Reinstate funding to organizations that provide crucial services to Senior Citizens in the Province of British Columbia

Petition to reinstate funding to organizations that provide crucial services to Senior Citizens in the Province of British Columbia


To: Honourable Gordon Campbell, Premier of British Columbia; Honourable Carole James, Leader, New Democratic Party of British Columbia; All Members of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly; All Political Parties in British Columbia

Cc: Her Excellency, The Right Honourable Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada; The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P. Prime Minister of Canada; Honourable Michael Ignatieff, M.P. Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada; Honourable Gilles Duceppe, M.P. Leader of the Bloc Quebecois Party; Honourable Jack Layton, P.C., M.P. Leader of the New Democratic Party
All Members of Parliament; City Councillors in British Columbia Cities; All Concerned Canadian and Global Citizens; Various Media and Listservs

We, the undersigned concerned Canadian and Global Citizens write to you to voice our concerns about the sudden cuts in funding by the British Columbia Provincial Liberal Government to organizations that provide crucial services to Senior Citizens in the Province of British Columbia.

Authorities that oversee funding to Senior Citizens in British Columbia have implemented directives from the Provincial Government of British Columbia to cut funding to services for Senior Citizens, ending critical support provided by Outreach Workers to A) Reduce isolation. B) Provide inexpensive nutrition and social interaction. C) Provide information and referral to mitigate disabilities and navigate through the very government bureaucracy that is currently responsible for targeting them for funding cuts. D) Provide Caregiver support, without which both the caregivers and those cared for become at risk. E) Organize volunteers who provide free vital social interaction and links to the community.

For years, organizations assisting Senior Citizens have successfully provided these services with the meager funding that the government has now cut and continues to cut. For years, there has been no increase in funding from the very government that is now targeting and abusing our vulnerable Honourable Senior Citizens!

Without core funding from the government, organizations assisting Senior Citizens cannot carry on all the vital community services they have been providing to our valued Senior Citizens. All of this help will be gone or compromised if the core funding organizations assisting Senior Citizens get from the Government is not reinstated.

We voice our concerns about the impact that such a loss of services will have. Our Senior Citizens will lose their independence. Acute care resources will become over taxed and the effects will cascade through our communities.

We write to request for intervention and support in reinstating funding to organizations assisting Senior Citizens.

Cultures around the world hold their Elders in the highest Esteem and get Blessings for looking after them.

Let us not continue to be the pariahs we are in North America where Elders are concerned. Let us learn from cultures around the world that honour Elders instead of abusing them like we do our Senior Citizens in North America! Let us learn from our very own First Nations people who honour Elders and hold them in the highest Esteem!

Let us not abrogate our moral responsibility to take care of our Senior Citizens.

Having paid their dues in their younger years, the current treatment of our Senior Citizens by the British Columbia Provincial Government is morally reprehensible. It is a blatant disregard for the hard labour they contributed towards earning the civil liberties and the conveniences we now enjoy and take for granted!

Our Senior Citizens dont deserve the abuse they are currently getting from the Liberal Government of British Columbia and we should stop actions that target them as the vulnerable and easy targets they have now become because of years of hard labour.

We should stop actions that repay the hard labour our Elders contributed in their prime years with cruelty.

We will all become Elders one day so let us not be like the stupid Proverbial Ostrich that has its head in the sand! Let us treat our Elders with kindness, sensitivity and the utmost respect they have earned and deserve!

God Bless You for speaking out on behalf of our Senior Citizens and taking care of them in their Golden Years as they did subsequent generations in their Prime Years!

You can help by letting everyone know about this gross injustice to our Elders! Stop governments, groups and individuals from discriminating against and abusing our Elders! Join a movement to make Elder Abuse as morally reprehensible as Racism. Shame anyone and everyone who abuses Elders!