Question Period Note: CHILD POVERTY

Child Poverty in Canada

• The Government introduced the Canada Child Benefit to provide increased support for low- to middle-income families with children. Because it is tax-free and based on income, it provides more support to those who need help the most.

• The Canada Child Benefit has increased support for low- to middle-income families with children, and recent results from the 2017 Canadian Income Survey confirm that since 2015 it has helped lift 278,000 children out of poverty in Canada.

• To ensure that the CCB continues to help Canadian families over the long term, since July 2018, the CCB benefits are being indexed to keep pace with the cost of living, and provide families with even more support.

• We will work to establish Guaranteed Paid Family Leave – an ambitious program that will make sure that parents who don’t qualify for paid leave through E.I. or who don’t get enough, because they’re between jobs, earn little, or haven’t worked enough hours, will receive a guaranteed income during the first year of their child’s life.

• To help when the costs of raising kids are highest, we plan to increase the Canada Child Benefit by 15 per cent for kids under the age of one. This will give families up to $1,000 more each year.

• The Canada Child Benefit replaced three different previous benefits—the Canada Child Tax Benefit including the National Child Benefit Supplement, and the Universal Child Care Benefit—with one simplified, fair and tax-free monthly child benefit.

• To ensure that the CCB continues to help Canadian families over the long term, since July 2018, CCB benefits are being indexed to keep pace with the cost of living.

• The Children’s Special Allowance (CSA) provides payments to federal and provincial agencies and institutions (such as children’s aid societies) that care for children. The monthly amount payable for each child is equal to the maximum amount of the CCB. For eligible children, the CSA payment may also include the child disability benefit. An agency can request that CSA payments be made directly to a foster parent of the child.

• A foster parent may not be considered primarily responsible for the care and upbringing of a child if the child is legally, physically, or financially maintained by a child welfare agency. In those cases, the children’s special allowance is paid to the agency and the CCB is not available to the foster parent.

• The Department of Finance is the policy lead on the Canada Child Benefit, and the Canada Revenue Agency administers the benefit. ESDC contributes to ongoing policy development by working collaboratively with them and with provincial and territorial governments to help ensure that the Canada Child Benefit continues to result in strengthened systems of support for all low- to middle-income families with children across Canada.

• To help when the costs of raising kids are highest, we plan to increase the Canada Child Benefit by 15 per cent for kids under the age of one. This will give families up to $1,000 more each year. We will also work to establish Guaranteed Paid Family Leave – an ambitious program that will make sure that parents who don’t qualify for paid leave through E.I. or who don’t get enough, because they’re between jobs, earn little, or haven’t worked enough hours, will receive a guaranteed income during the first year of their child’s life.

• Through Budgets 2016 and 2017, the Government of Canada is investing $7.5 billion over 11 years to support and create more high-quality, affordable child care across the country. The Government of Canada is providing provinces and territories with $1.2 billion over three years through bilateral agreements. As a results of these investments, the Government is on track to support the creation of up to 40,000 more affordable child care spaces across the country by 2020, with more than 50% of this target achieved in the first year of the bilateral agreements.

• In September 2018 the co-developed Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework was jointly released by the Government of Canada, the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Métis National Council. As part of the $7.5 billion commitment, the Framework is supported by investments of $1.7 billion over 10 years starting 2018-19 to strengthen services for Indigenous families.

• Data from the 2017 Canadian Income Survey (the most recent available) show that there has been a decrease in both the overall rate of poverty and the rate of child poverty in Canada in 2017.
• According to Canada’s Official Poverty Line, there were approximately 3.4 million people in poverty in Canada in 2017 (9.5 percent), a decrease of more than 20% from 2015, meaning that approximately 825,000 fewer Canadians were living in poverty.
• According to Canada’s Official Poverty Line, there were approximately 622,000 children in poverty in Canada in 2017 (9 percent), a decrease of more than 30% from 2015, meaning that approximately 278,000 fewer children were living in families in poverty in 2017. The decrease in children living in poverty was especially evident among children living in female lone-parent families.
• According to the Low Income Measure (after tax), which continues to be calculated by Statistics Canada and is often the type of low income measure used in international reports on child poverty, there were approximately 835,000 children living in families with low income in 2017, a decrease of 3.1 percentage points from 2015, meaning that approximately 197,000 fewer children were living in families with low income in 2017 using this measure.