and funding.  You help people cope with the problem in their lives and you help people to enter the community and the workforce.  You teach people how to raise their families and how to deal with problems that seem insurmountable.  Each day you make a difference in individual lives.

As Mayor of Burnaby, I am very disappointed in the continual reduction in funding that you cope with and the ongoing battle to maintain your services.  No order of government could ask you to perform more cost effectively or offer more caring contact with our citizens.  It is short-sighted to put that service in constant jeopardy and it must be very frustrating for your staff, your board, your members and most importantly, your clients.

So where are we going?  I continue to be optimistic about the ability of a few citizens to make real change in the world.  In Burnaby, we have tried to make social inclusion a part of our community life.  Within our limited means, we support important agencies in our city.  We make financial contributions, we use density bonusing to create affordable office space, we encourage developers to provide accessible accommodation, we demand a social housing component in major developments, we purchase and lease land to accommodate affordable housing, we provide a recreational credit of $150 per person to ensure everyone can use our facilities, we protect and enhance our environment and we encourage economic growth.  We even maintain buildings to allow our community groups inexpensive rentals and the ability to work together and share resources.  We are also the owners of numerous daycare facilities, operated by non-profit groups to provide affordable care for children in our community.  Our community school program makes local schools a center of neighbourhood activity.  I could go on and on about the things we are doing to make Burnaby a more socially inclusive city, but I know we all need to work harder to do more. 

Right now, in response to the Interagency Council work on poverty in our community, we are undertaking a social mapping of our city to layer over our geographic profile.  This will provide a clear view of our social resources, our needs and the appropriate future plans to meet those needs. 

This is the first time a project of this nature has been done in Canada, so we are leading the way again in our approach to social infrastructure.  We hope that this mapping will help us to gain cooperation from other orders of government in providing resources to our city and we also hope this project will help our social service agencies in their planning and growth.

The problems that families and individuals face in our community are multi-faceted and they require a broad range of solutions.  No one government or one agency can do everything, so we have to work together if we want to make a real difference in people’s lives.

I want to again thank the members of Burnaby Family Life for their ongoing commitment to Burnaby.  The work you do each and every day makes the whole community stronger.  I wish the very best over the next year.  I know that many of our citizens are counting on you and I know you will do everything humanly possible to deliver the help they need.