Question Period Note: Canada Learning Bond

What is the Government of Canada doing to ensure that children from low-income families gain access to the Canada Learning Bond?

• Every child in Canada deserves the same opportunity to attend post secondary education and maximize their potential.

• With the costs of education increasing every year, helping low income families save for their children’s future has become even more important.

• That is why the Government has focused so much effort on increasing the take-up of Registered Education Savings Plans and the Canada Learning Bond.

• Over the past four years over 400,000 more children from low income families have received the Canada Learning Bond and the Government has made it easier to open a Registered Education Savings Plan because families of young children are busy enough already.

• The Government’s efforts are working. Each year, the Government of Canada helps millions of Canadians afford post secondary education and start a brighter future.

• Children with education savings are more likely to attend post secondary education, less likely to have student loans, and graduate with less debt.

• The Canada Learning Bond (CLB) is available for children born in 2004 or later from low-income families, or those who are under the care of a public trustee. It provides an initial payment of $500, plus $100 for each year of eligibility up to age 15, for a maximum of $2,000. Eligibility for subsequent years is automatically assessed. The CLB is directly deposited into a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP). No personal contributions are required to receive the CLB, and it can be requested retroactively until the age of 21.

• Although the CLB take-up rate has steadily increased from 0.3% in 2005 to 38.3% in 2018, over 2.05 million children from low-income families have not yet received the CLB.

• The Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG) consists of a 20% grant on the first $2,500 of annual personal contributions made to a Registered Education Savings Plan for all eligible beneficiaries, regardless of income, and an additional 10 or 20% on the first $500 of personal contributions for children from middle- and low-income families. The maximum lifetime amount is $7,200.

• To further increase awareness and ease access to RESPs, the CESG and the CLB, Budget 2017 proposed two measures:

o Funding for community-based organizations ($12.5M over six years) to explore new and innovative approaches to increase awareness and take-up of the CLB. Twelve projects have launched with funding under this initiative ($5M until 2021). Building on lessons learned from these projects, the Canada Education Savings Program will use the remaining $7M announced in Budget 2017 to fund other projects raising awareness and take-up of the CLB.
o Amendments to the Canada Education Savings Act to allow the spouse of the child’s primary caregiver to apply for the additional CESG and the CLB on behalf of an eligible child. Over 96,000 beneficiaries have received $40M in additional CESG and CLB as a result of these amendments.

• The Government has also collaborated with the Province of Ontario to launch an online “Education Savings Referral Service”. Parents of Ontario newborns may ask to be contacted by a participating RESP promoter of their choice to begin the process of opening an RESP.

• The Government undertakes various outreach and partnership activities to promote awareness of the CLB

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