TORONTO - A new report says Toronto has the highest percentage of children living in poverty of any large city in Canada.
The report, titled "Divided City: Life in Canada's Child Poverty Capital," says 133,000 children in Toronto -- 27 per cent -- were living in low-income families in 2014, the year the data were collected.
It says the closest runner-up is Montreal, where 25 per cent of children were living in poverty that year.
A coalition of groups including the Children's Aid Society of Toronto issued the report as the city weighs up to $600 million in cuts to programs and services such as community housing, transit and student nutrition.
It says racialized families, new immigrant families, single-parent families and families with disabilities are up to three times more likely to live in poverty.
Only half of children in families with an annual income of less than $30,000 were found to participate in out-of-school art or sports programs, compared with 93 per cent of students in families with an income of $100,000 or more.
