Halifax/Kjipuktuk – The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia (CCPA-NS) just released the 2024 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia: Swift Action is Needed for Child and Family Wellbeing. This report records the highest single-year increase in child poverty in the 35 years since the federal promise to eradicate child poverty. The child poverty rate in Nova Scotia increased from 20.5% in 2021 to 23.8% in 2022, an increase of 16%. Nova Scotia still has the highest child poverty rate in Atlantic Canada and the fifth highest in Canada (third highest among provinces).
“Child poverty was swiftly and dramatically reduced in 2020 because of income security benefits sufficient to bring families over the poverty line. The choice to return to insufficient support by 2022 negated all progress – meaning the rise in child poverty was by design and predictable. We see the outcome in the fact that 71,000 children are living in food insecure families in Nova Scotia– the highest number on record. The health burden on children is significant and long lasting. How high will this number have to rise before different policy decision are made?” said Dr. Lesley Frank, Tier II Canada Research Chair in Food, Health, and Social Justice at Acadia University, co-author of the report and Research Associate with the CCPA-NS.
Dr. Christine Saulnier, co-author of the report and Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia said, “This report card shows that Nova Scotian children have suffered more than most from the failure to realize the promise made 35 years ago to end child poverty. We know what changes in policies and systems work. The current approach only softens the blow of poverty and props up community charity. We applaud the government for indexing income assistance rates to inflation, and we urge them to go further and raise the base rates ensuring that these families have enough income to provide for what their children need.”
The Executive Director Cape Breton Family Place Resource Centre, JoAnna LaTulippe-Rochon’s reaction to the report was, “I know from my experience working in the family resource sector over three decades how hard parents and caregivers work to provide the best they are able for their children. Without a system designed to do the same, families are left trying to piece together an existence based on surviving…thriving is not an option.” She adds, “I know Nova Scotians care. Nova Scotia can and must do better. The opportunity is here.”
