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Child poverty high in province, on Coast

British Columbia has the highest rate of child poverty in the country for the sixth year running, according to the 2009 Child Poverty Report Card.

And if that isn’t dark enough news, the number may well be higher than the reported 18.8 per cent, said Adrienne Montani, provincial co-ordinator for First Call, a coalition of provincial advocacy groups, which published the report.

“We’ve maintained our position as the worst in the country during the most beneficial economic times that we’ve seen for awhile,” she said, explaining that, due to a lag in income statistics, the report is based on 2007 income figures, prior to the recession taking hold. “So we’re very worried about what 2008 and 2009 will look like.”

Already, she said, there are signs child poverty rates have climbed since 2007.

“We’re looking at income assistance caseload massive rises,” she said. “We know that people on Employment Insurance is way up and we know the unemployment rate is up, so all those things tell us, even before we get the income data next year for 2008, we know that people in 2009 are experiencing really tough times.”

Factors which push B.C.’s rate to the worst in the country include having the lowest minimum wage in Canada in conjunction with a high cost of living, a disproportionate number of low-income jobs, a high immigrant and refugee population, a high rate of single moms and a high Aboriginal poverty rate.

And on the Coast, many families are struggling to make ends meet, said Powell River Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons.

“It’s not obvious when people are living in poverty, but many people have been laid off and we just want to make sure government puts a priority on looking after families during this particular time,” he said.

And child poverty is a problem on the Coast, as it is across the province and country, said Sarah Pond, who co-ordinates the Success By 6 program which funds early childhood development programs.

“We have fairly high vulnerabilities on the Coast, including the usual suspects of geographic isolation that brings along the whole aspect of poverty with young parents, single parents, lack of connection with extended family — all that kind of stuff,” Pond said.

But locally, she said, there are some strong supports available — particularly for the under-six age group.

“Children don’t develop to their potential if they live within poverty. However, if they’re given support, if their families can access really good drop-ins and programs and get to those programs and they’re offered for free, then the development is boosted,” she said.

After the age of six, she said, there’s less programming available on the Coast to provide that “boost” for children in low-income Coast families.

“A lot of the funding is targeted for the early years and we’ve really got that going on the Coast but sadly we have identified that youth issues are a big problem,” she said.

Montani said that, to address the child poverty problem in B.C., the government should look at measures such as indexing minimum wage and income assistance to inflation.

“If you’re living on $700 a month and the cost of living goes up and your welfare doesn’t go up for five years, six years — that’s a way to get people really stuck,” she said.

Beyond that, First Call is concerned about cuts to the social safety net.

“[The province is] still starting to nickel and dime and cut services that support low-income families,” she said. “And they may look like small cuts, ‘Oh, it’s just this program and this little program over here,’ but those are the programs that low-income families are most likely to rely on.”

Mary Polak, minister of Children and Family Development, said that both her ministry and the Ministry of Housing and Social Development have been closely monitoring caseloads, to track any recession-caused increases and adjust budgets accordingly.

“It was more than $100 million that we added to [the Ministry of Housing and Social Development’s] budget just to look after what we saw as an increase in the need for income assistance,” Polak said. “Being the last in Canada tells us we’ve still got a lot of work to do. That’s not a place we want to be.”

But Polak also noted that the report shows B.C.’s child poverty rates have been trending downward up to 2007 data.

“There’s indication that the initiatives that we’re taking are meeting with some progress,” she said.

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