Campaign 2000 Report at:
http://www.campaign2000.ca/
------------------------------------------------

Child poverty rises for first time in six years
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1101180066249_72/?hub=Canada
Canadian Press, Nov. 22 2004

OTTAWA — The level of child poverty is up slightly for the first time in
six years despite a humming economy and federal coffers bursting with extra
cash, says an anti-poverty group.

A yearly report card to be released Wednesday by Campaign 2000 calls on
Ottawa to pay down what it calls Canada's "social deficit."

About a million children, more than 15 per cent of all Canadian kids, are
growing up poor in a country that consistently posts budget surpluses, says
the group, a coalition of 90 anti-poverty organizations across Canada.

Campaign 2000 blames reduced access to employment insurance, lack of
affordable housing, the high cost of child care and tax policies that
penalize welfare families. It has repeatedly called on Ottawa to spend an
extra $18 billion a year on related programs.

The federal Social Development Department, using Statistics Canada figures
from 2002, says the child poverty rate is closer to 10 per cent or 700,000
children.

Whatever numbers are used, the situation is "a disgrace," says veteran New
Democrat MP Ed Broadbent.

Kids are still waking up and going to bed hungry 15 years after MPs
unanimously supported his motion to wipe out child poverty by 2000, he
said.

"It's an abominable record. It's something that could have been dealt with
in the 1990s."

Broadbent blames Prime Minister Paul Martin for a lack of government
action. Little has changed since the former finance minister erased large
annual deficits by the late 1990s with the help of deep cuts to social
programs, Broadbent said.

"We've had a very socially conservative government. Mr. Martin came in.
Yes, the deficit had to be dealt with early on. But we've had seven surplus
budgets since then, and if he wasn't so damned conservative . . . he
would've taken care (of the problem)."

Martin likes to stress that Ottawa spent about $8 billion last year for
National Child Benefit payments to help working-poor families. The
government has also promised $5 billion over five years to set up a
national child-care program, and it pledged $2 billion over six years to
build more affordable housing and upgrade shelters.

Still, Social Development Minister Ken Dryden says it's not enough.

"We need to do better," he said Monday. "We need to find other and
additional . . . ways of doing better."

Asked if he had any ideas on what should happen first, Dryden said: "Not
yet, no."

Campaign 2000 measures hardship using Statistics Canada's low-income
cut-offs. By those standards, a family of four is deemed to be in
"straitened circumstances" if its before-tax income is less than $37,253 in
a major city and less than $25,744 in a rural area.

Conservative groups like the Fraser Institute argue that such gauges
overstate the extent of true poverty. The real child poverty rate is around
10 per cent if only the most basic housing, food, clothing and medical
needs are considered, it says.

Anti-poverty advocates counter that an explosion of food-bank use in the
last 10 years shows how social spending cuts by Ottawa and the provinces
have played out.




© Copyright 2004 Bell Globemedia Inc.

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