BC’s children’s watchdog calls for a child poverty plan

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – BC’s children’s watchdog has compiled the heartbreaking stories of 21 children who died between 2007 and 2009. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is now taking it to the province, asking the BC government to do something about child poverty.

Turpel-Lafond says she can’t guarantee all 21 deaths could have been prevented, but some of them definitely could have.

“The sad reality is that British Columbians have to realize that there are children in deep, deep poverty,” says Turpel-Lafond.

She says one story about a mother with two young toddlers who lived in a condemned home was especially touching.

The family finally got into a motel where one of the infants went to sleep on a bed, not a crib.

She says deaths like that are preventable. “In some instances they are living in very overcrowded housing with numerous people sharing a bed, including a newborn infant in bed with several siblings and the infant dies.”

Turpel-Lafond says she wants to see sweeping changes and a BC-wide child poverty plan.

Doug Kinna with the union that represents BC’s social workers agrees. “Six provinces and one territory have legislative poverty reduction strategies in place. Nunavut is in the first steps of getting a strategy in place, and British Columbia has no interest in it.”

Kinna says social workers are understaffed, overworked and burned out.

Meanwhile, Children’s Minster Mary Polak calls the deaths tragic, but points out those were 21 cases out of more than 80,000 children handled by the ministry.