A Generation of Broken Promises
Since 1999, Nova Scotia Child Poverty Report Cards have recorded changes in child poverty rates to track progress on the House of Commons’ 1989 pledge to end child poverty by the year 2000. This 25th anniversary of the pledge must be a time for serious reflection on family and child poverty across our country. Nova Scotia Child and Family Poverty Report Cards have tracked progress on this commitment since 1999. The year 2000 came and not only was child poverty eradication far from achieved, it had actually increased quite substantially since 1989.
The current report compares the most recent data (2012) to the year the pledge was made and to the year 2000 in which child poverty was to be eradicated—and finds that not only have we broken the promise to end child poverty for the children who were living it in 1989, but a higher percentage of our children now live in poverty than was the case in 1989.
