I admit I was very disappointed by the child tax credit, because it is non-refundable. However, the budget documents show that people earning less than $30,000 a year will receive absolutely nothing, whether they are lone-parent families—and most of them have an income of less than $30,000—or families where there are two parents. The government can still change its budget; I therefore hope that it will convert this credit into a refundable credit, so that all families can really benefit from it.
The earned income supplement is a measure that has been in place for a long time in places such as the United States and Quebec. In Quebec, it is somewhat more generous. The most important thing, however, is that after having a very similar program for years, the government is now going further in the income scales and is recovering this income at a rate of 10% rather than 15%.
I'm not opposed to this measure. It may help some people on low incomes, particularly the heads of lone-parent families, but the fact remains that it is a rather modest measure that involves some administrative problems. Women earning less than $21,000 who have one child will get nothing. There again, I would have preferred a direct benefit for children and an improvement in benefits for all low-income families.