More than 20 per cent of Manitoban children live in poverty, according to a new report, but stakeholders and opposition leaders argue the province has the resources to combat this.
The report, called Poverty, the Pandemic and the Province, shows Manitoba’s child poverty rate is 20.68 per cent, more than seven percentage points higher than the national average.
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Poverty Advocate Michael Redhead Champagne believes there are solutions to these staggering numbers — starting with a look back on successes from 2020.
“CERB is a great example of how governments can work together to successfully end child poverty and if we can do it in a pandemic, we can do it today.”
Because of the positive impacts CERB payments had on poverty during the pandemic, the Manitoba Liberals say we need to start talking about a guaranteed annual income.
“The fact is, is that Manitoba, as a province, does the worst job of lifting people out of poverty of any province in Canada,” said Dougald Lamont, Manitoba Liberal Leader.
“And the reason for that is pretty simple … if you look at our social assistance, it’s been the same for about 35 years.”
Lamont agrees that CERB was a game-changer for a lot of people.
“They could pay their rent, maybe they could even save a little bit of money, but kids weren’t going hungry.”
Lamont said the Liberals have proposed two things to address poverty in the province: “One is to create job programs so people can get decent-paying jobs that can help them contribute. The other is to bring social assistance payments up to date.”
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Meanwhile, the provincial NDP believes possible solutions to child poverty include breakfast programs in schools and access to education and housing.
“When we see funding being cut, an area of social housing being sold off, you know, lots of social housing still boarded up – these are things that we could be providing to Manitobans,” said Bernadette Smith, Point Douglas MLA.
“Families are paying way too much for private rents when we have social housing to ensure that those needs are met.
“We have hundreds of units that are boarded up right now that the government should be working on fixing up and getting families in those housing units.”
The current government says it has taken many steps to reduce poverty, including raising the minimum wage, raising basic personal exemptions, and making child care more affordable.
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“One of the things that we did in the fall is we did announce an affordability package that did have some measurable progress in terms of ending child poverty and putting more money in the pockets of families and lower-income families,” said Rochelle Squires, Minister of Families.
“More work needs to be done absolutely and we are going to be putting forward a variety of initiatives in Budget 23 that will be unveiled in weeks to come that will lift more Manitobans out of poverty.”
– with files from Global News’ Teagan Rasche