Harper's Canada Posts Poor Showing on Child Well-Being

Sideshow Steve Harper doesn't have much time for the plebs, especially the little ones - the dependent-types.   UNICEF has just released a report on the well-being of children in the 29 richest countries and we finish in a miserable 17th place.

Canada ranked very low in the category of health and safety, ahead of only Latvia and Romania. According to UNICEF, the category looked at such things as  infant mortality, low birth weight, national immunization and overall child and youth mortality.

Canada had the worst ranking in terms of youth cannabis users at 28 per cent; was 24th in participation in higher education (though that figure was 81 per cent); and ranked 27th in fighting obesity, with 20 per cent of children thought to be obese. Eighty-five per cent of Canadian youth were immunized, good enough for a ranking of 28th.

“We haven’t invested as much in public education, public awareness, about vaccinations and the need to do them,” said David Morley UNICEF Canada president and CEO. “Perhaps we’ve allowed things to slip a bit.”

Canada has a good ranking — third — on youth not smoking tobacco which he said “shows things can work and we just need to apply it to a few more places.”

The country ranked second in educational achievement by age 15.

But on five broad themes — behaviours and risk, housing and environment, material well-being and education — Canada ranks from 11th to 16th, at the middle of the pack.

So Steve Harper has his work cut out for him.  Surely with a bit of effort he can get those child smoking numbers up and get a boost in tax revenues.