As voters head to the polls this fall, Campaign 2000 wants to ensure that ending child and family poverty is responded to as a key issue by all parties.  Today our National Steering Committee sent an open letter to the leaders of each registered federal party leader on behalf of our 120+ partners.  We asked them a series of questions based on Campaign 2000’s recommendations that will give party leaders an opportunity to describe their party’s priority and approach to the issue of child and family poverty.  We will post all responses, including non responses, here so stay tuned.  Click here to read the letter.

April 9, 2019 marks #EqualPayDay, the day when some women finally earn the same wage that men did in 2018. Yes, women in Canada still make roughly 30 per cent less than men. This pay gap is even larger for women from marginalized communities. 

The gender pay gap is a global phenomenon. Many women around the world are still waiting for their #EqualPayDay. Pay discrimination is a reality for women across all sectors, and all countries, and other forms of discrimination compound it.

Campaign 2000 is working with a number of national partners on a childcare for all campaign leading up to the October federal election, and our partners include Oxfam Canada, Childcare for All coalition, YWCA Canada and others.

Here are two actions you can take today!

1) Join us: Help raise awareness about #EqualPayDay by sharing the above information with your friends, family and other groups and by sharing this message on Facebook!

2) Did you know?  Lack of access to affordable child care keeps women out of the labour market. Affordable childcare for all would help close the gender pay gap and improve gender equality more broadly. Take action today to close the gender pay gap! Tell all federal parties to pledge support for a major investment in childcare. Send a message now!

Canada is in a childcare crisis, with the cost of childcare to families rising at three times the rate of inflation in some places.  Be a #ChildCareChampion by letting all federal parties know you want #AffordableChildCare for everyone. 

It’s time for all federal parties to support a childcare system that families across Canada can afford! Tell them today at: www.childcareforall.ca

Newly released data from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Income Survey confirm the importance of government investments to combat poverty and make the case for additional funding to support low income children and families in Budget 2019, says Campaign 2000.

“For decades, Campaign 2000 has called for stronger government investment in income transfers such as the Canada Child Benefit (CCB),” says Anita Khanna, Campaign 2000’s national coordinator. “Targeted government spending on the CCB has driven a much needed decline in child poverty rates. Now, we must be more ambitious and reduce child poverty faster.”

Campaign 2000 welcomes progress against poverty and urges all parties to support accelerated efforts to eradicate it by 2030 and to ensure the poverty reduction act is passed within this mandate to rid the shadow of poverty from every childhood.

Read Campaign 2000’s full response

Campaign 2000 and partners at the Dignity for All Campaign have sent an open letter to Minister Jean-Yves Duclos with recommendations to strengthen Bill C-87, An Act respecting the reduction of poverty. This is in anticipation of the federal government’s legislation of Canada’s Poverty Reduction Strategy (CPRS).

Read our Media Release for more details.  To download a copy of the latest Open Letter, please visit: https://dignityforall.ca/open-letter-strengthen-canadas-poverty-reduction-bill/

Join the Webinar: Why Legislate? Making Canada’s Poverty Reduction Act Law

February 19 from 1:00– 2:00 pm EST, hosted by Canada without Poverty (CWP). 

We’ll answer questions like: What’s so important about the legislation attached to Canada’s first Poverty Reduction Strategy? What has the federal government proposed and how can it be strengthened? And what does this all mean for the rights of millions of people living in poverty?  We will also take questions from you and talk about how to support strong poverty reduction efforts.

Speakers include Laura Cattari (CWP board member) Darlene O’Leary (Citizens for Public Justice), Michele Biss (CWP) and Anita Khanna (Campaign 2000).

Space is limited, so to join the Webinar.

Campaign 2000 and partner Dignity for All are collecting signatures for an open letter in English and French that will be sent to Minister Jean-Yves Duclos in mid-February. The letter provides concrete recommendations to strengthen Bill C-87, An Act respecting the reduction of poverty. It also urges Canada to commit to ending poverty by 2030 to align with the United Nations’ first Sustainable Development Goal.

We urge all concerned individuals and organizations across Canada to read and sign this Open Letter.  Please visit the Dignity for All website for a list of recommendations and to read the full letter.

Our recommendations include aligning with, and explicitly referencing, Canada’s international human rights obligations; ensuring that Canada’s official poverty line genuinely reflects the experiences of poverty in Canada, especially as faced by those in marginalized groups; and ensuring that the National Advisory Council on Poverty provides an effective accountability mechanism for those living in poverty.

This legislation provides Canada the historic opportunity to be a global leader in human rights and to commit to a country free of poverty where every child and family thrives.

Campaign 2000 will release its annual national Report Card on Child and Family Poverty on Tuesday, November 20 in Ottawa. The report marks 29 years since the unanimous House of Commons resolution to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000, and nine years since the House voted “to develop an immediate plan to end poverty for all in Canada.

The national release will take place at the National Child Day Breakfast on the Hill for MPs and Senators hosted by the All Party Anti-Poverty Caucus. We are proud to co-present the event with our partners Child Care Now, Canadian Federation of University Women, OXFAM Canada and UNICEF Canada. The national report card release takes place simultaneously with provincial report card releases in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. All report cards and related materials will be available at www.campaign2000.ca on November 20.

Campaign 2000 marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17, and we recall the federal government’s promise in 1989 to end child poverty by the year 2000. Canada has since reaffirmed this promise twice, but most recently released its Poverty Reduction Strategy that aims only to halve poverty by 2030.

These moving goalposts mean that today 1 in 5 children remain poverty, and by 2030–if the federal government reaches its target–hundreds of thousands of children will still be in poverty, 41 years after the original promise.

Canada must do more to eradicate child and family poverty. Our children have waited long enough. See our infographic to mark this special day.

Child and family poverty is a disturbing reality in every ward in Toronto, a new report from a coalition of community agencies finds. Family Service Toronto’s Campaign 2000 team contributed to the report, which uses newly released census data. The data show that ten wards in the city have a child poverty rate between 33% and 47%, but even wards with relatively low rates include areas where child poverty is pervasive, at double or triple the ward average.

The report, entitled 2018 Toronto Child & Family Poverty Report: Municipal Election Edition is the first to use census tract data to show hidden poverty within the city’s wards. The report provides thorough analysis of child poverty in Toronto, provides ward by ward child poverty rates and calls for renewed commitment to poverty reduction from Toronto City Council. You can also read the front page story in the Toronto Star.

Campaign 2000 submitted its recommendations for a national universal pharmacare program to the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare. Canada’s current patchwork system of drug coverage relies on an uneven mix of contributions from the private and public sectors. This system is inconsistent, confusing for families to navigate and costly to administer. Canadians spend more on medication than residents of countries with universal, public pharmacare programs. In the current system, too many children and families fall through the cracks and cannot access required medication. It is estimated that nearly 2 million Canadians cannot afford their prescription medication

With an aging population, rapid innovation in drug development and significant potential for cost savings from a single-payer system, it is Canada to move away from the current two-tiered system of private coverage for the affluent versus contingent and partial state coverage for people in poverty. The brief states that a national universal pharmacare is both the equitable and fiscally responsible approach to improved access to medications in Canada.