The poor really are getting poorer, at least in the Peace.

The B.C. NDP party is attacking the Liberals after a B.C. Stats report highlighted the growing issue of income disparity province-wide, an issue that the Peace has been trying to address for many years.

The report notes that the growing inequality in the distribution of wealth has been on the minds of people worldwide, as evident by the Occupy movements that happened across North America.

Based on data from 2008, the average income of the top 10 per cent of Canadians was 10 times higher than that of the bottom 10 per cent. And the numbers are disconcerting in B.C., according to the NDP.

“For too long, the Liberals have denied that economic inequality exists in a big way in British Columbia,” said NDP Finance Critic Bruce Ralston. “But this report from B.C. Stats shows that… B.C. is at the bottom of the pile.”

Among the provinces, only Alberta registered more after-tax income inequality. However, British Columbia has the largest income gap among the provinces when comparing the lowest 20 percent of earners with the highest 20 per cent.

“The Liberals believe very strongly in the trickle-down theory of economics, but it clearly isn’t working. The big breaks [they] give their big business friends haven’t trickled down to the average family in B.C.,” said Ralston. “Instead of helping families, the Liberals have hit them year after year with multiple fee increase and the HST.”

However, the Liberal government fires back stating that their investment in to business in B.C. is part of a bigger picture.

“Over the last ten years, this government has worked hard to bring high-paying jobs back to British Columbia,” said Finance Minister Kevin Falcon. “As an example, those are the mining jobs where the average worker earns over $100,000 per year.”

Falcon said that they have worked hard to improve tax rates for both businesses and individuals to attract companies that provide high paying jobs. He also noted that B.C. has one of the lowest provincial tax rates in Canada for individuals earning up to $119,000.

Falcon has also attracted a great deal of attention over his initial response to this report as he was quoted as saying earlier this week when questioned about the report, “…in Cuba they don’t have any income inequality because they’re all poor.”

The statement caused some uproar, but Falcon stood by the statement explained that income disparity differs in B.C. because there is opportunity for high-paying jobs where there isn’t in many other places, such as Cuba.

“I have no idea what the Liberals are going on about, or why they would compare the province of B.C. to a country like Cuba instead of other provinces,” said Ralston. “They clearly don’t take the struggles B.C. families are facing very seriously.”

However, locals note that this issue is nothing new and something that the Peace region has been dealing with for years as the gap between the high-paying natural resource industry jobs and the minimum-wage service jobs has been growing steadily.

“It’s not all high incomes. There’s a whole diversity of people here,” said Captain Ben Lippers, Executive Director of the Fort St. John Salvation Army.

“We don’t want to be too naïve on what’s happening up here because one of the issues in a booming economy is that we have a lot of people in our region that are seeing nice wages and doing well financially, but unfortunately what we see in these situations is that gap between the haves and the have-nots is starting to grow,” said Mike Bernier, Mayor and Economic Development Officer for Dawson Creek.

Though there are many great opportunities for families and individuals in the region, which tend to get all the publicity, Bernier explained that the area needs to be aware that there are still many people struggling to raise a family on a $12 per hour salary.

“There are people out there trying to support a family on $12 to13 bucks an hour, and you always need everything from a garbage collector to a lawyer. You need someone doing every job,” said Bernier. “In order for our society to succeed, we need people willing to do everything and you never want to say that one job is less important than another because you need them all in order to be successful in society.”

The challenge for the Peace region is to enable people living on smaller salaries to be able to afford living in the communities in which they work.

“[Disparity] is a big problem that we’re trying to address. And that means helping people at lower incomes that we do need to be able to enjoy life at that income level,” said Lippers.

One big piece of addressing income disparity in communities like Fort St. John and Dawson Creek is creating affordable housing.

Bernier said this has been a constant struggle in Dawson Creek with apartment buildings, suite rentals and even local hotels and motels operate with a near zero per cent vacancy year round.

“It’s a great opportunity for further investment, because you know if you come to Dawson Creek and build an apartment building or another hotel, you have a guaranteed source of income.”

However, the lack of rentals available has driven the price up in to unaffordable ranges for many families, forcing the city to look at other solutions.

“From a city perspective, that’s a supply and demand issue. We don’t have any influence over what landlords want to charge, but what we do have influence over is trying to encourage people to come to the community and invest,” said Bernier.

Both Dawson Creek and Fort St. John and looking at the affordable housing issue and similar solutions are being brought forward in their Official Community Plans. They are hoping that by addressing the need for more secondary suites, creating smaller lots for starter homes and opening up development for more multi-family housing they can provide more options for all income levels.

“Theoretically, what that will do is drop the prices of houses down so instead of all the new houses being $500,000, there are houses being built in the $250,000 range. And for a lot of people, that becomes affordable,” said Bernier.

Lippers pointed out that the cost of living and the fact that many people are living paycheque to paycheque are also contributing factors to the growing income disparity in the region.

“Even though we live a very good life, a lot of people who might look like they’re doing well really are not,” said LIppers. “In this day in age, if you look at the prices of stuff around you, you might be two bad decisions from being in the same place as the people using our services.”

Many people struggling to make ends meet are utilizing social services in the Peace region. In Fort St. John, over 4000 people use the food bank annually and more than 600 families are provided with hampers at Christmas time.

“I’m not trying to paint doom and gloom,” said Lippers. “For the most part, our community is a thriving one and it does very well and it’s very generous, but there is a cross section of our community that struggles.”

Both Lippers and Bernier said communities and districts in the Peace region are working hard on strategies to address the disparity issue and make living more affordable for families who draw in a lower income.

“People at a community level need to be cognizant of the fact that even though you might be doing well, your neighbor might not be,” said Bernier.

“We’re seeing a majority of the people in our area being quite successful, but we need to remember that it’s not everybody.”