Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan for her concern about the level of poverty in this country and in particular, the rise in food bank usage. I, too, share this concern. In fact, our government has studied Food Banks Canada's annual HungerCount report and we are encouraged to see a decrease in food bank usage compared with last year.
Our government has been taking action to reduce poverty and to address the conditions that lead to food bank use. We are working on two main fronts. We are equipping Canadians with the skills and opportunities to achieve self-sufficiency. We have targeted supports for those who face particular barriers to that self-sufficiency.
One of the best ways to reduce poverty is to get more Canadians working. I would like to point out that almost 600,000 more Canadians are working today than there were at the end of the recession. This is something I have commented on in this House before. The unemployment rate has declined to 7.4%, significantly down from its peak at 8.7% during the recession.
To get more people into the workforce, the Government of Canada is working closely with the provinces and territories.
For example, each year we provide almost $2.5 billion to the provinces and territories to deliver critical services and supports to Canadian workers who need help finding new jobs.
I would also like to comment on our targeted supports.
To help seniors who are economically vulnerable, budget 2011 enhanced the guaranteed income supplement. This additional support is for those seniors who rely almost exclusively on old age security and the GIS. Effective July 1, 2011, these seniors will receive additional annual benefits of up to $600 for a single person and $840 for couples. This represents an investment of more than $300 million per year, which will improve the financial security of over 680,000 seniors. This is the biggest single top-up of the GIS in 25 years.
To help low income families with young children, we have implemented the universal child care benefit. This program helps provide over $2.6 billion each year to 1.5 million families. The child care benefit has lifted an estimated 55,000 children living in 24,000 families out of poverty.
To help people with disabilities, we introduced the registered disability savings plan. This is a program to help Canadians with disabilities and their families save for the future.
The Government of Canada has provided Canada disability savings grants and Canada disability savings bonds to low and modest income Canadian families.
We recognize that families who have children with a disability may not be able to contribute regularly to these plans and that it may take time to set up these plans. Therefore, in budget 2010 we implemented a 10-year carry forward program for both of these entitlements.
Our government is working to reduce poverty in many ways and our efforts are paying off.