Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to help the House advance its understanding of budget 2018.
As the third budget our government has introduced, budget 2018 outlines our government's next steps to advance the mandate given to us by Canadians so thunderously in 2015.
We were sent to Ottawa on a promise to grow the economy, support Canada's middle class and the vulnerable, and to build a more inclusive, prosperous nation for all. Over the last two and a half years, our government has made stunning progress toward this promise. In fact, our very first act as a government was to cut taxes on nine million members of Canada's middle class. Shortly after that, we began inputting more money in the pockets of middle-class and low-income families that needed it through our brand new Canada child benefit, the now famous CCB.
The CCB today is celebrated by families and economists alike as an extraordinary success, making a positive impact on our economy but, more important, a real difference in the day-to-day lives of struggling families. In my riding of Halifax, the CCB supports 11,000 kids and the average payment to Halifax families is $6,300 a year. What is more, across Canada, the CCB has lifted 300,000 children out of poverty, and that is a 40% cut from the rates in 2013.
We also promised to invest in early learning and child care, and in recent months we have seen the scope of that investment and the impact it will have on our communities. I was pleased to join the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Premier of Nova Scotia, as we signed a bilateral funding agreement totalling $35 million.
That investment will create 500 new spaces in Nova Scotia, 15 new child care centres, and 90 new home-based care sites. It will mean significant improvements to child care subsidies in our province. Now families with annual incomes of $35,000 or lower will receive the maximum subsidy, up from the previous threshold of just $25,000. Remarkably, this means 80% of children will now receive the maximum subsidy compared to 66% before.
Access to affordable housing is also a serious challenge facing families across Halifax and Canada. Far too many middle and low-income families require a decent, safe, secure place to call home, which is simply unattainable for them. Across Canada, over 1.7 million families are in housing need and another 25,000 are chronically homeless.
That is why our government released the first-ever comprehensive national housing strategy, focused on giving middle and low-income Canadians better access to affordable housing, with an investment of $40 billion over the next 10 years, including in the new Canada housing benefit, the CHB. Under this plan, we have set some ambitious goals, including a 50% reduction in chronic homelessness and removing over 530,000 households from housing need.
Supporting seniors is yet another promise we made to Canadians, and we have done exactly that through enhancements to the Canada pension plan and by increasing the guaranteed income supplement, or GIS, for nearly 900,000 seniors.
At the other end of the age spectrum, we have kept our promises to students, with increases to Canada student grants; improvements to student loan programs; by doubling the number of Canada summer jobs, which means that instead of 200 summer jobs in Halifax we now have 400; by investing heavily in skills development, training, and apprenticeships; and by ending unpaid internships.
Actions like these have paid off. The Canadian economy is booming. Since our election, Canadians have created 600,000 new jobs, unemployment is at its lowest level in over four decades, and we have the best rate of GDP growth in the G7. Stats like that hardly leave anything else to be said, but I will persevere.
As I said, we were elected on a promise to do better for the Canadians who the previous government left behind, and that is exactly what we have done. This is the impact that can be made when we are in an ambitious government, a government that is not satisfied to accept the status quo, a government that believes there is a better way for our middle class and most vulnerable, and a government that is focused on improving the lives of Canadians and not on the politics of fear and division.
Budget 2018 is a reflection of the positive change we have seen so far and the bold continuation of our important work. I would like to talk a bit more about it, beginning with its focus on gender equality.
Every decision that was made in budget 2018 was informed by gender, through a process called gender-based analysis plus, or GBA+, a tool used to analyze how certain policies, programs, and initiatives impact different groups, women, and gender-diverse people.
In budget 2018, we commit to introducing new GBA+ legislation to make gender-budgeting a permanent part of budget-making in the future in Canada. That is important. We can no longer continue to make decisions without considering the impact those decisions have on women.
Historically, we have seen how doing the opposite has led to inequality between genders, where women today earn just 69ยข for every dollar earned by men. To further address this inequality, we are moving forward with pay equity legislation in federally regulated workplaces. This will ensure that, on average, women and men in these workplaces receive the same pay for work of equal value.
At the same time, in budget 2018, our government recognizes that child care disproportionately falls to women and therefore has a disproportionate impact on the careers and salaries of women in Canada, many of whom face challenges re-entering the workforce. In response, we are introducing progressive changes to parental leave, creating a benefit to encourage both parents to take leave to share in the work of raising their children, and to even the playing field when it comes to men and women leaving and re-entering the workforce as new parents. Through this new benefit, if both parents take parental leave, they will receive an additional five weeks of parental benefits, for a total of 40 weeks of leave split between the parents as they choose, so long as each parent takes at least five weeks of leave.
The next topic I want to address in budget 2018 is the redevelopment of the working income tax benefit, now improved and called the Canada workers benefit, the CWB.
In Halifax, I often hear constituents say that they see our government doing a lot for families, for children, for seniors, but what about single working Canadians who need more support? We heard the message loud and clear, and budget 2018 introduces a new and improved Canada workers benefit to answer that call. This improved benefit will offer more money to low-income workers and let them keep more of their paycheque. Specifically, the CWB will increase both the maximum benefits and the income level at which the benefit is phased out. As a result, a low-income worker earning $15,000 would receive up to $500 more from the CWB in 2019 than they did in 2018.
In Nova Scotia, this benefit will help about 45,000 low-income Nova Scotians. Single workers without kids will receive up to $1,300 per year and a single parent will receive up to $2,300 per year. All told, this means the government is investing almost $1 billion in new funding per year in helping low-income workers get ahead, and raising 70,000 Canadians out of poverty.
The next measure I want to talk about from budget 2018 is our amazing investment in science and research.
Nova Scotia is home to some of the brightest scientists and researchers in the world, at leading research institutions like Dalhousie University, Saint Mary's University, the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, the IWK Health Centre, and more. For the last year, they have rallied around the recommendations of the fundamental science review, also known as the Naylor report, which was commissioned by this government under the leadership of our Minister of Science. The report called for significant investment in investigator-led research.
Our government agreed with those calls for action. Research expands our understanding of how the world works, allowing us to address existing and emerging challenges in our region in new and more effective ways.
Equally important, basic research also serves as the foundation for the knowledge-based economy. That is why budget 2018 includes the single-largest investment in investigator-led fundamental research ever, $4 billion for fundamental research infrastructure and science. It includes a 25% increase in funding to the tri-council of NSERC, CIHR, and SSHRC. We have said it before. Science is back, but more than that, with budget 2018 it is unstoppable.
These kinds of investments will keep Canada on a path to prosperity, along with the others I mentioned in my speech today, and countless additional initiatives from budget 2018 that I did not have time to address.
I hope my colleagues from all corners of this place will agree that our plan is working for Canadians and will vote to keep this spectacular momentum going forward by supporting it.