Child Welfare
In 2017, changes were made to the Children and Family Services Act including expanding the definition of neglect to include: the chronic and serious failure to provide to the child adequate food, clothing or shelter, adequate supervision, affection or cognitive stimulation, or any other similar failure to provide care.
This provision opens up a punitive process for marginalized families for the failures of society. This change has expanded the reporting obligations of professionals, officials and others who work with children and families contributing to the over surveillance of racialized and vulnerable communities. The government is itself responsible for providing inadequate income supports that ensnare people in poverty and instead of addressing its own responsibility this change has led to the continued overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black families involved in the child welfare system.
The entire system needs transforming with careful attention to “disentangling the issues of poverty and maltreatment, particularly neglect. In other words, being poor does not make someone a poor parent, though poverty can create conditions under which maltreatment is more likely to occur. Similarly, addressing economic risk and poverty is necessary, but not sufficient to end child maltreatment or the need for child protective services.
Children and youth in Nova Scotia are not and cannot be fully secure in the face of child and family poverty. Poverty can limit the ability of children to grow up healthy and happy and to develop to their full potential. Too many children and youth live in poverty in Nova Scotia. They feel its effects in nearly every aspect of their wellbeing. Poverty in childhood is a direct affront to multiple children’s rights.
Health Care
Children and youth who responded to the 2018-2019 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey in Nova Scotia and whose families had the lowest quintile of income based on a validated Family Affluence Scale were more likely to report low life satisfaction and to feel sad, depressed, or lonely. They were more likely to report low self-confidence. They were less likely to trust others or to think it’s safe for kids to play outside. They were less likely to eat fruits and vegetables or to be involved in organized sports. Making Positive educational outcomes that much more challenging
Education
Some Statistics
The child poverty rates are highest in Digby (34.7%), Annapolis (33.7%), and Cape Breton (33.5%) where more than 1 in 3 children lived below the Census Family Low Income Measure.
Sixty-eight postal areas have child poverty rates at 30% and higher (32% of those reported). Postal Area data suggest that both rural and urban areas in the province experience high rates of child poverty. Patterns of higher child poverty rates are evident in postal geographies where census profiles report higher populations of African Nova Scotian and Aboriginal children (including those that live on reserve).
Poverty rates vary across federal electoral districts. The Sydney-Victoria riding has a child poverty rate of 35% and six additional ridings (Halifax, West Nova, Cape Breton-Canso, Cumberland-Colchester, Central Nova, and Kings-Hants) have rates that are represented in the highest quintile of child poverty rates nationally.
The 2017 Canadian Survey on Disability revealed that almost one third of working aged people with disabilities lived in poverty in Canada as measured by the Market Basket Measure and were more likely to be in female lone parent families or living alone. This same data tells us that Nova Scotia has the highest percent of disabled people of any province.
Low-income lone parent families with two children had a depth of poverty of $13,432 per year (only 66% of the poverty threshold)—meaning they are in deep poverty and would need an extra $1119/month to bring them up to the poverty line.
In 2019, we saw a 39.4% reduction in child poverty due to all government transfers (a lesser amount of 37.6% reduction for children under 6). Indeed, government benefits lifted 26, 810 children aged 0–17 out of poverty, meaning the child poverty rate in Nova Scotia would have been 44.7% without them (68,110 children). The Canada Child Benefit is responsible for 87% of this reduction overall, demonstrating that a large proportion of the effect of government transfers in reducing child poverty in Nova Scotia can be attributed to the federal government.