Too many children left behind in B.C.
Times Colonist
May 08, 2009
Lynne Marks, University of Victoria. She has published on B.C. social welfare policy, is the chairwoman of the University of Victoria's academic women's caucus and is the mother of a 12-year-old and a five-year-old.

There is one group of British Columbians who remain unheard in this election, and whose members have no vote. Premier Gordon Campbell talks of the glorious future he is building for all British Columbians. Does this future include the children?

What I see in my research, my workplace and my home suggests not.

British Columbia has for the past several years had the highest level of child poverty in Canada, at more than 20 per cent of all children.

What do such numbers mean? They mean that while other provinces take steps to reduce their child poverty rates, we continue to have the highest proportion of children who go to school hungry and go to bed hungry.

They mean we have the most children living, often for months at a time, with their parents in a motel room, because their families can't afford decent housing.

They mean more children who are removed from their families because child welfare authorities deem their accommodations substandard, when their parents simply can't afford better housing….

But our government doesn't seem willing to make the kind of basic changes -- like raising social assistance rates or minimum wages -- that could make a big difference to children's lives.

Politicians might face more pressure here as more people lose their jobs and find their children at risk, but so far the issue has been largely ignored. Even if we have the highest child-poverty rate in Canada, we are only talking about a minority of B.C. children, and a voiceless minority at that.

What about the majority of British Columbia's children? How are they doing?

Young children in this province have increasingly less access to quality care when their parents are at work, as a result of federal and provincial cuts to child care. Almost all quality child cares have waiting lists of over a year, and often much longer.

In my own workplace, I have had parents crying in my office because they have been forced to leave their children in care they don't trust while they are at work, having no other options.

Other employees complain of having to miss work or cut back on hours because of jury-rigged, temporary and inadequate child care.

And just last month three group child cares in Victoria announced their plans to close -- a loss of an additional 100 spaces in an already desperate situation.

And what about public education, key to the future of our children?

Despite government claims to the contrary, provincial funding is not keeping up with the increasing costs faced by school boards across the province, forcing them to make a range of cuts -- to the detriment of our children….

But children don't vote, and fine words about golden futures continue to obscure ugly realities.