No progress being made in fight to end child poverty

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In 1989, members of Parliament from both sides of the floor joined together and unanimously resolved to work to eliminate child poverty in Canada by the year 2000.

We are now six years past that deadline and the number of children living in poverty in the country is still more than a million.

Campaign 2000 is a national, non-partisan coalition of organizations that is working together to put an end to child and family poverty in Canada. On Nov. 24, it released its annual report card on the progress-or lack thereof-being made to reduce poverty rates across the country.

"Despite continued economic growth Canada's record on child poverty is worse now than it was in 1989," the report card states. One out of every six Canadian children live in poverty. The numbers are even bleaker for First Nations communities, where one in four children live in poverty. And the rate is even higher among Aboriginal children living off reserve, where an estimated 40 per cent live in poverty.

A decade has passed since the final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was released, and a year since the Kelowna Accord was reached as a way to improve the lives of Aboriginal Canadians, but the government has yet to act to implement Kelowna or to come up with an alternative plan, the report card states.

"With an increasing First Nations and Aboriginal population that is both rural and urban, young, vital and rapidly expanding, Canada must address the extremes of poverty that First Nations face on a daily basis," the report card reads. "This poverty is systemic and long-standing, and requires concerted attention from all levels."

The report card calls for a five-point strategy for reducing poverty levels in Canada, including creating good jobs at living wages.

As the report card points out, simply having a job is no guaranteed prescription for escaping poverty. Just over one third of low-income children in Canada live in families where at least one parent worked full-time for the entire year.

"The trend shows that despite strong economic growth and job creation, there is a steady increase in the proportion of children living in families who are working full-time full-year but unable to lift themselves out of poverty," the report card states. "One in every four jobs in Canada pays less than $10/hour, and two in every five jobs are precarious-part-time, temporary, contract or self-employed."

The report card also calls for provision of child income benefits that more accurately reflect the cost of raising a child, universal access to quality childcare and early learning, improved access to affordable housing and making post-secondary education and training both affordable and accessible.

"We urge the government of Canada with the provinces, territories and First Nations to take up the UNICEF challenge to establish credible targets and timetables in order to bring the child poverty rate well below 10 per cent," the report card concludes, urging people from across Canada to visit the Campaign 2000 Web site (www.campaign2000.ca) to find out what they can do to tackle the problem of child poverty in Canada.

Individuals can also get involved in the fight to end poverty among First Nation people by signing the Assembly of First Nations online petition at (www.afn.ca) that calls for a meaningful response to the problem of First Nations poverty. The petition is part of the AFN campaign, Make Poverty History: The First Nations Plan for Creating Opportunity, launched by the AFN in October.