Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned that the people receiving the national child benefit supplement would receive this rebate. As finance minister, the Prime Minister oversaw a deal in 1997 that resulted in a clawback of the national child supplement from the pockets of our neediest children.
In 1997, to assist Canadian families with children, the baby bonus was replaced with the national child benefit supplement and it was introduced as a tax credit. It included a benefit and a supplement, the national child benefit supplement, and the program was designed to reduce poverty among low income families.
Negotiations between the federal and provincial governments around the implementation of that tax benefit resulted in some of the provinces, Ontario included, deducting this tax benefit from the amounts received by the families on social assistance. That is what is consistently referred to as the NCBS clawback.
In the province of Ontario, families who are entitled to receive the national child benefit and who are receiving social benefits are subject to the clawback. What this means is social assistance recipients have the amount of the national child benefit supplement they are entitled to receive deducted from their social assistance cheques.
In the absence of any special agreement, the $250 the government is talking about, which is intended for families with children on welfare, becomes a financial windfall for the Government of Ontario. So much for the commitment to assist low income families with children.
The Prime Minister was the most senior minister in the Chrétien regime and in Quebec. No decisions involving money were made without the present Prime Minister knowing because the finance minister sees all the figures. Why is the Prime Minister allowing Ontario Liberals to pocket that tax benefit in the supposed special payment that it is going to send to them, instead of having it go to the neediest children in Ontario? Is this not just another way for Liberals to funnel money to other Liberals?