Feds go on blitz to promote workers benefit

OTTAWA The federal Liberals are on a promotional blitz to tout a key promise in their latest federal budget aimed at one day providing extra benefits to the working poor.

The Liberals are keen to promote the changes and the extra $1 billion in annual spending for one of the few federal benefit programs that targets singles and families by subsidizing their wages with a tax credit.

Wednesday saw Liberals promote the benefit on social media and elsewhere: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke about it in Toronto, as did Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos earlier in Montreal.

The Liberals, though, face the same struggle as the previous Conservative government in selling the merits of a program that has cross-party support: It isn’t all that simple to explain.

“It’s probably, in my view, the most important item in this year’s budget,” said Sean Speer, a one-time economic adviser to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

But “because of the complexity of its design, it will go unfortunately go largely unnoticed by the general public and that’s too bad.”

The Liberals are rebranding a Harper-era program as the Canada Workers Benefit, adding $170 to the maximum payment and extending eligibility higher up the income scale to provide more money to more low-income workers — addressing two key concerns about the program unearthed during a federal poverty study in six communities last year.

“We listened closely to advice from anti-poverty activists, front-line workers and, of course, the lived experiences of Canadians themselves,” Trudeau said Wednesday about the changes to the program. He said the revamped program “creates opportunities and incentives, and rewards people for staying and getting into the workforce.”

The bump in benefit payments won’t come until 2020.

Federal officials estimate the extra program spending will lift about 70,000 people above the poverty line based on the “market basket measure,” which calculates low income based on a household’s ability to afford a basket of goods needed to maintain a decent standard of living. Recent census data suggests almost 4.4 million Canadians are considered lowincome based on this measure, about one-quarter of whom are under age 18.