Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for West Nova.
The government keeps referring to the $1,200 allowance as universal child care and as giving choices to parents. Let us look at the facts and make a proper distinction between income support and child care. That $1,200 is a family allowance, not a child care plan and as a family allowance, it is fine.
Let me take a moment to put this in a historical context. In 1997 the Liberal government established the child tax credit with the child benefit supplement and young child supplement. The most effective weapon we have had to fight poverty in this country is the child tax benefit. Experts believe that the benefit has reduced child poverty by approximately 26%.
The research shows that the child tax credit should also be increased to about $4,900. As $1,200 is not a child care plan and gives no choice, it should be added to the child tax credit base as income support for families. All families would receive the $1,200 and that would make a great deal more sense. This would make a true family allowance to all families as well as stay at home moms and working mothers. But the Conservative government is so mean-spirited that it has actually decided to hurt low and modest income families. The Conservatives are cutting the young child supplement portion of the child tax benefit. This means that many families, most with low or modest income, will lose $249 right off the top, reducing the child care benefit to $951.
The child care allowance treats some families better than others even though they have the same net income and the same number and age of children. Because the benefit is taxable in the hands of the lowest income earner, single parents and two-earner families are going to lose out.
Two-earner couples will lose a significant portion of the benefit to income taxes, but still not as much as single parents. Single parents in the $30,000 to $40,000 income range will lose on average close to $400 of the benefit in taxes. If this is added to the $249 they will lose because of the elimination of the young child supplement, these families will be left with only about $550 of the $1,200 benefit, less than half of the benefit that some other families will be receiving. This is unacceptable.
What the government is basically doing is choosing which type of families it prefers and which type of families it does not. It is not giving choices at all to families and is penalizing choices that families are actually making about themselves.