Advocates calling for action to help lower child poverty rates in Manitoba

Recent data on child poverty in Canada showed Manitoba led the way with the highest child poverty rate, and now advocates are calling for action to lower the number.

The latest data is from 2022 and it showed Manitoba had a child poverty rate of 27.1 per cent.

Winnipeg Centre had the highest percentage of low-income children at 41.1 per cent, while northern Manitoba had the highest total throughout the province at 54.1 per cent.

In total, 85,520 children were living in poverty in 2022, compared to just 10,560 in 2021.

Kate Kehler, the executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, said poverty puts costs on everybody, and it doesn't just affect those who live in poverty.

"It costs all of us, costs us in our health…They also unfortunately end up in the justice system; they end up with mental health disorders; they end up with addictions disorders. So there's a cost of poverty," said Kehler.

Advocates have released recommendations for the provincial government to act on. The main recommendation is to reduce the 2022 numbers by 50 per cent and achieve that goal by 2027. They also want the children most impacted by this—indigenous, racialized, and recent immigrants—to be prioritized.

Other priority recommendations include budgeting appropriately so CFS and the Manitoba Assistance Amendment Act are resourced and supported, indexing the Health Baby Prenatal Benefit to inflation, creating an unconditional basic income guarantee program for children aging out of CFS, and supporting community-based programs that can help kids with education.

Kehler said these are things the provincial government could complete.

"There are things that the government can actually start on, which is even just a discussion with the federal government to actually finally declare a CERB amnesty based on income level," said Kehler.

"The money is there. In previous reports, we pointed to policies that the government, both the NDP government and the previous government, came up with. They had an affordability package with the Progressive Conservatives that had they targeted that package to low-income families, 86 per cent of families could have been lifted out of poverty. And the gas tax holiday that people are so fond of. Again, we did the math; 62 per cent of families could have been lifted out of poverty, if they had taken the tax money but redirected it."

Jordan Bighorn, the executive director of the Community Education Development Association, said these recommendations are a foundation for future generations to work on tackling these issues.

"(They) will realize that they'll need the scientific research and data and policy development that's all going to be listed in these recommendations... They will also then have the community value, a deeper understanding of the complexity of the diverse community that we have now, and a better understanding of what it means to build relationships. And they'll marry all of this foundation of recommendation with those values, and perhaps we might see some of that transformation happen very quickly," said Bighorn.

Nahanni Fontaine, Minister of Families, said Tuesday the province will be releasing its poverty reduction strategy in the near future.