Description:

This report was submitted to HUMA, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, pursuant to the motion to study the Federal Contribution to Reducing Poverty in Canada at the public hearing held Winnipeg, on December 4, 2009.

In this submission to the federal government, the author argues that child poverty rates are scandalously high in Canada. Child poverty is connected to family poverty, and to women's persistent poverty. Other countries have been able to reduce children's and women's poverty through proactive social policies, including the provision of services to supplement market wages. Canada lags behind international best practices. Where early learning and care services are widely available and of high quality, they do a great deal to tackle women's and children's poverty. Canada needs to commit to developing a national early learning and childcare program, with federal funding to the development of ECEC services (supply side), and to stepping up to its international commitments to children's rights and women's equality.