Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to debate this very important motion.
The motion of the hon. member for Shefford states that the government should help to fight poverty in this country by encouraging self-sufficiency and self-reliance. These are excellent goals and underscore several programs and initiatives which we in the federal government have undertaken especially in partnership with the provincial and territorial governments to do precisely that.
The new national child benefit is one of the most obvious examples of this kind of movement. As hon. members know, this initiative came into effect last year following extensive discussions between the federal, provincial and territorial governments on how to most effectively address the issue of child poverty. Even though Canada is one of the most successful and socially advanced countries in the world, the very sad fact is that far too many children in our country still live in poverty.
Poverty is a numbing and degrading experience for anyone, but it is particularly difficult for children. It can mean a child is not only deprived of proper food, clothing and other essentials but also has long term health and social consequences that come up later in life.
In order to address this issue, as of July last year the federal government invested an additional $850 million per year in support of children under the national child benefit. By July 2000 the federal investment will be at least an additional $1.7 billion per year. That is over and above the roughly $5 billion annually the federal government already invests in families with children through the Canada child tax benefit.
As a result of this initiative, more than two million children are receiving higher federal payments each month to help ensure that they have adequate food, clothing and shelter. It will help provide for some of the necessities that children need for a healthy start in life.
What does this have to do with self-sufficiency and self-reliance? It has a great deal to do with it. The problem is that too many parents on social assistance cannot accept a low wage job without penalizing their children. They are often caught behind that infamous welfare wall, meaning that when they move off social assistance and into a job, they can actually end up with fewer benefits and services for their children than what they had received while on social assistance. That truly is a shame. They lose social assistance benefits, things like dental plans, transportation allowances, housing allowances and other supports which come to an end when they take that job.
The new program will help to lower the welfare wall with a higher Canada child tax benefit for all low income families whether they are in the workforce or not. That is an important change. This in turn means that provincial and territorial governments will be able to reduce the amount they pay to families on social assistance.
It is not simply a windfall for the provinces. As part of the deal, provincial and territorial governments have agreed that they will take the money they save and reinvest it in income support and services to help poor families; services such as provincial child benefits, child care support for working parents, basic skills training and other preventative services for children that reflect the needs of individual communities. As a result of the first phase of the national child benefit, most provinces already have these complementary programs in place.
The provinces will also be investing more as a result of the government's commitment to further increase the national child benefit supplement by an additional $850 million per year starting this July and next July. These complementary provincial services range from child benefit and employment supplements for low income recipients to child care tax credits to programs for optical care and prescription drugs for school age children and many other initiatives.
The end result is that more low income parents will be encouraged to get back into the workforce. More children will therefore benefit because of a higher household income.
The government does not suggest for a minute that this new program solves all the problems, not at all. What it does represent is a new beginning, a fresh start if you will, a chance to provide a more comprehensive way to meet the challenge of poverty in this country.
At the same time the government is working to ensure that it has better information on which to base policy decisions, something that is extremely important as our society and the economy undergo the increasingly rapid pace of change that has characterized the past number of decades.
The national longitudinal study of children and youth will be enhanced to provide more specific community based data that will greatly assist all governments in making policy choices that are better targeted and more effective.
The government believes that making an investment in our children and our young people is in our own long term best economic and social interests. Certainly it is. That is why the government has also implemented other measures, such as increasing the deductions for child care expenses, providing a family income supplement for roughly 200,000 low income parents receiving employment insurance benefits, enhancing the community action program for children and putting more emphasis on prenatal nutrition programs for children at risk.
That is also why the government has a number of programs to help Canadians find and keep jobs. The Canada jobs fund is helping to create jobs in high unemployment areas. The youth employment strategy is helping thousands of young Canadians with that all important transition from school to work. We also have a program called employment assistance for persons with disabilities to help those persons with disabilities join and stay in the workforce. The government has also introduced the Canada opportunities strategy that helps more Canadians, young and old, to gain access to a good education and to acquire the skills they need to get a good job.
The government has a clear strategy to fight poverty in this country. Many great initiatives are well under way and are directly addressing the concerns raised in this motion.
The strategy is to get as many people as possible into the workforce, or certainly back into the workforce so that they can earn a living and support themselves and their families. Since 1993 some 1.6 million new jobs have been created in this country. I believe that when the Minister of Finance presents his budget next week, Canadians will see that this government intends to continue to pursue the strategy of job creation and growth which we have done and which has invigorated our economy and helped give more and more Canadians the chance to be full participants in the economic and social life of this great country of ours.
No one should have any doubt that this government is serious about fighting poverty in this country, nor should anyone doubt that this government believes that the best way to do so is to encourage the self-sufficiency and self-reliance referred to in this motion. That is important to note and I think we on all sides of the House should do so.