Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan on the state of Canadian families.
As I have said here before, every action the government takes to help Canadians and their families is to help them become self-sufficient. Our approach to reducing poverty focuses on helping Canadians gain the skills to access opportunities which provide targeted supports against the barriers they face. There is concrete evidence of improvement and meaningful progress from our action plan.
Our government recognizes the family as the foundation of society. That is why we give families the right to choose the child care they want for their child. That is why we backed up this commitment by investing more than $14 billion this year in benefits for children and families. These include the Canadian child tax benefit, the national child benefit supplement, the universal child care benefit and the child tax credit, which all serve to help Canadian children get the best start in life as possible.
About 3.3 million families with 5.8 million children receive Canada's child tax benefit. That represents more children than the entire population of the greater Toronto area. Included in this number is the fact that over 1.5 million families with 2.7 million children receive the national child benefit supplement.
The national child benefit supplement provides tax free monthly benefits for children under the age of 18. The national child benefit supplement has been successful in reducing the incidence of families with children living in low income. It also reduces the severity of low income for those families who continue to live below the low income threshold.
Budget 2007 introduced the child tax credit which provided personal income tax relief of up to $320 in 2011 for each child under the age of 18.
Budgets 2009 and 2010 included additional investments in Canadian families, including improvements to child benefits. For example, budget 2010 improved the taxation of the universal child care benefit to ensure that single parent families received tax treatment comparable to two parent families. It also allowed parents with joint custody to split benefits equally throughout the year when a child lives in both households. It enhanced the registered disability savings plan and doubled the working income tax benefit to $1.1 billion this year, which helps ensure that low income families are financially better off as a result of getting a job.
Because of the actions this government has taken since 2006, an average family of four saves over $3,000 a year in taxes.
Our government is working very hard to ensure that Canadian families can get what they need to take advantage of all the opportunities they have before them.
Every action our government has taken to help Canadians and their families become independent allows them to contribute to the economy and to their local communities.