EXCERPTS
Some say the B.C. government has violated the human rights of single moms with its punitive social policies. Raven Prince has a job at a bank, doesn't collect welfare, and works hard to provide a good life for her two kids. However, during an interview in her tidy East Vancouver apartment, she told the Georgia Straight that she still senses a stigma associated with being a single aboriginal mom when she goes out with her children. She said that in some stores, she feels like she's under surveillance. ... That's not her greatest anxiety, though. The 26-year-old single mom has been on a waiting list for more than a year for daycare for her three-year-old son, Terence. This September, she will also need after-school care for her five-year-old daughter, Tatiana, who will be starting Grade 1. She won't find out until August if Terence has been accepted. Prince has been able to work 22.5 hours per week at the bank because her mother has been looking after Terence and Tatiana during the day. "My mom baby-sits; I'm lucky to have her," Prince said. "But now she's going to go back to school in September. Now it's a matter of finding someone who is going to watch him." Like Prince, thousands of single parents across the province struggle with trying to earn a decent income, finding daycare, and ensuring their kids get a good start in life. But new data from Statistics Canada show that whereas the incomes of Vancouver single fathers have increased in recent years, the incomes of single mothers are in decline. This has some women's rights and antipoverty activists claiming that B.C. Liberal government policies discriminate against single mothers, who are among the poorest citizens of the province. In a curious twist, the premier and the attorney general were both raised by single mothers. Prince said that her children's father has another family and she isn't receiving family-maintenance payments from him. Each day, she leaves her subsidized Native housing project in East Vancouver and takes the bus to work on the city's West Side. The closest child-care centre is several blocks from her home. It makes her wish she could have attended a recent demonstration for daycare in Vancouver. "I would love to have been at that protest, saying, 'Yeah, we need daycare,'" she said with a smile. "But I had to be at work. I can't afford to take a day off." If there's nobody to care for her kids, Prince might have no alternative but to go on welfare. As a single parent "expected to work" with two children, she would receive $1,036 per month in social assistance. ... - reprinted from the Georgia Straight