Diane Finley’s fun with statistics
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - 0 Comments
While the Human Resources Minister was defending herself against misrepresentation yesterday, she was also faced with questions about child poverty. In response to Liberal questions on the topic, she offered the following.
Mr. Speaker, it is a little bit late for the Liberals to be showing an interest in this. Child poverty, under their reign, was over 18%. It is now under 8%.
This is not entirely untrue. In 1996, when the Liberals were in government, the percentage of those under the age of 18 in a low income situation was indeed 18.4% (see here). Thing is, the Liberals were in power for another nine years and 1996 was the peak in this particular regard. By 2005, the rate was 11.7%. From 1993, when the Liberals won power, to 2005, the rate dropped 5.3 points.
Here are the low income rates for those under 18 between 1991 and 2010.
1991. 15.2
1992. 15.1
1993. 17.0
1994. 16.3
1995. 17.5
1996. 18.4
1997. 17.4
1998. 15.7
1999. 14.6
2000. 13.9
2001. 12.2
2002. 12.4
2003. 12.7
2004. 13.0
2005. 11.7
2006. 11.1
2007. 9.5
2008. 9.0
2009. 9.4
2010. 8.2
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Idea alert
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 12:04 PM - 132 Comments
Ed Broadbent suggests taxing the rich to fight child poverty.
About 100,000 Canadians are in the top tax bracket for earners making more than $250,000. On average, those individuals earn more than $600,000 a year. Broadbent, 73, said increasing their taxes from 29 per cent to 35 per cent would put billions more toward eliminating child poverty, increasing the amount spent by $3.7 billion.
“With just that single move we would double the amount given for the national child benefit supplement and take children out of the devastation of poverty,” he said during a speech at the University of New Brunswick.
