Mike Harris Had To Slash & Burn

Thanks to the cutback on transfer payments by the Liberals under Paul Martin and the fiscal ineptness of the previous liberal and ndp governments but let's not forget he campaigned on a tighten the belt government and he won a majority twice mainly because voters saw he was a man of his word. But as things got better and McGinty made his 243 promises including his NO NEW TAXES promise and voters got conned with his vote for change campaign. A lot of those voters won't admit their mistake and are still taking cheap shots at Mike Harris.....

Canada can afford to help needy kids
March 07, 2007

Poor children are getting poorer in Ontario, a rich province in one of the richest countries in the world. If that does not fill Canadians with shame, and anger, nothing will. Especially when Canada's economy is strong enough to help the most vulnerable.

While child poverty is no longer as bad as it was under Mike Harris's Conservatives, rates have been edging up again in recent years, reports Ontario Campaign 2000, an anti-poverty group. We're losing ground again, despite Parliament's pledge in 1989 to end child poverty by 2000.

Today, as many as 478,000 children in Ontario live in poverty, in families on welfare or with parents who don't earn very much. In Toronto, a single parent with one child needs just over $25,000 a year to get by. These kids belong to families that don't have that much income. Many have a lot less.

This, at a time when Ottawa is running a surplus of some $10 billion, and when Ontario has the means to do more for the poor than it is doing.

There's nothing magic about easing poverty. Social policy experts say it takes $5,000 a year to raise a child. Providing it is only a matter of will. But current help falls short for the working poor, and those on welfare.

For working-poor families, Ottawa's National Child Benefit provides $3,200 for the first child, and slightly less for other children. That consists of two components: A basic benefit of some $1,250 that goes to most Canadian families, and a supplement of almost $2,000 that is paid to those with the lowest incomes. Queen's Park offers no help to these families.

How could both governments provide working-poor families with the $5,000 they need to support a child? Well, for example, Ottawa could boost its supplement by 50 per cent to just under $3,000, bringing the federal total to nearly $4,300, and Queen's Park could chip in a $900 annual child benefit of its own. That would bring total help for the average child to $5,000. Ottawa and Queen's Park can certainly afford it.

And what about the poorest children of all, with parents on welfare?

In this scenario, helping them would require no additional spending by Ottawa. However, Queen's Park would have to end its practice of punishing welfare families by clawing back much of the current $2,000 federal supplement, a move introduced by the Harris government.

If the clawback were ended, parents would collect the same, full $4,300 enriched federal benefit as working-poor parents. But that, coupled both with Queen's Park's current welfare benefits and its new $900 benefit, would leave families who are on welfare better off than some working families who earn little. Accordingly, as Queen's Park rolled out its $900 child benefit to both classes of families, in this scenario it would be justified in cutting family welfare benefits by an equivalent amount. No more.

The danger is that Queen's Park might be tempted to cut welfare by more than $900, as federal benefits rise. That would be a new form of clawback frustrating the purpose of the exercise, which is to boost the working-poor and welfare families alike. Queen's Park must aim higher.