Campaign 2000 — a non-partisan, network of national, provincial and community partner organizations – released its annual report on poverty in Canada.
The findings were not ideal. The report, Let’s Do This: Let’s End Child Poverty for Good, found that:
- Child poverty has increased since 1989 to 19 percent from 15.8 percent. Also, 40 percent of Indigenous children live in poverty.
- More than of children in poverty (37 percent) reside in households with full-time, full-year employment.
- More than two million workers stuck in temporary employment.
- There are only enough regulated child-care spaces to cover one quarter of children up to age 12.
- Children in racialized, recent immigrant and Indigenous families, as well as children with disabilities, are at greater risk of living in poverty, leading to persistent social and economic inequality.
- One million children experience food insecurity, lacking reliable access to adequate, safe, good-quality, nutritious food.
- One in seven people in homelessness shelters are children. Living in inadequate, crowded and unaffordable housing is associated with higher vulnerability to asthma and injury, an accelerated spread of communicable diseases, anxiety and insomnia, less physical exercise and diminished school performance.
The report also found that without government transfers, an additional 705,000 children would live in poverty.
For more on Campaign 2000 report cards, visit their website.