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Report at:  http://www.unicef-icdc.org/
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Canada ranks poorly for child poverty
Unicef places nation 19th among 26 developed countries
By MARGARET PHILP

Tuesday, March 1, 2005
Updated at 8:15 AM EST

Among the world's wealthiest nations, Canada falls near the bottom of the
pack when ranked by its level of child poverty.

In a Unicef report to be released today, rare for turning a lens on the
rich rather than the developing world, Canada is 19th among the 26
countries ranked according to their record of child poverty, a dubious
distinction that places the country behind the Czech Republic, Hungary and
Poland, though ahead of the United States and Britain.

It is the second report by the Florence-based Unicef Innocenti Research
Centre on child poverty in countries of the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development. It shows that the number of poor children,
14.9 per cent in Canada in 2000, barely budged in the nearly five years
since the first study placed this country 17th out of 23.

"We're doing extremely poorly," said Barabara Strang, a spokeswoman for
Unicef Canada. "I think Canadians will be quite shamed to see we're in the
bottom third of OECD nations in terms of child poverty."

The report regards poverty as a relative measure, calculating the
percentage of poor children as those whose families' incomes fall below a
line drawn at 50 per cent of the median for the country.

In the eyes of the Unicef researchers, poverty in rich countries is the
point below which children cannot afford the trappings that are considered
normal and necessary to others around them.

Unicef draws special attention to Canada's definitional dithering over a
poverty yardstick. It says countries must set targets for eliminating child
poverty, next to impossible while they remain stalled by endless debate
over its measurement.

"Clearly, 18 other nations in the OECD have figured out a better system for
protecting their children from poverty," Ms. Strang said.

For Maria Rodrigues and her four-year-old daughter Rowan, child poverty in
a rich country such as Canada is not a case of starvation and ragged
clothing, but rather food banks, long waiting lists for subsidized housing
and scrounging for free children's recreational programs. Ms. Rodrigues is
a regular at her local library.

Trained as a bookkeeper, she suffers from bipolar disorder and has endured
long stints of unemployment most of her life. She collects a $579 welfare
cheque every month, but even second-hand clothes are a luxury she can
scarcely afford.

Still a preschooler, Rowan is oblivious to her poverty.

"I think it probably starts when they go to school and start comparing
themselves to other kids," said Ms. Rodrigues, a single mother who pays
$235 a month for her subsidized apartment in Toronto.

"You know how you go to the store and they say, 'I want this and I want
that'? I just say, 'I don't have the money right now. I'll get it for you
later.' And she says, 'Okay, later.' I'm trying to instill a sense of
limitation and not take whatever she has for granted."

The Unicef report shows that the lowest rates of child poverty are in
Scandinavian countries where more than 10 per cent of gross domestic
product is devoted to social programs that have worked to reduce so-called
market poverty, the percentage of people who would be poor were there no
tax breaks and other government intervention, by at least 80 per cent.

The countries with the lowest rates of child poverty are Denmark, at 2.4
per cent, followed by Finland, Norway and Sweden.

"We can do better as a country," said John Anderson, vice-president with
the Canadian Council on Social Development. "We have the resources right
now to do better and I don't think this is acceptable to be 19th out of 26
when there are so many countries who are not as rich as we are and able to
do better."

Bringing up the rear on the list are Mexico, with a child poverty rate of
27.7 per cent, the United States, at 21.9 per cent, and Italy, at 16.6 per
cent. All six of the non-European countries on the OECD list ranked near
the bottom.

Of the 24 countries with statistics dating back to the early 1990s, the
report found that child-poverty rates climbed in all but seven. Part of the
story was a drop in social spending in countries such as Canada, where the
report showed that children received 12.2 per cent less in social spending.
Across the globe, developed nations are spending more on health care and
pensions at the expense of children.

© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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