Thursday, September 13, 2007

They knew the answer

Some more information from the 2006 Census was made public yesterday by Statistics Canada. The families and household data (also named as "Family Portrait") shows that for the first time ever childless couples outnumbered families with children 42.7% to 41.4%. Looking at the marital status data (which for some reason includes 15 year-olds), we find out that 51.5% of Canadians aged 15 and over are unmarried. There are more single-parent families, the size of an average household is going down... In brief, thanks to the decades of anti-family policies, the traditional 'nuclear' family in Canada has hit rock bottom.

The CBC choose to conclude its article on a recently published data with a question. "Is there a price to pay for the rise in single parent families?", they ask. But the answer is right there, in the very same article:
In 2005, the median household income for two-parent families in Canada was $67,600. For lone-parent families it was $30,000 — meaning half of all single-parent families were bringing in less than that amount annually.
Thus - poverty is a price to pay for family breakdown. As simple as that.

The CBC could also dig into their own archives. Or lookup the same data on Stats Canada website. Yes, I'm talking about the age and gender information, which was published about 2 months ago. The news was grim: we are getting older; 10 years from now there won't be enough young workers to replace those that are going to retire. If the CBC put the data together they'd get a clear answer to their question: demographic and labour crisis (with the possibility of a severe crisis of Canada's old age benefit programs) is the price to pay for putting family values aside.

The CBC wanted the public input. They got some:
A family unit (whether single or not) comprises of individuals and as individuals, we have to ultimately take responsibility and never forget that first and foremost we are responsible for and accountable to our children.

We, as a society seem to have forgotten that and this is why we find ourselves debating our future...
, says SA from Mississauga.
What other answer did they expect?

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