(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Hungry children

Child poverty rate in Saskatchewan third highest in Canada says report

Jan 17, 2020 | 4:59 PM

A new report from the Social Policy Research Centre in Regina paints a dark picture of what life is like for many Saskatchewan families struggling to make ends meet.

The Child and Family Poverty in Saskatchewan: 2019 Report reveals 26.2 per cent of people in the province up to the age of 17 are considered poor when the United Nations’ definitions of poverty are applied. Miguel Sanchez, associate professor with the faculty of social work at the University of Regina, said the child poverty rate for Saskatchewan for the last 10 years has never been below 26 per cent.

“This year once again we saw the child poverty level is not going down, despite all of the actions the governments are saying they are taking,” he said.

The data used for the report comes from 2017 — the latest available from Statistics Canada— also states more than 72,200 children in the province are victims of poverty. Sanchez explained the majority of people below the poverty line are people who are working but their wages are not sufficient to sustain their families.

“It’s not that these people are dependant on social assistance,” he said.

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“Families who are working hard should not have to be going to the food bank to supplement the food for their homes.” _{– MLA Nicole Rancourt}

Kim Scruby, Executive Director of the Prince Albert Food Bank agreed the numbers were reflected in Prince Albert.

“On average here we are roughly about 47 to 50 per cent children just among our clients here,” Scruby said. He added over the last year and a half the food bank experienced a 20 per cent increase in use. He said the number of children remained steady at 50 per cent.

“I graphed out the number of hampers that we do on the average month with the unemployment rate for the region and the province, and the regional unemployment rate is almost an identical line on the graph to the hamper output,” he said.

Nicole Rancourt, the member of the legislative assembly for Prince Albert Northcote, and also Saskatchewan’s social services critic, told paNOW she believed the government could do more to address child poverty.

“The elimination of PST exemption, and increasing the PST, have had a big impact on families who are living on a limited income,” she said.

Rancourt added changes to the income support program and the elimination of the rental supplement hit families hard. She suggested one way to start addressing this is to start increase the province’s minimum wage — the country’s lowest.

“Families who are working hard should not have to be going to the food bank to supplement their food for their homes,” she said.

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell