Child poverty rate in city one of B.C.'s worst
Burnaby Now
May 10, 2008 
By: Brooke Larsen

Burnaby has the third-highest child poverty rate in B.C., a child advocacy group says.

A report from First Call B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition shows that 29.2 per cent of Burnaby children live in poverty.

Only Richmond, with 31.4 per cent, and Prince Rupert, at 29.6 per cent, had higher rates of child poverty in B.C.

The lowest child poverty rate in B.C. was 5.1 per cent, in central Saanich.

The numbers refer to before-tax income in 2005. The report uses data released last week by Statistics Canada.

First Call estimates there are 180,000 B.C. children living poverty.

Burnaby's large new immigrant and refugee populations explain the city's placement on the list, First Call spokesperson Adrienne Montani said.

"You have a large new immigrant population, and, especially, a refugee population around Edmonds," Montani said….

Montani said a provincial child-care system would go a long way to help families in poverty.

"Child-care costs can prevent a parent from going to work at all if it's a single-parent family," she said.

Montani also wants to see minimum wage raised to $10 or $10.50 an hour and see social assistance rates indexed to housing, food, transit and clothing costs.

"The welfare rates are quite arbitrarily set," she added.

Raj Chouhan, NDP MLA for Burnaby-Edmonds, agreed that raising minimum wage would help B.C.'s poorest families….