1 in 10 Children in Canada are in Poverty

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More than 1 in every 10 families with kids in their household are in poverty.  The "2009 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada" released a report containing statistics on poverty.  It calls for greater resources being allocated towards families under the poverty level.  

The Report unveiled several interesting points:

• Through the decades Canada has had consistently high child poverty rates.  Although Canada is a wealthy nation, the high costs of living and demographic of the Canadian population result in poor Statistics Canada poverty results.  The demography of Canada plays a large factor due to Canada's relatively high levels of immigration and Native American communities.  Statistically, Native American's have high levels of poverty, especially when the family does not live on a reservation.  Recent immigrants have lower rates of employment and thus rate lower on statistical economic levels.  This partly because some immigrants move to Canada without the intention of worker, some are unemployed and others work illegally. 
  
• Over 40% of the families that are in poverty have at least one employed parent.  This means that simply being employed is not enough.  With high costs of living it is important that jobs pay enough in relation to the costs of living, especially housing costs.

Although the statistics that were used for this report were based on the Parent's conditions and simply divided by the amount of children in the family the analysis was able to examine the allocation of family and governmental resources.  It found that there needs to be more affordable housing and high quality early childhood education and care for families under economic stress.

Canada's Stack-Ups:

Canada ranks poorly with child poverty rates in comparison with other wealthy nations.  "Canada's child poverty rate ranks 13th among 17 peer nations - higher than the average - despite its relative wealth." (cite)

Domestically, Canada has ranked provinces by child poverty rates.  From best to worst:

1. Prince Edward Island - 8.3%
2. Alberta - 11.2%
3. Newfoundland - 13.0%
4. Ontario - 14.5%
5. Quebec - 14.9%
6. Nova Scotia - 14.9%
7. Saskatchewan - 16.7%
8. New Brunswick - 16.7%
9. Manitoba - 18.8%
10. British Columbia - 18.8%

The National average is 15.0%.  There was not enough statistical data to make estimates regarding the Territories.

Statistics cited in this article were from the 2009 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Canada.