Manitoba's government is not making any headway on reducing child poverty in the province, and the public wants it do to more, the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg said Monday.

About 51,000 Manitoba children live in poverty, according to the council's 2007 report card on poverty, released Monday.

That puts the poverty rate at about 20 per cent, the council said — up from 2004, and down only slightly from 1989, when all parties in the House of Commons voted unanimously to work to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000.

The province has no long-term plan to tackle the root causes of poverty, said council spokesman Sid Frankel.

"We're saying to the government: your announcements every couple of weeks are good. You're headed in the right direction [but] you're not investing enough," he said.

"You don't have a comprehensive plan and you're not announcing targets, and we're going to press you to announce those targets so that we can help the public hold your feet to the fire on those targets."

The Social Planning Council noted the figures it quoted do not include children living in First Nations communities, adding that if it did, the poverty rate would be much higher.

Nearly half — 49 per cent — of Winnipeggers believe Premier Gary Doer's NDP government has not put enough effort and resources into addressing poverty in Manitoba, a poll commissioned by the council suggests.

Four per cent of those polled said they thought the government was doing too much, while 40 per cent thought it was doing enough, according to the poll, which is considered accurate within four percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

'Cautious optimism': province

The provincial government is already making some progress fighting poverty, Family Services Minister Gord Mackintosh said Monday, pointing to moves to double earning exemptions for people on welfare, establish a new child benefit tax credit and fund employment searches for people on social assistance.

Those efforts are contributing to a reduction in the number of children living in poverty, Mackintosh said, although he conceded the drop is "not enough whatsoever."

"Statistics should mean nothing to a family living in poverty and it cannot mean anything, but it can provide some cautious optimism that some of the efforts that we have taken can pay off and should spur us on to more efforts directed at poverty reduction," he said.

Still, the council said the province should do more to tackle child poverty, recommending the government:

• Raise social-assistance rates and index them to inflation.
• Increase the minimum wage to $10.65 an hour and index it to inflation.
• Build more affordable housing units and improve existing units.
• Expand the supply of child care.

The City of Winnipeg should also help by providing free bus passes during off-peak hours, improving recreation for low-income families and establishing living wage bylaws, the council said.

It also called on the federal government to increase the national child benefit supplement, establish a federal minimum wage, and invest in social housing, child care, and a basic income system for people with disabilities.

The council determines the poverty rate using Statistics Canada's before-tax low income, based on expenditure of 20 per cent more than the average family on food, shelter and clothing.