Ontario Claws Back Family Allowance

Tell Premier McGuinty not to take back the Child Tax Benefit from families
on welfare.

Dateline: Saturday, May 28, 2005

from the Income Security Advocacy Centre (ISAC)

Send an e-card to Premier McGuinty and Prime Minister Martin. Tell them:
Taking $120 a month from children of families on social assistance is
wrong.

Ask them to:

end the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement from families on
social assistance, now! and

fund the reinvestment programs that work for low-income families out of
other provincial and federal revenues.

What is the NCBS clawback? The National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS) was
introduced in 1997 to prevent and reduce child poverty in Canada. The NCBS
is part of the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB) and gives the lowest income
families up to $126 a month for each child under 18.

In Ontario, families on social assistance get the maximum NCBS, but the
province "claws back" the benefit by reducing their social assistance
benefits by almost 100 percent of the NCBS payment, leaving them no further
ahead. The money that is saved by clawing back the NCBS is used to fund
"reinvestment programs" for low-income families, but not necessarily for
families on social assistance.

Who is responsible for the clawback? Both the provincial and the federal
governments. The clawback is the result of the 1997 agreement between the
federal, provincial and territorial governments that created the National
Child Benefit.

Why a campaign to end the clawback? Families on social assistance are among
the poorest families in our communities. Clawing back the NCBS from these
families, just because they are on social assistance, is unfair and
discriminatory. Clawing back the NCBS leaves these parents struggling to
meet the basic needs of their families. No parent should have to make the
difficult choices that families on social assistance have to make every
month in order to survive.

Why now? This is one promise that Premier McGuinty has to keep!

During the last Ontario election, Dalton McGuinty agreed that the clawback
was wrong and promised to end it in his first mandate, if he was elected
Premier. In April 2004, the new Liberal government announced that, instead
of ending the clawback, they would "cap" it at the July 2003 level while
they conducted a review of the program. To date there has been no action on
ending the clawback altogether and the "cap" puts less than $50 a year per
child in the pockets of needy families — while the Province still claws
back over $1400.

What else is being done to end the clawback? Last December a legal
challenge to the clawback was filed in the Ontario Superior Court of
Justice. ISAC, the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA) and
the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues (CCPI) are supporting this
challenge. Click on the related sites below, to learn more about this
challenge.

There are other campaigns such as Campaign 2000, the Campaign Against Child
Poverty and Ontario Needs a Raise that also support an end to the clawback,
and many provincial and national organizations have asked the provincial
and federal governments to end the clawback.

Take Action Now!

Related addresses:

 http://www.handsoffnow.ca/campaigns/handsoff/ecard.cfm