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November 4, 2002
Release of the Canadian Council on Social Development's report,
The Progress of Canada's Children 2002
Monday, November 4, 2002
Speaking Notes / Notes pour l'allocution
for
Marcel Lauzière,
President of the Canadian Council on Social Development
and
Louise Hanvey,
Senior Research Associate, CCSD and Program Director for The Progress of Canada's Children
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[Progress 2002 Speaking Notes]
[MARCEL:]
Good morning and thank you for coming.
Bonjour, je vous remercie de votre présence.
My name is Marcel Lauzière. I’m the President of the Canadian Council on Social Development. With me is Louise Hanvey. Louise directed the research and writing of our sixth edition of The Progress of Canada’s Children.
We will give a short statement in English and French and then we’d be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Nous ferons quelques remarques en français et en anglais, puis nous répondrons à vos questions.
In this year’s report we have the perspective of the past decade and are able to see how our children and families have been doing in all facets of their lives.
We have noticed a disturbing trend – there are still far too many children in Canada experiencing persistent poverty. For these children and their families things have been getting worse, and the impact on their healthy growth and development is disheartening.
Despite the economic boom of the mid to late 1990s, too many Canadian families with children are treading water, simply making ends meet – just one problem away from economic disaster.
The most telling statistic – and the most disturbing one– is the growth in the number of families who report going hungry over the course of a year. Our latest figures show that in 1996 - 75,000 families experienced hunger, up by one-third from 54,000 in 1994.
In case anyone thinks these numbers are going down, the Canadian Association of Food Banks last month reported a 12.5% increase in food bank usage in Canada since 1996. As recently as March of this year, more than 300,000 of those users were children.
In a nation as wealthy as Canada, that’s considered one of the best places in the world to live, this is a disgrace.
My colleague Louise Hanvey will now elaborate further.
[LOUISE]
The housing crisis continues to strain the already low incomes of poor families: the number of children living in unaffordable housing increased by 91% between 1989 and 1996. As a result, families are the fastest growing segment of the population requiring emergency shelter.
This has been largely due to minimal growth in their incomes, a significant reduction in their wealth or assets, and a decline in the publicly-funded supports they have come to rely on – especially the two great equalizers - education and health care.
Families on incomes that have remained relatively stagnant over the past decade, the bottom twenty percent, are under tremendous financial strain.
The costs for two-parent families with children under 17 for things like textbooks and school fees almost doubled between 1992 and 1999, going from over seven hundred dollars to over $1400.
University tuitions are getting out of sight. They almost doubled over the last decade. In fact, between 1990 and 2000, inflation rose by 20.5% while tuition fees climbed by 135.4%, or six times faster!
Still on the education front, another trend that we find troubling is the rise in private school enrollment – not out-of-sight yet, but worth noting. The use of private learning centers to supplement publicly-funded schooling has also greatly risen. Of course, these options are only available to those who can afford them.
The same thing is happening in the health field with parents needing to spend more and more money on such things as medication and health insurance, than ever before. By 1999 families were paying over $1500 per year in out-of-pocket health expenses.
These trends have serious implications for the health, growth and development of children whose families are struggling to make ends meet.
We know that children who live in in persistent low income don’t do as well at school and they aren’t as physically healthy.
Our report looks at the academic performance of Canadian children across the spectrum - in science, reading, writing and math. We found that children who were never poor do consistently better in all these areas, and by sizeable margins, compared to children who were persistently poor.
We clearly know there is a direct link between how well a child does at school and their participation in organized recreation. Only half of the children who lived in persistent poverty participated in recreation at least once a week, compared to three-quarters of those who had never been poor.
Families struggle when they live in persistent poverty and that takes a heavy toll on their children. For example, our report reveals that families living in persistent poverty are three times as likely to have a parent suffering from depression. And parental depression can have a profoundly negative impact on a child’s well-being.
The pressures on families in all these important areas of development may be contributing to the rising rate of child runaways. In the year 2000, there were more than 50,000 runaways, the highest number ever recorded in Canada. And there has been a steady increase over the years in the number of children being placed in foster care.
[MARCEL:]
There’s a painful irony in all of our findings and statistics. Our political leaders are always telling us that we have to be more productive, that we are living in a knowledge-based economy and need to improve our skills and learning. And yet they are constantly chipping away at our social infrastructure, telling us that we must bolster our economic base before we can spend time or money on social programming.
The fact that we don’t see the link between the rhetoric of our politicians and the need to fully support our children who are the future of this country, boggles the mind.
The persistent depth of poverty which is the dollar amount that families fall below the poverty line, and the growing wealth gap between those at the top and those at the bottom of the income scale, has significant implications for our country’s future prosperity.
In the last two throne speeches, the federal government proclaimed the importance of investing in our children and families- especially the ones enduring the greatest hardship. In fact, the 2002 Speech from the Throne states, and I quote - "No investments do more to break the cycle of poverty and dependency, and to maximize the potential of every Canadian."
The Canadian Council on Social Development wants to see a significant increase to funding for the National Child Benefit, which we think is making a difference in the lives of poor families with children – but just not enough of a difference.
We would also like to see new money put into the Early Childhood Development Agreement specifically targeted to daycare. And for the federal and provincial governments to get back into the affordable housing business – in a serious way.
If the "Canada We Want" is a prosperous country with a healthy, skilled citizenry, then we can ill afford not to invest substantially in our children and families.
Thank you very much.
Le rapport que nous présentons cette année nous permet d’avoir une perspective sur la dernière décennie et il nous permet de parler des familles canadiennes sous une foule de facettes de leurs vies.
Nous remarquons une tendance inquiétante – il y a encore trop d’enfants au Canada qui vivent dans la pauvreté et de manière prolongée. Pour ces enfants et leurs familles, la situation est de plus en plus grave et nous craignons pour leur santé et leur développement.
Malgré la reprise économique du milieu des années 90, trop de Canadiens et Canadiennes font du sur place, arrivant à peine a joindre les deux bouts. Ils sont à la limite du désastre économique.
Peut-être la statistique la plus criante touche la faim chez les enfants. Environ 75 000 familles avec enfants de moins de 12 ans ont signalé avoir connu la faim en 1996. Une augmentation d’un tiers entre 1994 et 1996.
Cette tendance a été corroborée par un rapport publié il y a quelques semaines par l’association canadienne des banques alimentaires qui montre une augmentation de 12,5% dans le recours aux banques alimentaires au Canada depuis 1996. Plus de 300 000 enfants ont eu recours en mars 2002 à des aliments distribués, représentant près de la moitié de tous les récipiendaires de banques alimentaires.
Dans un pays aussi riche que le Canada, un pays qui est considéré comme un des meilleurs au monde, ces statistiques sont désastreuses.
Quand on examine les données qui découlent de notre rapport, on ne peut que noter une contradiction extraordinaire de la part de nos dirigeants. D’une part, on nous parle de productivité, d’économie du savoir, de compétences et d’innovation, et de performance économique. Mais d’autre part on continue d’ignorer l’affaiblissement de notre infrastructure sociale prétextant que les nouveaux investissements devront attendre une économie plus forte.
Le fait qu’on ne fasse pas le lien entre ces réalités et le bien-être de nos enfants et de nos familles est absolument ahurissant. Ça n’a aucun sens.
La profondeur de la pauvreté, c’est-à-dire le montant qu’il faut pour s'élever au dessus de seuil de pauvreté et l’écart grandissant entre les avoirs des plus riches et des plus pauvres aura des répercussions considérables pour la prospérité future de notre pays.
Par le biais des deux derniers discours du Trône, le gouvernement fédéral a signalé son intention d’investir dans nos enfants et dans les familles canadiennes.
Le Conseil canadien de développement social demande au gouvernement fédéral d’augmenter considérablement la Prestation nationale pour enfants qui peut réellement faire une différence dans la vie des familles et des enfants. Des progrès ont été notés mais il faut aller beaucoup plus loin.
Le Conseil demande aussi au gouvernement fédéral d’investir de nouvelles sommes par le biais de l’Entente sur la petite enfance et que ses nouvelles sommes soient ciblées pour les programmes de garderies et pour augmenter les places en garderie. Il est à espérer que le modèle québécois, un modèle universel, inspirera les autres provinces à faire de même.
Enfin nous recommandons fortement à nos gouvernements d’investir de nouveau et manière importante dans le logement abordable. Parce que sans logement adéquat, comment nos enfants peuvent-ils espérer s'en tirer.
Si nous voulons un pays prospère où il fait bon vivre, il faut investir dans nos enfants et nos familles. Et surout il faut le faire maintenant.
Je vous remercie de votre attention.
Le Progrès des enfants au Canada 2002 - autre documents
Canadian Council on Social Development,
190 O'Connor Street, Suite 100,
Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 2R3
Tel: (613) 236-8977, Fax: (613) 236-2750, Web: www.ccsd.ca, Email: council@ccsd.ca
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