A pre-election cash goodie for households with children arrives in bank accounts today as the Conservative government rolls out its enhanced Universal Child Care Benefit. “So this is why this puts (child care) up on the agenda”, said Kathy Brock, an expert on party politics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.
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Canadians with children will be receiving hundreds of dollars in benefits over the next week and the question is how to spend it – or should you save it?
Take the UCCB Challenge and donate $100 or more from your benefit cheque to any of Canada’s federal opposition parties to help vote Stephen Harper’s Conservatives out of power.
The Conservatives’ point man on the file, Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre, wore a shirt at a government announcement with a Conservative Party of Canada logo prominently displayed, which brought criticism from his political foes.
Those two factors leave $158.22 a year per child for that Ontario parent, or an additional $13.18 a month net.
“Our government trusts parents to spend their money on what’s best for their children”, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, Minister of National Revenue, said at a news conference on Friday.
On Monday, families received lump sums of $520 per child under age six, and $420 for those aged six to 17 – the more kids in a home, the greater the windfall.
However, some parents may not realize that the UCCB is not only taxable, but also coincides with the elimination of the Child Tax Credit, which had allowed parents to shelter thousands of dollars per child per year from income taxes.
Does the $3B payout threaten the surplus?
“It depends on what you view the alternative as”, Shenfeld said Monday by phone from Toronto, asked about the C$3 billion in child-benefit payments. And Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, who have tried to trump the Tories by promising a bigger child benefit for all but the highest earners, have left the door open to a more narrowly targeted daycare program as well. So how much is left of the extra $2,160?
Vote Child Care 2015 is an initiative of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC), a non-partisan, non-profit organization with representatives from across Canada, dedicated to promoting a universal, publicly funded, inclusive, quality, non-profit child care system.
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Half the of the Liberals’ additional costs ($2 billion) would be covered by cancelling the government’s income-splitting for couples with children, but the party hasn’t identified how it would fund the other $2-billion gap. But now the benefit will see a boost and expansion- part of new measures outlined in the federal budget earlier this year.
