Question Period Note: CAMPAIGN 2000’s 2024 REPORT CARD ON CHILD AND FAMILY POVERTY

Release of Campaign 2000 Annual Report Card: Ending Child Poverty: The Time is Now.

• Supporting families and ensuring that every child gets the best possible start in life are priorities for the Government of Canada.

• This is why we introduced programs like the Canada Child Benefit (CCB). The CCB provides increased support for low- to middle-income families and has played a key role in reducing children poverty. There are 380,000 fewer children living in poverty in 2022 compared to 2015.

• The Government is also delivering $10-a-day child care and creating new child care spaces. We are supporting thousands of families who can’t bring their kids to the dentist with the Canadian Dental Care Plan. With our new National School Food Program, we are setting up children for success by making sure they can learn on a full stomach.

• But we know that some children continue to live in poverty and that is why the Government will continue to look for ways to support families and their children.

• On November 19, 2024, Campaign 2000 released its most recent annual Report Card entitled Ending child poverty: the time is now.

• Campaign 2000 was created in 1991 to increase public awareness and monitor progress on the 1989 unanimous House of Commons’ resolution to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. Campaign 2000 is a non-partisan, national network of 120 local, regional, and national organizations interested in child and family issues, committed to eradicating child poverty in Canada.

• Campaign 2000 has been tracking progress against child and family poverty through annual report cards since 1991. Campaign 2000 uses the Census Family Low Income Measure-After Tax (CFLIM-AT) to measure poverty. It is a relative measure of low income which sets a low-income line that is 50% of the median national income whereas the Market Basket Measure (the basis for Canada’s Official Poverty Line) sets a poverty line based on the cost of a basket of goods services that individuals need to meet their basic needs and achieve a modest standard of living in communities across Canada. Due to these methodological differences, these measures yield different results.
2024 Report Card Content and Recommendations

• The 2024 Report Card, contains 58 recommendations in total. Three immediate recommendations from the report are to:

o Update the Poverty Reduction Strategy and legislation to commit to expedited targets of reducing poverty rates by 50% between 2015 and 2027 and to eliminate poverty by 2031 based on the CFLIM-AT. New targets should be set to reduce the number of people living in deep poverty, defined as 50% below their respective household poverty line, by one third by 2027, measured by the CFLIM-AT. These targets must be explicitly applied for marginalized children, families and adults who experience higher rates of poverty including First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples, urban and rural Indigenous Peoples, Black and racialized people, people with disabilities, immigrants and migrants and
female-led lone parent families.

o Invest $5.9B to create a non-taxable Canada Child Benefit End of Poverty Supplement (CCB-EndPov) targeted to families in deep poverty, which would provide an additional $8,500 per year to a family with an earned income of less than $19,000 with scaled reductions for additional children irrespective of age. Broaden eligibility of the CCB to all children regardless of their parents citizenship status. Ensure children in informal and kinship care arrangements can access the CCB.

o Retire the CERB and CRB debt and immediately implement a CERB Repayment Amnesty for everyone living below or near the CFLIM-AT.

If pressed on the data media report of the largest spike in child poverty occurring in Newfoundland and Labrador:

• The Government is committed to supporting families and ensuring that every child across Canada and in Newfoundland and Labrador gets the best start in life.

• But we know that the last few years have been challenging, including when it comes to children poverty in Newfoundland and Labrador. The children poverty rate, based on Canada’s Official Poverty Line, increased to 11% in 2022, from 9.9% in 2021. This compares to a children poverty rate of 15.2% in 2015.

• That is why key federal income programs, like Canada Child Benefit, are indexed to the Consumer Price Index, allowing them to keep up with increases in the cost of living.