One in five B.C. children in poverty
'It's embarrassing,' activist says of Statistics Canada figures released by child advocacy group
Lindsay Kines, CanWest News Service/Vancouver Sun
November 27, 2007

VICTORIA -- B.C. has posted the worst child poverty rate in the country for the fourth straight year, a new report shows.

Despite a booming economy, one in five children lived in poverty across the province in 2005, according to figures from Statistics Canada released Monday by First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition.

B.C. led all provinces with a poverty rate of nearly 21 per cent, compared with the national rate of 17 per cent.

"It's embarrassing," said Adrienne Montani, First Call's provincial coordinator. "And it just really shows a lack of will, because we know what to do about this."

First Call said B.C. should follow the lead of other provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec that have adopted strategies to reduce poverty.

The coalition recommends the B.C. government assign a cabinet minister to lead the strategy, raise welfare rates, restore earnings exemptions for people on income assistance, raise the minimum wage to $10.50 an hour from $8, and abolish the $6-an-hour training wage.

"Given how well our economy is doing, it's just not okay for us to keep pointing to how well some people are doing, or most people are doing, and say it doesn't matter that one in five kids in this province are not doing okay," Montani said.

As he has done in previous years, Employment and Income Assistance Minister Claude Richmond said the statistics were out of date.

"We've done an awful lot in the last two years to improve the lot of children and families," he said, noting a recent boost to welfare and shelter rates.

The child poverty rate dropped slightly from a record high of 24 per cent in 2002, and Richmond said the province is heading in the right direction…..

"A job is still the best thing that we can do for families," he said.

But Montani said Richmond has been dismissing the child- poverty data for four years, and that his excuses don't "wash" any longer.

"It's getting late to keep saying, 'It was somebody else's fault,' or 'Things have changed and they've gotten better,' " she said. "The economy has been going and they've been announcing surpluses; they've not been looking at why some people have been left behind."

Montani said it's not enough to create jobs, they have to be jobs that pay families enough to support their children. "That's not happening for too many families and too many kids," she said.

First Call's report notes that while some of B.C.'s poor children are living on welfare, the majority have parents who work. "Over half of B.C.'s poor children lived in families where at least one person had a full-time, full-year job," the report says….

NDP leader Carole James, whose party devoted the entire question period to grilling Richmond in the legislature, said the B.C. government's weak response to the issue has grown tiresome.

"If they were taking it seriously, we'd see an action plan, we'd see some outrage," she said. "All I hear from the minister is more excuses. 'Well, it's old statistics.' 'Well, our economy is doing well.' "