EXCERPTS
The Social Planning Council of Winnipeg says Manitoba is the child poverty capital of Canada once again.
In a report released Tuesday, the council stated that nearly one in five Manitoba children lives in poverty and more than 68 per cent of aboriginal children under the age of six in Winnipeg live in poverty.
The latter figure does not include children living on reserves.
The 2009 Manitoba Child and Family Poverty Report Card states that within the past six years nearly 40 per cent of Manitoba children have lived in poverty for at least one year -- and that children most likely to live in poverty in the province are in families in which at least one parent has aboriginal heritage.
The poverty report card is produced by the SPC as the local partner of Campaign 2000, which is a non-partisan, cross-Canada coalition of more than 120 national, provincial and community organizations.
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The report also makes numerous recommendations to all levels of government, including the creation of a standing poverty committee in Winnipeg.
It calls on the province to ensure all Manitobans receive sufficient income to meet basic needs and it recommends the federal government set an interim target of 50 per cent reduction in poverty among all Canadians by 2020.
- reprinted from CBC