Statement made on 06 October 2009 by Senator Mobina Jaffer
Hon. Mobina S.B. Jaffer:
Honourable senators, my question is to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. The recent report, How Canada Performs: a Report Card on Canada, released by the Conference Board of Canada, addresses key areas in which Canada is losing the fight against poverty. The report presents alarming figures in key areas such as child working age and elderly poverty.
The nonpartisan organization Make Poverty History, which was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Ottawa, also indicates that Canada is losing the fight against poverty. Its numbers indicate that, as of 2007, one sixth of Canadian children live in poverty. Canada's child poverty rate of 15 per cent is three times that of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Each month, more than 770,000 people in Canada use food banks.
Honourable senators, sadly, 40 per cent of those relying on food banks are children. According to the figures presented by the Conference Board, the child poverty rate increased from 12.8 per cent in the mid-1990s to 15.l per cent in the mid-2000s. The working-age poverty rate rose from 9.4 per cent to 12.2 per cent over the same period, and the elderly poverty rate also increased from 2.9 to 5.9 per cent.
This report gave Canada a B grade and ranked us ninth out of seventeen countries, behind such countries as the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.
Honourable senators, poverty is directly connected to persons obtaining jobs, and it is especially difficult for women. The third report of the government's economic plan makes the point of highlighting many infrastructure jobs it created, together with upcoming jobs, which will be created disproportionately for men.
Currently, 7 per cent of construction workers are women; 7 per cent of those in trades and transportation are women; and only 22 per cent who are employed as engineers are women.
Some Hon. Senators: Shame.
Senator Jaffer: My question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate is, what is the government doing to help women obtain jobs at this time?
Please click here to read the full text of the Senator's question