Campaign 2000 released their annual child poverty report card yesterday with updates both nationally and in various regions across the country. To help raise awareness, we posted a blog on the Huffington Post Canada website and shared some of the dismal findings:
“When promises made by politicians don’t materialize it is clear that words on paper are nothing but good intentions or opportunistic moments.
In 1989 the federal government voted unanimously on a motion to end child poverty by the year 2000. Nothing happened. In 2009, at the 20-year anniversary of this promise, another motion was unanimously passed in the House of Commons that called for the development of a national poverty strategy. Again nothing happened. Actions speak louder than words, and in this case there is deafening silence.
Campaign 2000 marks the anniversary of the 1989 motion with the release of annual child poverty report cards each year around the same time in November. The report cards serve two purposes: first to expose the rate of poverty amongst children in Canada — data that is not readily promoted or procured by the federal government; and second, to remind politicians and people in Canada that when promises remain unmet the victims are children and families, living in desperate situations.
The findings of the most recent report are stark: 1 in 7 children in Canada are living in poverty, and worse yet, if you are an Aboriginal child there is a 40 per cent chance that you live in poverty. This brings the total number of children living in poverty in 2011 (the most up-to-date data available by Statistics Canada) to 967,000. This number is actually slightly higher than the number of children living in poverty in 1989 when the promise to eradicate this dismal situation was first made. At that time, 912,000 children were facing poverty each day.”
Read the full blog, “Child poverty needs more action, less talk” on the Huffington Post Canada website.
