ONTARIO: A PROVINCE DIVIDED · 2019-08-30 · Thunder Bay’s Victoriaville neighbourhood is a...
1
Nina’s son, Nicolas, is a year old and his dad is long gone. He left in Nina’s third trimester, returning to England to serve time in jail for a crime she didn’t know about at the time — and won’t dis- close. It was a blow — but she said her son helped her get through it. “It’s him that I need to be taking care of and living for. It gets my mind off other things. Without him, it would be way harder.” Nina lives with her dad and his new wife on the Mountain. She’s got a new boyfriend, too — a guy she said she met on the dance floor of a club last summer. For Nina, it’s their different reli- gious backgrounds, rather than the baby, that complicates the rela- tionship. “He knows I’m a good girl. And his parents do, too, so they’re not really stopping anything.” Nina said her child motivates her to stay out of trouble, and it was he who drove her to go back to school at Grace Haven — a local centre for pregnant teens and young moms. She’s almost done Grade 9 now and thinks she’d like to become a cosmetician one day. “This is making me stronger, pushing me more to school and I’m just not doing stupid things,” she said. “I think having a child makes everything better for me.” N ot far from the rail yards near the old downtown of what was once Fort William, there’s a piece of Thunder Bay known as Victoriaville. The neighbourhood is home to a near-vacant mall, a methadone clinic and a homeless shelter with a soup kitchen that serves 500 meals a day. Of the province’s 2,100 munici- pal neighbourhoods, it had the highest rate of teen mothers. One in four babies in Victoria- ville was born to a teen mom be- tween 2006 and 2010. Based on Statistics Canada cen- sus data, it appears about one of every three teen girls living in the neighbourhood had a baby at some point between 2006 and 2010. The stories of Hamilton and Thunder Bay are similar in some important ways, at least when it comes to their local economies. Both have watched their tradition- al industrial bases erode. Once a major shipping hub, many of Thunder Bay’s grain ele- vators stand abandoned along the waterfront. “There were lumber mills and pulp and paper mills, and all that’s really declined,” said Lee Sieswer- da, an epidemiologist with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. “In the same way as Hamilton has seen that hit in terms of employ- ment, we’ve seen the same kind of thing. “If teen pregnancy is more com- mon around disadvantaged peo- ple and we’ve seen a real hit to our economy, it kind of follows that teen pregnancy would follow along with that decline.” One critical difference in Thun- der Bay is the much higher concen- tration of aboriginals, many of them young people. About one in eight people in Victoriaville is na- tive, the same proportion as Thun- der Bay itself. Statistics also show the Canada- wide fertility rate for aboriginal teen girls is seven times higher than the national average. “You have a group that has high fertility among teen moms and a larger proportion of that particu- lar subpopulation in the city, so it’s not too surprising that you end up with a higher teen pregnancy rate,” said Sieswerda. Six of the 12 neighbourhoods in Ontario with the highest rates of teen moms are located in Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Sault Ste. Ma- rie, another steelmaking hub that has suffered from substantial job losses over the past three decades. Drill down to the level of Onta- rio’s neighbourhoods and the dis- parities in teen mom rates be- tween rich and poor are obvious. Take Victoriaville, for instance. The median household income there, according to the last census, was $16,200 — below the poverty line and far behind the Ontario average of $60,500. In Victoriaville, two of every three children live in poverty, more than 40 per cent of all income comes from government transfers and nearly one in three families is headed by a single mom. In fact, take the five Ontario neighbourhoods with the highest rates of teen mothers and look at their average characteristics. All five have teen mom rates that range between 21 and 25 per cent. Together, their median household income is just over half of the pro- vincial average, and both their poverty rate and the proportion of income that comes from govern- ment transfers are more than twice the provincial norm. Compare that with the five neighbourhoods at the other end of the scale — in Burlington, Oak- ville, Vaughan, Markham and To- ronto. Of the 4,461 women who gave birth in those five neighbour- hoods, not one was a teenager. The median household income is near- ly 50 per cent higher than the pro- vincial average, the rate of govern- ment transfer income is half the Ontario rate and less than one in 10 families is headed by a single mom. 12 Cochrane The Spectator's analysis of 535,000 provincial birth records reveals that between 2006 and 2010 the 20 communities with the highest incidence of teen mothers are either in Ontario's Far North or native reserves. ONTARIO: A PROVINCE DIVIDED SOURCE: BORN ONTARIO, STATISTICS CANADA 2006 CENSUS Steve Buist, Teri Pecoskie, Dean Tweed // THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR Sandy Lake First Nation Pikangikum First Nation Fort Albany First Nation Shoal Lake First Nation Big Trout Lake First Nation Cochrane, unorganized North Wabaseemoong First Nation Wapekeka 2 First Nation Grassy Narrows First Nation Fort William 52 First Nation Weagamow Lake 87 First Nation Wikwemikong First Nation Thunder Bay, unorganized Fort Severn 89 First Nation Attawapiskat First Nation Factory Island 1 First Nation Smooth Rock Falls Whitefish Bay 32A First Nation Deer Lake First Nation Kenora, unorganized St. Joseph East Garafraxa Assiginack Township Schreiber Vaughan Markham Oakville Caledon Richmond Hill Whitchurch-Stouffville Milton Middlesex Centre Burlington West Lincoln Aurora King Wellesley Mississauga Uxbridge Halton Hills 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 13 14 16 18 19 20 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 13 14 16 18 19 20 17 14 8 5 11 1 19 2 7 9 20 4 18 13 10 17 6 15 3 16 Sioux Lookout Timmins Niagara Falls Niagara Falls Niagara Falls Kitchener Kitchener Kitchener Windsor Sarnia Peterborough Peterborough Peterborough North Bay Sudbury Sudbury Sudbury Ottawa Ottawa Ottawa Cornwall Kingston Kingston Kingston Barrie Sudbury Sault Ste. Marie Thunder Bay 40% 32.6 30.1 29.2 28.2 27.6 27.1 26.9 25.9 24.4 24.4 24.1 23.3 23.1 22.9 22.5 21.9 21.6 20.9 19.2 0 0 0 0 0.6 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.7 1.1 1.1 1.2 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.5 1.7 1.7 1.8 19 15 16 10 6 9 5 8 17 3 4 1 12 11 20 18 7 Median household income: $74,969 Unemployment rate: 4.6% No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 7.3% Rate of teen mothers: 1.4% Burlington 13 14 2 Toronto Median household income: $30,805 Unemployment rate: 26.4% No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 58% Rate of teen mothers: 40% Sandy Lake First Nation Median household income: $28,000 Unemployment rate: 11.9% No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 74% Rate of teen mothers: 28.2% Big Trout Lake First Nation Median household income: $17,824 Unemployment rate: 31.9% No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 51% Rate of teen mothers: 25.9% Grassy Narrows First Nation Median household income: $92,394 Unemployment rate: 5.3% No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 5.7% Rate of teen mothers: 0.7% Oakville Median household income: $66,680 Unemployment rate: 4.8% No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 19.5% Rate of teen mothers: 1.4% West Lincoln Communities with the highest rates of teen mothers Percentage of all mothers that are teenagers Communities with the lowest rates of teen mothers Percentage of all mothers that are teenagers Thunder Bay’s Victoriaville neighbourhood is a virtual case study in the close correlation between high teen mother rates and poverty. Victoriaville: a neighbourhood in crisis SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA Dean Tweed // THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR Median household income: $16,187 Percentage income from government transfers: 41% Percentage of families headed by single mother: 32% Percentage of residents living below poverty line: 57% Percentage of children living below poverty line: 64% Percentage with a university degree (ages 25-64): 4% THUN THUNDER DER BA BAY FORT FORT WILLI WILLIAM AM 0 4 km THUNDER BAY FORT WILLIAM Victoriaville TERI PECOSKIE, THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR In Thunder Bay’s Victoriaville neighbourhood, which is blighted by grinding poverty, one in eight people is native. BORN CONTINUED FROM // WR5 BORN CONTINUED ON // WR7 WR6 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2011 THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR l THE SPEC.COM
Transcript of ONTARIO: A PROVINCE DIVIDED · 2019-08-30 · Thunder Bay’s Victoriaville neighbourhood is a...
Nina’s son, Nicolas, is a year oldand his dad is long gone.
He left in Nina’s third trimester,returning to England to serve timein jail for a crime she didn’t knowabout at the time — and won’t dis-close.
It was a blow — but she said herson helped her get through it.
“It’s him that I need to be takingcare of and living for. It gets mymind off other things. Withouthim, it would be way harder.”
Nina lives with her dad and hisnew wife on the Mountain. She’sgot a new boyfriend, too — a guyshe said she met on the dance floorof a club last summer.
For Nina, it’s their different reli-gious backgrounds, rather thanthe baby, that complicates the rela-tionship.
“He knows I’m a good girl. Andhis parents do, too, so they’re notreally stopping anything.”
Nina said her child motivatesher to stay out of trouble, and itwas he who drove her to go back toschool at Grace Haven — a localcentre for pregnant teens andyoung moms.
She’s almost done Grade 9 nowand thinks she’d like to become acosmetician one day.
“This is making me stronger,pushing me more to school andI’m just not doing stupid things,”she said. “I think having a childmakes everything better for me.”
Not far from the rail yardsnear the old downtown of
what was once Fort William,there’s a piece of Thunder Bayknown as Victoriaville.
The neighbourhood is home to anear-vacant mall, a methadoneclinic and a homeless shelter witha soup kitchen that serves 500meals a day.
Of the province’s 2,100 munici-pal neighbourhoods, it had thehighest rate of teen mothers.
One in four babies in Victoria-ville was born to a teen mom be-tween 2006 and 2010.
Based on Statistics Canada cen-sus data, it appears about one ofevery three teen girls living in theneighbourhood had a baby at somepoint between 2006 and 2010.
The stories of Hamilton andThunder Bay are similar in someimportant ways, at least when itcomes to their local economies.Both have watched their tradition-al industrial bases erode.
Once a major shipping hub,many of Thunder Bay’s grain ele-vators stand abandoned along thewaterfront.
“There were lumber mills andpulp and paper mills, and all that’sreally declined,” said Lee Sieswer-da, an epidemiologist with theThunder Bay District Health Unit.“In the same way as Hamilton hasseen that hit in terms of employ-ment, we’ve seen the same kind ofthing.
“If teen pregnancy is more com-mon around disadvantaged peo-ple and we’ve seen a real hit to oureconomy, it kind of follows thatteen pregnancy would followalong with that decline.”
One critical difference in Thun-der Bay is the much higher concen-tration of aboriginals, many ofthem young people. About one ineight people in Victoriaville is na-tive, the same proportion as Thun-der Bay itself.
Statistics also show the Canada-wide fertility rate for aboriginalteen girls is seven times higherthan the national average.
“You have a group that has highfertility among teen moms and alarger proportion of that particu-lar subpopulation in the city, so it’snot too surprising that you end up
with a higher teen pregnancyrate,” said Sieswerda.
Six of the 12 neighbourhoods inOntario with the highest rates ofteen moms are located in ThunderBay, Hamilton and Sault Ste. Ma-rie, another steelmaking hub thathas suffered from substantial joblosses over the past three decades.
Drill down to the level of Onta-rio’s neighbourhoods and the dis-parities in teen mom rates be-tween rich and poor are obvious.
Take Victoriaville, for instance.The median household income
there, according to the last census,was $16,200 — below the povertyline and far behind the Ontarioaverage of $60,500.
In Victoriaville, two of everythree children live in poverty,more than 40 per cent of all incomecomes from government transfersand nearly one in three families isheaded by a single mom.
In fact, take the five Ontarioneighbourhoods with the highestrates of teen mothers and look attheir average characteristics.
All five have teen mom rates thatrange between 21 and 25 per cent.Together, their median householdincome is just over half of the pro-vincial average, and both theirpoverty rate and the proportion ofincome that comes from govern-ment transfers are more thantwice the provincial norm.
Compare that with the fiveneighbourhoods at the other endof the scale — in Burlington, Oak-ville, Vaughan, Markham and To-ronto. Of the 4,461 women whogave birth in those five neighbour-hoods, not one was a teenager. Themedian household income is near-ly 50 per cent higher than the pro-vincial average, the rate of govern-ment transfer income is half theOntario rate and less than one in 10families is headed by a single mom.
12
Cochrane
The Spectator's analysis of 535,000 provincial birth records reveals that between 2006 and 2010 the 20 communities with the highest incidence of teen mothers are either in Ontario's Far North or native reserves.
ONTARIO: A PROVINCE DIVIDED
SOURCE: BORN ONTARIO, STATISTICS CANADA 2006 CENSUS Steve Buist, Teri Pecoskie, Dean Tweed // THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
Sandy Lake First Nation
Pikangikum First Nation
Fort Albany First Nation
Shoal Lake First Nation
Big Trout Lake First Nation
Cochrane, unorganized North
Wabaseemoong First Nation
Wapekeka 2 First Nation
Grassy Narrows First Nation
Fort William 52 First Nation
Weagamow Lake 87 First Nation
Wikwemikong First Nation
Thunder Bay, unorganized
Fort Severn 89 First Nation
Attawapiskat First Nation
Factory Island 1 First Nation
Smooth Rock Falls
Whitefish Bay 32A First Nation
Deer Lake First Nation
Kenora, unorganized
St. Joseph
East Garafraxa
Assiginack Township
Schreiber
Vaughan
Markham
Oakville
Caledon
Richmond Hill
Whitchurch-Stouffville
Milton
Middlesex Centre
Burlington
West Lincoln
Aurora
King
Wellesley
Mississauga
Uxbridge
Halton Hills
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
15
13
14
16
18
19
20
17
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
15
13
14
16
18
19
20
17
14
85
111
19
2
7 9204
18
1310
17 6
15
3
16
Sioux Lookout
Timmins
Niagara FallsNiagara FallsNiagara Falls
KitchenerKitchenerKitchener
Windsor
Sarnia
PeterboroughPeterboroughPeterborough
North BaySudburySudburySudburyOttawaOttawaOttawa
Cornwall
KingstonKingstonKingston
Barrie
Sudbury
Sault Ste. Marie
Thunder Bay
40% 32.6 30.1 29.2 28.2 27.6 27.1 26.9 25.9 24.4 24.4 24.1 23.3 23.1 22.9 22.5 21.9 21.6 20.9 19.2
00000.60.60.70.70.7 1.1 1.1 1.2 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.4 1.5 1.7 1.7 1.8
191516 10
6958
17
3
4
1
12
1120 18
7
Median household income: $74,969Unemployment rate: 4.6%No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 7.3%
Rate of teen mothers: 1.4%
Burlington
13
14
2
Toronto
Median household income: $30,805Unemployment rate: 26.4%No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 58%
Rate of teen mothers: 40%
Sandy Lake First Nation
Median household income: $28,000Unemployment rate: 11.9%No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 74%
Rate of teen mothers: 28.2%
Big Trout Lake First Nation
Median household income: $17,824Unemployment rate: 31.9%No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 51%
Rate of teen mothers: 25.9%
Grassy Narrows First Nation
Median household income: $92,394Unemployment rate: 5.3%No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 5.7%
Rate of teen mothers: 0.7%
Oakville
Median household income: $66,680Unemployment rate: 4.8%No high school diploma, certificate or degree (ages 25-64): 19.5%
Rate of teen mothers: 1.4%
West Lincoln
Communities with the highest rates of teen mothersPercentage of all mothers that are teenagers
Communities with the lowest rates of teen mothersPercentage of all mothers that are teenagers
Thunder Bay’s Victoriaville neighbourhood is a virtual case study in the close correlation between high teen mother rates and poverty.
Victoriaville: a neighbourhood in crisis
SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA Dean Tweed // THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
Median household income: $16,187Percentage income from government transfers: 41%Percentage of families headed by single mother: 32%Percentage of residents living below poverty line: 57%Percentage of children living below poverty line: 64%Percentage with a university degree (ages 25-64): 4%
THUNTHUNDER DER BABAY
FORT FORT WILLIWILLIAMAM
0 4kmTHUNDER
BAY
FORT WILLIAM
Victoriaville
TERI PECOSKIE, THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
In Thunder Bay’s Victoriaville neighbourhood, which is blighted by grindingpoverty, one in eight people is native.
BORN CONTINUED FROM // WR5
BORN CONTINUED ON // WR7
WR6 SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2011 THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR l THE SPEC.COM
