British Columbia has the highest child poverty rate in Canada, with one in five children considered statistically poor, says a report that calls for quick action to alleviate a worsening situation in the province.

The report by the child and youth advocacy group First Call said B.C.’s child poverty rate is 18.6 per cent compared to the national rate of 13.3 per cent. Manitoba’s rate, the second-highest in the country, stands at 17.3 per cent.

Adrienne Montani, First Call’s provincial co-ordinator, said B.C. stands out as having done the least among all provinces to bring down child and family poverty through government supports and programs.

“Concerted government action in the form of a comprehensive poverty reduction plan for the province is long overdue,” said Montani in a statement.

The authors of the 2013 Child Poverty Report Card used the most recent economic data available from Statistics Canada to issue their “dismal” findings for British Columbia.

First Call says the number of poor children in B.C. in 2011 was 153,000 – enough to fill the Vancouver Canucks’ stadium more than eight times.

“The child poverty rate rose from 14.3 per cent in 2010 to 18.6 per cent in 2011,” said the report, which used the agency’s low-income cutoffs before tax as a measure of poverty.

“On this measure, one in five B.C. children were poor — the highest rate of any province,” it continues.

First Call’s report card makes 16 recommendations, including increasing and indexing the B.C. minimum wage and welfare rates and adopting a $10-a-day child care program to cut the child poverty rate to seven per cent within the next seven years.

“First Call’s overarching recommendation for B.C. is for government to adopt a comprehensive poverty reduction plan with legislated targets and timelines and a cabinet minister with the authority and responsibility to ensure government is achieving its targets on time,” the report said.

It recommended raising B.C.’s minimum wage to $12 per hour from the current $10.25 an hour. It also recommended indexing future annual minimum wage increases to cost of living increases.

Female single-parent families appear to be hit the hardest by the rise in child poverty, Montani added.

According to the report, there was a dramatic increase in the poverty rate for children living in families headed by female single parents, with a rise to 49.8 per cent in 2011, up from 21.5 per cent a year earlier.

“We were pretty shocked by this statistic. The only thing we can find so far that actually corroborates it is that the median market income for female lone-parent families dropped between 2010 and 2011 from $32,000 a year to $21,500 a year for B.C..”