A new national report on child poverty echoes the findings of a recent Saskatchewan report.
The Campaign 2000 Annual Child Poverty Report entitled Child Poverty 25 years Later: We Can Fix This states that federal and provincial governments need to take leadership to end child poverty.
This year marks 25 years since the House of Commons passed a resolution to end child poverty by the year 2000.
The Upstream Institute also recently released a report entitled Poverty Costs Saskatchewan: A New Approach to Poverty Reduction which says child poverty has declined but it is far from being eliminated.
Using taxfiler data, Campaign 2000 estimates the overall child poverty rate in Saskatchewan may be above 25 per cent.
“This is particularly concerning as children living in poverty face greater difficulties with respect to social, cognitive and health outcomes,” Upstream policy director and author of Policy Costs Saskatchewan Charles Plante says. “In addition to these social impacts, poverty costs Saskatchewan an estimated $3.8 billion every year in increased service use and missed economic opportunities.”
Child Poverty 25 years Later: We Can Fix This can be found at www.campaign2000.ca. Poverty Costs Saskatchewan: A New Approach to Poverty Reduction is available at www.pocertcosts.ca/resources.