OTTAWA–One out of every eight children in Canada is living in poverty and the federal government's focus on tax cuts over social programs means there's little help coming, child advocates say.
Despite years of economic growth, low unemployment and a national pledge made almost 20 years ago to eradicate child poverty, some 788,000 children today live in impoverished conditions that stand as a "national shame."
Ontario remains the "child poverty capital" with 345,000 children in families living below the poverty line, according to the 2007 national report card on child and family poverty in Canada.
Faced with criticisms his government has not done enough, Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg insisted the Conservatives were tackling child poverty in Canada.
"We have put in place $1.4 billion for affordable housing. Today, we are investing more in child care and more in training than any government in history," he said in question period yesterday.
Despite his optimistic outlook, poverty activists were painting a bleaker picture as they released their annual report showing little progress made on child poverty – 18 years after the House of Commons passed an all-party resolution to end the problem in Canada by 2000.
"It does not have to be this way.... The federal government has the fiscal resources to lift children out of poverty if it does not give them away in general across-the-board tax cuts," said Ann Decter, national co-ordinator of Campaign 2000, a coalition of social action groups devoted to building Canadian awareness and support for the 1989 resolution.
"We are calling on the federal government to step up to the plate with a comprehensive poverty-reduction strategy," she told a Parliament Hill news conference. "Poverty reduction requires major federal investment in social housing, in early learning and child care."
Having a job is no answer to escaping poverty – in 2005, 41 per cent of all low-income children lived in families where at least one parent had a full-time job, she said.
"More parents are working but are still poor," she said.
The report card says that while prosperity has produced more jobs for low-income parents, "they're not finding jobs with sufficient pay, hours and benefits to lift their families out of poverty."
Among the report's revelations:
Children of recent immigrants and single mothers, as well as children with disabilities, face greater chances of growing up poor.
The average low-income family needs $9,000 to $11,000 more a year to lift themselves out of poverty.
Poor families rely on food banks for their meals. In 2006, 280,900 children used food banks, double the number in 1989.
Child poverty rates are at double-digits in all provinces except for Alberta, Prince Edward Island and Quebec, where a poverty-reduction strategy is producing results, Decter said.
Decter was joined by MPs from the three opposition parties who supported the call for a national strategy to set timelines and targets to reduce poverty rates for children and adults.
