OTTAWA, Oct. 7 /CNW Telbec/ – Child poverty in Canada is stuck at the same level as 1989 and immigrant family incomes are falling behind, according to Canada’s Vital Signs 2008, the annual report card on quality of life from Community Foundations of Canada (CFC). Highlights of the report were released today and show:

– More than one in five Canadian children (23 per cent or 1.6 million)lived in poverty in 2006. This is virtually the same level as in 1989, when Canada pledged to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. At the current rate, achieving this goal would take 43 more years or until 2050.

– While the median income of non-immigrant Canadian families increased by over 5% from 2000 to 2005, immigrant families’ incomes fell by one per cent and recent immigrants’ (those in Canada less than five years) incomes fell more than three per cent. The situation is most striking in Canada’s largest cities, where recent immigrants’ incomes were half the median income of non-immigrant families: Toronto – 50 per cent, Montreal – 51.1 per cent, Vancouver – 51.8 per cent.