Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Motion M-198, moved by my colleague, the Progressive Conservative member for Shefford.
The motion reads as follows:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should review the level at which the child benefit is indexed.
I thank the member for Shefford for giving us an opportunity to discuss the important problem of child poverty and to ask the government to devote more resources to it.
What is ironic, however, is that it was her own party, the Progressive Conservative Party, which decided, when it formed the government, to index the child tax benefit only when inflation exceeded 3%. The Liberals, who so vigorously opposed this measure when they were in opposition, maintained it when they won office, and have stuck with it since.
The result of this Conservative and Liberal policy is that, since 1992, the child tax benefit has not been indexed. During this time, inflation is driving up the cost of living of families, who see their buying power being slowly eroded. Collectively, families have lost over $800 million. They are distinctly worse off.
My colleague, the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, moved an amendment to this motion asking the government to review the possibility of fully indexing the child benefit. I am in complete agreement with my colleague.
Right now, the poverty of children and families is serious. It is obvious that the child benefit must be fully indexed. Large amounts should also be reinvested quickly, not just to increase the tax benefit, but also to reinvest in social programs.
Let us look at a few statistics, which will give us an idea of what poverty means in this country. According to Campaign 2000, the changes that have occurred since the federal government's commitment in 1989 to eliminate poverty among children are as follows: the number of poor children has increased by 46%; poverty in two-parent households has increased by 39%; the number of single-parent families has increased by 58%; the number of children living in families where unemployment is chronic has risen by 44%; the number of children in families receiving social assistance has increased by 6%; finally, the number of children living in unaffordable accommodation has increased by 60%. These figures speak for themselves. The problem is extremely serious. Poor children today number 1.5 million, one child in five.
Over the past 20 years, the number of double-income couples, the number of working mothers with young children and the number of single-parent families have increased relentlessly. The parents of young families are better educated, but their jobs are not stable and are often part time. Most of the time they do not provide benefits. In 1990, in 70% of couples with school age children, both parents work, whereas the figure was 30% in 1950.
In recent years, the average family income has stagnated, and in low income families, it has even dropped. In its December 1997 report, Statistics Canada indicated that low income families, which make up 20% of the population, had seen their family income decrease by 3% because of the drop in incomes, but especially because of the drop in government transfers, which account for 59% of their income. Under the Liberals, the poor have become poorer.
We have to face the facts: Canada's performance in providing support for families and children is pretty weak, in the words of the Canadian Council on Social Development.
The council explains that, in a comparison between Canada and nine similar countries, Canada ranks second behind the United States in child poverty, according to market income, and third in total income, behind the United States and Australia.
Faced with such figures, what have the Liberals done since they became the government? Instead of vigorously attacking the problem of worsening poverty, they have reduced transfers to the provinces for social assistance and are proposing that families be given the bare minimum for survival.
It is going so far as to suggest that they seek charity. Yet, in the first Liberal red book, in 1993, Jean Chrétien wrote “Government must be judged by its effectiveness in promoting human dignity, justice, fairness and opportunity”.
According to his own criteria, then, the Prime Minister's government is not a good one, for it allows millions of children to languish in poverty, jeopardizing their health and development, to the great despair of their parents.
Instead of equipping themselves with a true social development policy, the Liberals are settling for managing poverty by throwing a few crumbs from time to time so that people can keep their heads above water and to make the government look good.
In the 1997 budget, the Minister of Finance suddenly discovered the serious problem of child poverty in Canada. He described it as the most urgent problem.
This year's budget announces a $425 million increase in the child tax credit effective July 1999, with another $425 million to follow in July 2000. For July 1998 there is nothing more than has been announced ad nauseam for the past two years.
The Bloc Quebecois campaign platform called for an extra $1.15 billion to be invested immediately in the child tax credit. The minister had the necessary financial leeway to do so, since he shows no reticence about invading as sacrosanct an area of provincial jurisdiction as education with his millennium scholarships, to the tune of $2.5 billion.
It is not, therefore, any lack of money that is keeping the Liberal government from fighting poverty, because when visibility is at stake, it can easily find $2.5 billion in its coffers. The real problem with this government is its lack of political choices. Poor children do not vote, but university students do.
I have to say that child poverty is not an isolated phenomenon and any fight against it must provide support for families through employment, social security and community support programs.
The Canadian Institute of Child Health last year considered that the best way to improve the standard of living of children was to establish a national job creation strategy for adults with family responsibilities.
The Minister of Finance claims to be helping poor families by increasing the maximum deduction for child care from $5,000 to $7,000 or from $3,000 to $4,000, according to the age of the child. This measure is totally unfair, because, for the same $1,000 of child care, a high income family gets a lot more than does a low income one. Poor families whose income is so low that they do not pay any taxes do not benefit in any way from this change.
Last year, the Bloc Quebecois proposed that the child care deduction be replaced by a refundable tax credit, which would have resulted in poor families receiving a cash payment.
The Liberal government may be able to keep on ignoring the public's suffering, and refusing to reinvest in social programs to improve the lot of the most disadvantaged, but it could at least agree to full indexation of the child tax benefit so that they do not sink even deeper into poverty.