Lesley Frank predicted the provincial government would opt to discredit, rather than act on a Statistics Canada report released 10 months ago highlighting Nova Scotia’s rising child poverty rate.
“I’ve been tracking child poverty for 20 years now and it’s a typical response from government to blame some statistical problem,” said the Acadia University sociologist and researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in Nova Scotia. “It becomes almost like a joke to me.”
The February report showed Nova Scotia was the only province where child poverty increased in 2017, jumping to 17 per cent from 14 per cent the year before.
The numbers come as no surprise to Frank, who’s authored or co-authored the province’s annual Child Poverty Report Card for over a decade. Her latest report card is due for release in January. It fleshes out the 2017 data and will show that 8,000 babies between the ages of 0-2 lived in poverty in Nova Scotia, representing the highest rate of poverty among children.
“We have these highest rates of poverty in our youngest members of society who are at the most vulnerable times of their lives developmentally,” said Frank. “That sets the stage for their lifelong health.”
The Department of Community Services has maintained it’s concerned by the finding of the Statistic Canada report. The hundreds of millions of new dollars coming from the federal child-tax benefit appeared to alleviate child poverty in every province but Nova Scotia. Minister Kelly Regan has yet to offer an explanation for the jump in the child poverty rate. When the report was released, the department pledged to get to the bottom of the data. But even now Community Services is questioning the accuracy of the document.
The Chronicle Herald asked the department about how it intends to respond to the report but in an emailed reply, spokeswoman Shannon Kerr downplayed the findings, saying the “data should be used with caution because a small sample size may not be representative of the circumstances of the entire population.”
The data in the report comes from the Market Basket Measure (MBM), essentially measuring people’s ability to afford a basic living from province to province. The data ultimately shows that on average Nova Scotians have the lowest income levels in the country.
The province’s minimum wage and income assistance rates help to explain why. While the minimum wage in Nova Scotia, set at $11.55, isn’t the lowest in the country, it offers the lowest purchasing power of all the provinces, said Frank.
Nova Scotia offered some of the lowest social assistance rates in the country in 2018, according to the 2019 Maytree report. A single parent with one child on income assistance received the lowest annual allowance of all the provinces at $27,756.
A single non-disabled person on social assistance is also at the bottom of the national allowance list at $7,437.
Rates are scheduled to increase for the first time in five years in March. But factoring in inflation, the rates are effectively lower than in 2014.
"When you examine provincial welfare rates to the other provinces we’re not doing very well," said Frank. "They will bring you at the very most up around the 50 per cent of poverty threshold. That’s what happens if you set the income assistance rates thousands of dollars below the poverty line."
"Our poverty is rooted in the decisions the provincial government makes. Welfare rates are provincial matters, setting the provincial wage are provincial matters."
Nova Scotia also has the highest rate of food insecurity of the provinces.
The province is in the midst of a poverty reduction strategy. Frank has examined the proposed multi-year $20-million poverty reduction blueprint. The department promises to collaborate with other governments, communities and non-profit organizations to address the issue.
But Frank said it so far contains no measures that will reduce poverty.
"It doesn’t change the income in the house, all it does is attempt to alleviate the pain of poverty. We should be doing that anyway. We should have good community support for people.”
NDP community services critic Susan Leblanc agrees, calling for immediate action to address poverty in the province. The party has been pushing to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
"We need to see substantial increases to income assistance, number 1," said Leblanc. "People on social assistance cannot afford to eat, pay for their medication and, more and more, people can’t afford to pay their power. Rents are skyrocketing, affordable housing is disappearing. It’s a terrible mess."
Tory MLA Brian Comer represents Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg, which has one of the highest child poverty rates in the country. He echoed Leblanc’s statement, saying he’s surprised that the province’s poverty reduction plan doesn’t have targets addressing poverty.
“It’s very concerning to me," said Comer. "We’re facing a serious problem that requires a multi-pronged approach. That includes better access to health care, affordable housing, and employment. I see little evidence that this is happening."
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