Canadian Council on Social Development 441 MacLaren Street 4th/e Floor/Étage Ottawa, ON K2P 2H3

Conseil canadien de développement social Tel: (613) 236-8977 Fax: (613) 236-2750 E-mail: council@ccsd.ca Internet: www.ccsd.ca

CCSD briefing note

[Home Page ] [E-mail ] [Page d'accueil ] February 29, 2000

Federal budget offers families some relief,
but support for services still lacking

The federal budget tabled yesterday offers some good news to many families with children in Canada, but others will feel little positive effect. The tax measures will help working families with children, but the Canadian Council on Social Development is disappointed that the poorest families in Canada will not receive any benefits from this budget.

Modest to middle-income working families will have more money in their pockets thanks to changes in the tax brackets, re-indexation of the tax system, increases to the Child Tax Benefit, and various tax measures to help support persons with disabilities. This is good news, although the increases will take four years to be fully felt. Even by 2004 the Child Tax Benefit will not lift significant numbers of children in working poor families out of poverty. That would require further federal investment in the benefit and changes to current rules that exclude children in welfare families from receiving any support beyond welfare payments via the Child Tax Benefit.

Amending Employment Insurance regulations to increase parental leave to 35 weeks and reducing the required number of hours to qualify from 700 to 600 are also positive steps to support families raising young children. However, the federal government should now move further to extend EI coverage to the large numbers of parents who do not qualify for EI. It should also raise benefit levels and reduce even further the number of hours needed to qualify.

The CCSD is also disappointed that the government did not include a five-year comprehensive plan to improve child and family well-being in the budget by earmarking money for services to be cost-shared with other levels of government through the National Children's Agenda. The government adopted such a plan to address the deficit and taxes. Canadian children and families deserve no less.

Finance Minister Martin reiterated that his government would be working towards establishing a National Children's Agenda plan by December 2000. This must be seen as a top priority by both federal and provincial governments.

The federal government also needs to develop ways to support the provision of more affordable housing by working with all levels of government and the non-profit housing sector. There are at least 90,000 families on waiting lists today for subsidized housing.

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