Poverty haunts our children

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Taryn McLean has lived in poverty her whole life and now her son faces the same future. (JOE.BRYKSA@FREEPRESS.MB.CA )

Taryn McLean has faced poverty during all of her 20 years on this planet.

McLean said she was born into poverty, stayed in poverty when she left home at age 12 and continues to live in poverty as a single mother with her two-year-old son.

McLean said she believes her already bleak financial situation will become even more challenging after her child was diagnosed with autism about two weeks ago.

"Right now I'm stuck in the cycle of welfare, which is fend for yourself," she said on Tuesday during the release of a report on child and family poverty by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.

"I have to live with what I can get... I know I am fortunate to have the help I do and it is something, but I can't advance anywhere right now."

Ironically, McLean was born the very year the federal government passed an all-party declaration pledging to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000.

Twenty years later, 15 per cent of Canadian children live in poverty.

And here in Manitoba, the province has regained a dubious distinction it has held nine of the last 20 years: it is the child poverty capital of Canada.

The SPC report says 18.8 per cent of the province's children -- or almost one in five -- live in poverty. That's tied with British Columbia.

The report also says almost 40 per cent of children in Manitoba have lived in poverty during at least one of the last six years.

McLean said that has been her life and it is now her son's.

"My mom worked full time to look after myself and older brother," she said.

"We lived paycheque to paycheque. My mother said before she would pay the hydro bill we had to spend a couple of nights without electricity or heat."

McLean said her mom went back to school and began earning money as a nurse, but she continued to live in poverty when she left home.

"I went out on the streets. I was couch surfing and panhandling. At 17, I was pregnant and I went on welfare.

"My son was born into welfare, into a mice-infested apartment. He's two now and we're still in poverty."

Billie Schibler, the province's children's advocate, said "poverty is alive and well.

"In Manitoba, we are rated highest in poverty and the highest number of children in care per capita.

"Nobody chooses to live in poverty... no one wants their children to be hungry."

Former MP and lieutenant-governor John Harvard said he was a federal politician when the all-party declaration was passed.

"It was well-intentioned but unrealistic," Harvard said.

"There were no timelines and no targets... you need bite-sized chunks."

Noting the SPC recommends reducing poverty by 50 per cent in the next 11 years, Harvard said "that's more realistic, but it will still be hard."

Donald Benham, SPC's senior associate, said there are 47,000 Manitoba children currently living in poverty.

"If one child is too many in poverty, 47,000 Manitoba children living in poverty is way too many," Benham said.

The SPC report makes several recommendations, including having the province boost the minimum wage to $11 per hour from $9 and having the federal government reduce poverty by 50 per cent.

But, in a later interview, Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh said using their indicators, which include graduation rates and addition of more affordable housing units, the province has the third-lowest child poverty rates in the country at 10.1 per cent.

Mackintosh said that as part of its All Aboard poverty reduction strategy, the province is working on a set of measures for poverty that everyone can agree on.

"We have lifted 28,000 children out of poverty, but there are still 25,000 children in poverty or one in 10," he said.

"By any measure, there are too many children living in poverty."

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Poverty in Manitoba:

Manitoba and British Columbia have the highest rates of child poverty in Canada at 18.8 per cent, higher than the national average of 15 per cent.

Almost 40 per cent of children in Manitoba have lived at least a year in poverty in the last six years.

68 per cent of aboriginal children below the age of six lived in poverty in 2005.

Almost seven in 10 Manitoba children live in poverty, even though a family member works full time.

Families with a single mother take home an average of $7,700 per year below the threshold of poverty, meaning if they need to earn $26,972 per year to get out of poverty, they are making $19,272 per year on average.

-- Source: Social Planning Council of Winnipeg's Child and Family Poverty Report Card

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 25, 2009 A3