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B.C. government promises to tackle cellphone costs, poverty and money laundering

Feb 12, 2019 | 4:25 PM

VICTORIA — The B.C. government is promising to tackle cellphones costs, ticket scalpers, money laundering and poverty in a throne speech that also addresses an unfolding scandal at the legislature.

The province’s minority NDP government says it will launch a poverty reduction strategy in an effort to help more than 500,000 people living below the poverty line.

The government passed legislation last year to cut B.C.’s overall poverty rate by 25 per cent and the child poverty rate by 50 per cent over the first five years of the plan.

Other items in the government’s political agenda include rules to prevent the unfair resale of concert tickets and tabling legislation that makes B.C. the first province in Canada to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.