Campaign 2000’s 20th report finds child poverty has dropped only 20 per cent
In 1989 MPs unanimously passed a resolution to eradicate child poverty by 2000. The deadline has long since passed, but not quietly.
Campaign 2000, a non-partisan, cross-Canada network of 120 national, provincial and community partner organizations, has been releasing report cards to see how the country is measuring up to its promise.
It released its 20th Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada on Nov. 23. Most notably, a total of 639,000 children, or approximately 10 per cent, are still living in poverty. This represents a drop of only 20 per cent over the last two decades. The figure is closer to one in four for First Nations children.
As well, children under 18 years of age represent about 22 per cent of the country’s population but account for 38 per cent of food bank users.
“We may be subject to the effects of the 2008 recession just now – but the reality is that Canada’s economy has more than doubled in size since the 1989 resolution in the House of Commons to end child poverty, yet the incomes of families at the bottom have virtually remained unchanged. The gap between rich and poor families has continued to widen, and low-income and average-income families are left struggling to keep up,” Campaign 2000 national coordinator Laurel Rothman said in the recent release.
Other findings in the report include:
• Employment income for families may not go far enough, as a third of low-income children live in families with at least one parent working full-time year round. Many of these parents earn less than $13.32 per hour.
• Without the income transfers, a quarter of children would have been living in poverty in 2009. Canada’s public programs brought the poverty rate down to 14 per cent (LICO Before-Tax).
• Despite the rise in the number of working mothers, the country still lags when it comes to the need for child care, as less than 20 per cent of children 12 years and younger have access to regulated child care spaces.
• A quarter of households spend more than 30 per cent of income on housing, and as a result, approximately 750,000 children (younger than 15 years old) live in housing that is either unaffordable, substandard, overcrowded or all three.
The report makes a number of recommendations, including calls for changes to employment insurance eligibility, a public system of early childhood education and care, enhanced child benefits for low-income families and a long-term national housing strategy.
By Mike Chouinard, kidSKAN managing editor. He can be reached at mike.chouinard@usask.ca.
