Child poverty meeting rejected by premier
Paul Willcocks’ blog
JULY 07, 2009

It seemed a reasonable request.

The Representative for Children and Youth asked Premier Gordon Campbell and NDP leader Carole James to meet with her on the growing problem of child poverty.

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the representative, is worried. For six years in a row, Statistics Canada reported, B.C. has had the highest child poverty rate in Canada.

And the recession has greatly increased the number of children at risk.

Children's lives today, and their futures, should be above partisan considerations. Turpel-Lafond invited the two leaders to sit down and talk about what is being done, and could be done, to help children.

James said yes.

Campbell said no. He refused even a meeting, brushing off the Children and Youth Representative and the issue of child poverty.

There are reasons for the premier to worry. The representative might point out problems - that is part of the job, created in as a result of the damning Hughes' report on the government's failures on children's issues. James might look for political advantage.

But the plight of some 126,000 B.C. children - with that number growing each week - seems more important than those political considerations.

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