Duclos promotes changes to child benefit program
2016 initiative has helped lift 300,000 children out of poverty across country
Two North Central community members are hopeful a federal financial benefit will help Regina families combat long-standing poverty.
Jean-yves Duclos, federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, was in the neighbourhood Tuesday morning to highlight changes to the Canada Child Benefit program.
“We know that the child benefit is a huge help to our families here in North Central,” said Susannah Walker, director of programs at the North Central Family Centre.
“A lot of our families are dealing with generational poverty, so not just poverty from one generation, but from a generation before.” Amanda Heisler agreed. A teacher at Sacred Heart Community School, Heisler attended the announcement with her Grade 3 and 4 students, whose families “would definitely benefit from this initiative.”
Like Walker, Heisler sees a “generational poverty cycle” among students at her school.
The Canada Child Benefit (CCB) was introduced in July 2016 and has helped lift 300,000 children out of poverty across Canada, according to Duclos. He said it provides a non-taxable financial benefit to 90 per cent of Canadian families.
In Regina, 28,000 families are receiving on average about $600 per month of extra non-taxable income through the CCB. In the Regina Qu’appelle constituency, the benefit provides families encompassing 17,000 children with $9,000 in non-taxable income each year, he said.
A single mother of two children, earning $15 to $20 an hour at a full-time job, receives $1,000 per month in non-taxable income through the CCB. In 2019, that same family will see an additional $600, given a change in July to index the benefit according to the cost of living.
“That’s not fully enough to look after the needs of her two children, but that’s going to be of great help for her children to live well now and to be successful later in life,” Duclos said.
In the constituency of Member of Parliament Andrew Scheer, leader of the federal Conservative Party, Duclos got “a bit political,” calling on Scheer to support the CCB.
Duclos addressed the children at times, but they seemed more interested in their artwork — replicating a painting of a fish using pencil on canvas — and in their cartons of chocolate milk, than in listening to him.
Regina Police Chief Evan Bray was in attendance, as were past and present North Central Family Centre board members and administrators from the Regina Catholic School Division.