Campaign 2000 is not using reliable measurements in
their most recent report card on the amount of child poverty in
Canada, released today. According to Professor Christopher Sarlo,
senior fellow at The Fraser Institute, this obscures the true
nature of child poverty and makes it difficult to tackle the
problem effectively.
There is no Canadian, regardless of political persuasion, who can
ignore the plight of children living in poverty. "That there are
any children in Canada whose basic needs are not covered is a
tragedy. However, the fact is that we do not have an accepted
measure that provides the true dimension of the problem. Some
organizations, including the Campaign 2000 coalition, continue to
use the Low-Income Cut-Offs (LICO) as if they are poverty lines,
despite significant criticism from researchers and despite the
disclaimers from Statistics Canada itself," says Sarlo.
Campaign 2000 claims that 1 million children -- about 17 percent
of all children -- currently live in poverty in Canada. This is
not a reliable estimate because the measuring stick used is
seriously flawed. One piece of data that we do have that relates
to poor children is that, according to the National Longitudinal
Survey of Children, hunger was sometimes experienced by just
under 2 percent of families with children. There is a huge
disconnect between the most obvious manifestation of poverty and
the claim by Campaign 2000.
"What is clear is that there is a crucial need for a credible
measure of poverty so that all Canadians can understand the true
dimensions of the problem and begin to combat it. What is
regrettable is that, when honest concerns about data reliability
are expressed, people are accused of lacking compassion and being
'against the poor'. We need to find some common ground if the
problem is going to be solved," stresses Sarlo.
Professor Christopher Sarlo is the author of "
Measuring Poverty in Canada," published by The Fraser Institute in 2001. He has written
extensively about poverty measurement and first proposed a Basic
Needs Index as a more reliable poverty measurement in
1992.