Manitoba loses ground on fight to end child poverty

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This article was published 13/02/2024 (606 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba is no longer the child poverty capital of Canada, but there is no reason to celebrate.

Saskatchewan has earned that dubious title, as per the Campaign 2000 report on ending child and family poverty in Manitoba, which was released by the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg on Tuesday.

Manitoba was ranked second in the report, which found the rate of child poverty in both provinces has risen dramatically.

“Unfortunately, it is getting worse,” said Kate Kehler, executive director of the council.

Twenty-four per cent of Manitobans 17 and younger live in poverty, based on 2021 tax returns.

In Saskatchewan, the rate is 24.2 per cent.

Kehler said Manitoba’s rate grew by 3.3 per cent, while Saskatchewan rate jumped 4.5 per cent, from one year earlier.

“We are really up 10,000 more children in poverty (meaning) almost 75,000 children struggled in poverty (in Manitoba).”

Nationally, the rate of child poverty is 15.6 per cent.

The report found a number of families are struggling to pay back federal COVID-19 pandemic payments (the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, commonly known as CERB) after being told they weren’t qualified for them, despite having collected the money.

She said people who rely on $830 per month in provincial welfare payments are being told they have to take out $25 each month to repay their CERB.

“We are telling the federal government you need an income-connected CERB amnesty,” Kehler said. “Anybody at, near or below the poverty line, we need to wipe it clean.

“At $25 a month, it will take years for them to pay it back.”

In 1989, the House of Commons passed a resolution to end child poverty by the year 2000. Campaign 2000 was created to monitor the federal government’s progress on that front.

Three decades later — and almost a quarter of a century after child poverty was to be eliminated — the rates have only got worse.

Sid Frankel, a member of the Campaign 2000 national steering committee, said last year the committee’s report predicted poverty rates would rise in 2021 after plateauing for a year in 2020 thanks to the federal pandemic payments.

“It’s a reluctant ‘we told you so,’” Frankel said.

“We saw an unprecedented decrease in child poverty largely due to pandemic benefits. It shows that government income transfers can be effective in reducing poverty.”

Frankel said in addition to the CERB amnesty, the committee wants benefit programs indexed to inflation, including the healthy baby prenatal benefit. It also wants the provincial government to expedite passage of Bill 6, the Manitoba Assistance Amendment Act, which would make adult education an option for Manitobans who receive welfare payments.

It doesn’t want the NDP to extend its so-called gas tax holiday beyond July 1. The province is forgoing the 14 cents per litre tax that it charges on fuel products.

Frankel said the effects of poverty are more than evident: an increased rate of homelessness and a jump in the number of people who are forced to use food banks because they can’t make ends meet.

Meaghan Erbus, Harvest Manitoba’s director of network, advocacy and education, said the food bank is on the front lines of poverty. The number of people who use it jumped by 150 per cent from 2021 to 2023.

“Just in this past year alone we have seen a 30 per cent increase,” Erbus said.

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“Here at Harvest, we know how hard families are struggling today — 49 per cent of our clients are children. We are seeing more folks accessing our services who have jobs. Forty per cent of people coming here have paying jobs.

“(Retired CEO) David Northcott used to say he wanted to put himself out of a job. Instead, we’ve had to strengthen our operations.”

Josh Brandon, who is also with the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, said the fuel tax holiday is “a regressive tax expenditure that does little to help those who are struggling most.”

Brandon said if the money had instead gone to income supports for children in low-income families, child poverty could have been cut by 31 per cent over six months and by 62 per cent over 12 months.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.