[piano music...]

A lot of people think poverty is a problem

for other people in other neighbourhoods.

But even if you, or no one you know

is ever affected by poverty,

not doing anything about poverty

is costing us all.

It's costing money.

More and more money, every single year.

British Columbia has the highest poverty rate in Canada.

Not addressing this comes with a price.

And this is what it looks like

when we do the math:

For starters, it costs us one point two billion dollars per year

to pay for the healthcare costs related to poverty.

That's because poverty is literally bad for your physical and mental health.

You're more likely to live in

poor quality or unsafe housing,

or none at all.

You're more likely to go hungry,

have a job that exposes you to hazards,

or end up with preventable health conditions.

We've heard a lot lately

about how we need to get "tough on crime",

but some crime could be prevented by reducing poverty,

which is linked to

crimes of desperation, low literacy rates, and living in unsafe situations.

The poverty related costs of crime in BC

add up to $745million per year.

Then, there's the income that the poor might have earned from working,

if they had access to better supports and training.

Or the income that the working poor could have earned

if their jobs paid better wages.

This is also a loss to our economy

to the collective wealth of our society.

And it adds up to as much as 7 point 3 billion dollars per year.

So that's what it's costing us

to stick with the status quo

of keeping one in nine British Columbians in poverty.

All together, it works out to between

8 and 9 billion dollars every year.

This is a terrible deal.

And the worst part of this

is that it would cost us

between 3 and 4 billion dollars per year

to put an effective, poverty reduction plan in place.

That's less than half of what poverty is costing us now.

You don't have to be an economist

to see that it costs more to keep people in poverty

than it does to fix the problem.

It's just simple math.

Not for other people

in other neighbourhoods,

but for all of us.