B.C. child poverty figures remain bad, but report sounds note of optimism

VANCOUVER More than one in five children continue to live in poverty in B.C., according to First Call’s annual Child Poverty Report Card, released Monday.

The child and youth advocacy coalition found B.C.’s child poverty rate remained higher than the national average in 2016, though the proportion of kids below the poverty line fell 1.7 per cent from 2015. That slight improvement, as well as recent provincial and federal government action and announcements, led First Call to take “cautiously optimistic” view of the future.

But Adrienne Montani, First Call’s provincial co-ordinator, said it was still “profoundly disappointing” to have to report that 172,550 B.C. children are growing up in poverty. She described what that means for those kids and their families.

“What it looks like is having to make really tough choices between things like healthy food or covering the rent. Or turning the (heat) down even though you’re freezing because you can’t afford the hydro. Or you can’t afford a bus pass,” Montani said. “It means stigma.”

The report shows that some B.C. children are more at risk of poverty than others.

Nearly one in four visible minority children are in poverty in B.C., as are almost one in two recent immigrant children. Almost one in three Indigenous children who live off reserves, more than one in two Indigenous kids who live on rural reserves and one in three Indigenous kids who live on urban reserves are in poverty. Almost one-in-two kids in one-parent families are also poor.

Shane Simpson, the minister of social development and poverty reduction, said the report validates recent legislation that committed the province to reducing child poverty by 50 per cent over five years, and he said he looked forward to introducing a poverty reduction plan in February. B.C. is the only province without one.

“This plan will work to help make life more affordable for poor families and children. It will work to create the opportunities for people to break the cycle of poverty,” Simpson said.

The report asks readers to imagine a city composed only of B.C.’s poor children. At more than 170,000 people, its population would be much larger than that of Coquitlam and approaching the size of Richmond.

The gap between

B.C. children and other children in Canada has been closing for each of the past 17 years, according to the report. The rate of kids in poverty has also trended mostly downward in that time.

But it remains high.

For Montani, the solution to child poverty is not charity. Rather, it is necessary to address its root causes. Low minimum wages, low welfare rates and growing income inequality all contribute to the problem, according to the report.

“Why don’t people have enough income? Whatever the source of their income, if they’re on income assistance, why are rates so low that they can’t afford to feed themselves and they have to go to food banks?

“And if they’re working, what’s going on in the labour market around wages, precarious work (and) debt,” she said.