Families? Nowhere near first

Families? Nowhere near first By Dale Perkins, Times Colonist Re: "$15 million in gaming grants restored," March 25. If we needed another signal that Premier Christy Clark's B.C. Liberals are not about families and at-risk children, we need look no further than the gambling and gaming files. Both have caused and still cause horrendous social problems for unimaginable numbers of families: personal bankruptcies, family breakups, even suicides directly attributed to gambling addiction. Obviously, this government has become addicted to gambling/gaming revenues -more than $1 billion came in 2010. This benign form of volunteer taxation is something the B.C. Liberals don't want to acknowledge or reduce. Newly minted minister Ida Chong now will hand out an additional $15 million to certain charities and community groups from the huge profits they make from gambling and gaming -hardly something to brag about even as she encourages the BCLC to carry on its insidious campaign to lure more of us into the gambling habit. Such hypocrisy, and how disingenuous of Clark and Chong to pretend they really care about families and at-risk children. Dale Perkins Victoria