Finance committee  Yes, we have seen the results of the national working income tax benefit. Some of it is positive, but the ceilings are so low that I believe if you're a single person and make over $14,000 you don't benefit. So the ceilings need to be raised. The working income tax credit of $1,0

Finance committee  There are big improvements in that. The national child tax benefit itself has improved, but again, most organizations that I work with would like to see the supplement, or the $100 early child tax, go toward day care, to a federal day care program.

Finance committee  It's my experience with single women that they have the most difficult time in purchasing housing. They may be able to get a mortgage, but then they don't have the extra money that's needed for the closing costs and things like that. They're always kind of chasing after that, bec

Finance committee  It was my experience that it didn't go very far either. There needs to be a serious look at this in terms of senior women and men and what their income is. With their expenses, with other systems, with people being encouraged to stay in their own homes, with the lack of nursing h

Finance committee  I agree with you. I certainly don't want to be in a critical role. I think that whatever programs are being offered are offered in the best spirit of where they come from. With the housing, for example, if it's a partnership between the feds, the province, and municipalities, v

Finance committee  Making early childhood development programs available to everyone would be a huge step in the right direction. Currently day care seats are very limited. They're limited because there aren't enough of them and they're limited because women can't afford to access them. There is

Finance committee  Well, I believe there are training programs, I believe there are work programs--

Finance committee  No, I'm sorry; I wouldn't be able to say federally.

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  I just believe that, from the results, what has been going on is not working. When we look at the results, when we look at women's lives, when we look at levels of poverty in this country, obviously the money that is being directed at this is not working.

Finance committee  I think there's a lot of money spent by all levels of government to try to reduce poverty in this country--

Finance committee  Training programs have been very successful for women. Training programs through community colleges have been very successful. But there is a level before this that women aren't ready to access.

Finance committee  In our own area we have seen some reduction in poverty, which is the best thing we could hope for at this time. Some of the changes to personal income tax have been very helpful to women. We work very much with the provincial system so we can take advantage of some of the federal

Finance committee  Our third recommendation is to develop a national housing strategy. As referenced in the statistics above, 81% of homes in our area were built before 1986. This indicates an aging stock. The revitalization of the housing market could be a great boon to the economy. Trades traini

Finance committee  First of all, I'd like to say thank you for inviting me to present. I'm going to be talking off the brief that I had presented to the committee much earlier. My name is Louise Smith-MacDonald, and I'm from Every Woman's Centre in Sydney. We're an organization that offers support