The rate of child poverty in Canada today is virtually the same as it was in 1989 when Parliament vowed to end it. So says a new joint report from Public Interest Alberta the Edmonton Social Planning Council and the Alberta College of Social Workers.

Report from Public Interest Alberta the Edmonton Social Planning Council and the Alberta College of Social Workers.

According to the report 16.4 per cent of Canadian children lived below the country’s version of the poverty line in 1989. Today 16.2 per cent of children live in poverty. Child poverty is an especially sore point in Alberta due to the province’s vast general wealth and a 2012 campaign pledge from then-premier Alison Redford to wipe out child poverty in the province by 2017 — something the report argues is possible.

Statistics Canada indicates there are about 143000 children living in poverty in Alberta and that Calgary has a child poverty rate of 14 per cent. Lethbridge has the highest such rate in the province at 19 per cent.

“I am appalled to know that there are so many hungry and homeless children in our rich province…. I cannot understand why our government and other citizens don’t see that unmet needs of impoverished kids constitute an emergency” said Sandra Burgess of The Child Wellbeing Initiative in a Public Interest Alberta press release.

The report argues poverty can be successfully addressed in Alberta by implementing targeted policy measures such as a progressive tax system and higher corporate taxes and increasing the minimum wage to at least $12 an hour. Additionally the report calls for publicly funded childcare that would allow single parents who head half of all low-income families to return to work without contributing so much of their income to licensed childcare now estimated to cost an average of $1000 per month per child in Alberta.

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