May is Child Care Month and a chance to see how governments and society are doing when it comes to caring for our children.
Unfortunately, sometimes the contrasts in life are just too much to take.
On the one hand, we have the state of child poverty in British Columbia. First Call's "2009 Child Poverty Report Card" says that B.C. had the highest rate of child poverty in Canada for six years in a row in 2007. They estimated that 156,000 children in B.C. were living in poverty.
At the same time, today's Globe and Mail is reporting their "2009 Executive Compensation." The number one earner in 2009 was Aaron Regent, the CEO of Barrick Gold Corp. His base salary was $1,480,625. He got a bonus of $2,897,000 and combined with other stock options, etc., he's good for $24,217,040.
It's clear that we've got to take a look at our priorities. When 156,000 children can go hungry and we have corporate executives earning that kind of money, surely some changes must be made.
A small start could be what the B.C. Legislative Assembly's Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth will find when it files its report. The committee met on Friday to explore the issue of child poverty and heard a number of presentations on the issue.
The BCGEU has been calling for the poverty rate to be reduced for children lone-mother households and others by 30 percent in four years and 78.5 percent within ten years. The union is also calling for targets and timelines so the goals of poverty reduction can be met.
It's been over 20 years since the House of Commons passed a motion calling for an end to child poverty. We're well past when that should be the case.
