Thank you for all your great advocacy on behalf of Atlantic Canada.
The Canada child benefit is an example of how budget 2017 is building on the work that we began and prioritized in budget 2016. We know that under the previous proposed child benefit plan that single parents like mine would not have benefited. These are often the parents who need the most support and the greatest hand-up. They are the ones who are often choosing between a safe roof over their kids' heads or good food on the table. Those aren't choices that women and parents in Canada should be making, but they are.
We know the Canada child benefit is lifting 300,000 Canadian children out of poverty, and those children are going to have a better start because of that focus. These children have mothers, parents who care for them, who dream of better lives for them. One way we can make sure they get a solid start is by making sure their parents, at the end of the month, aren't worrying about whether or not they will have the dollars to put their kids in after-school programs or buy back-to-school clothes for their kids or supplies or food or camp opportunities over the summer. This program gives parents that flexibility.