Child poverty on the rise in Canada
Canadian Broadcasting Company, 05/12/98
Canada may be pulling out of recession, but the poor aren't getting a share of the prosperity. Canada's child poverty rate hit a 17-year high in 1996, according to the National Council on Welfare.
More than 1.4 million Canadian children lived in poverty in 1996.
In 1980, the first year such statistics were collected, the child poverty rate was 14.5 per cent. In 1996, the child poverty rate rose to 20.9 per cent.
Federal human resources minister Pierre Pettigrew says several new programs, like the National Child Benefit, will help ease pressure on poor families.
Critics say these programs won't make up for what Ottawa has already cut from transfer payments to the provinces for social programs.
The child poverty rate calculates those under the age of 18 living below the poverty line.
The poverty rate for the population as a whole is 17.6 per cent, or more than 5 million people.
Armand Brun, vice-president of the National Council on Welfare, predicted the more recent data for 1997 will show a widening of the gap between rich and poor.
