British Columbia still leads the nation in child poverty and, according to areport released the problem is only getting worse.
Using data collected by Statistics Canada in 2009, the child advocacy groupFirst Call found that the proportion of B.C. children living under the federal poverty line rose since the previous year.
“The number of poor children in BC was 137,000 — about the same as the total populations of Kamloops, Fort St. John, Port Alberni and Powell River combined,” reads the report card on child poverty, which First Call published with the support of SPARC BC and AMSSA.
Looking at income after taxes and benefits, the report card found that between 2008 and 2009, child poverty within the province climbed from 10.4 per cent to 12 percent. That figure puts British Columbia at the top of the national child poverty charts for the eighth year running.
