The Editor,

According to Statistics Canada, British Columbia leads the country in child poverty. B.C. has a child poverty rate of 23.5 per cent. That's almost one in four children! This figure does not include the 20,000 Aboriginal children living on reserves where the child poverty rate is twice that of non-aboriginal children. Our wonderful neighbour next door, Alberta, has a child poverty rate of only 14.5 per cent and Prince Edward Island has the lowest in the country with 10.8 per cent.

With these alarming statistics you would think the provincial government would be passing legislation to help erode child poverty in B.C. There are many things the government can do, such as abolishing the training wage and increasing the minimum wage to help low-income working families; providing all new mothers in the province who are living below the poverty line with a baby bonus; enhancing the parental leave program; fund more child care subsidy and create more child care spaces to remove barriers for families wanting to enter the workforce; skip the GST cut or increase the PST and fund child poverty programs; and of course there should be nutritious universal "free to low cost" pre-packaged cold or hot lunch programs in all public schools in the province for elementary, junior and senior kids.

Its is astonishing that with such a huge surplus a generation of kids is growing up in poverty. For families that are working, the low wages and often the inadequate hours, coupled with the high cost and lack of day care are major barriers that result in keeping many hard working families living below the poverty line.

There is no excuse for a rich province like British Columbia to have so many children living in poverty. Let's hope the premier and the B.C. government seriously start addressing this problem before we become the child poverty capital of not only Canada but of North America!