One of the country’s main trackers of poverty rates across Canada is
about to turn a spotlight on poverty in rural areas and the farm
economy.
Each year, the National Council of Welfare prepares a poverty profile
that tries to calculate how well Canadian wealth is shared, if poverty
rates are declining and which groups are more likely to be poor.
To date, rural and farm family poverty rates have not been studied as a
separate category. That may be about to change.
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“One thing we have not done is look at the whole issue of rural
poverty, farm poverty and the effects of farm policy and economic
trends on that,” said council researcher Lola Fabowale. As a former
Oxfam employee she wrote about rural poverty in Canada and around the
world while with the international development agency.
“I think we are certainly interested in this. It is something we would
like to explore in the future.”
With images of prairie drought, regular pleas for farm aid and
Agriculture Canada assertions that as many as two-thirds of farm
families sell less than $100,000 in produce, it is possible researchers
for the government-funded welfare council will find significant levels
of rural poverty.
In its 1999 profile, published this summer, the council concluded that
while overall Canadian poverty levels fell during the 1998-99 period,
the decline was far less than the robust five percent growth in the
economy.
It said older women living alone were at the highest risk of being
poor, while chronic poverty affects the children of the underclass the
most.
Allyce Herle, acting chair of the welfare council, issued a scathing
assessment, accusing governments of ignoring the cost of child poverty.
They have fewer opportunities and less of a “fair chance in life,” she
said. “It is very hard for me to understand how Canadian governments
and citizens tolerate this. We only pretend we value our children.”
The report said poverty in the midst of Canadian plenty is “a subject
that is much discussed but little understood. Myths and stereotypes
about poverty and the people who live in poverty … are deeply rooted
in our society.”
A poverty profile may expose some of the problems and realities of
rural and farm families who live below the Canadian poverty line.
