For Immediate Release – Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty is calling on the federal government to accelerate efforts to eliminate poverty and fulfill its human rights obligations as rising costs of living affect communities from coast to coast to coast. The call comes as Canada and other UN member states convene in New York for the 2nd SDGs Summit and Action Weekend to mark the halfway point to the deadline set for achieving Agenda 2030.

“Achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is grounded in a human rights framework, requires urgency and political will from all levels of government,” said Leila Sarangi, National Director of Campaign 2000. “Poverty is a human rights violation that is disproportionately experienced by those facing systemic marginalization including Indigenous Peoples, racialized and immigrant communities, those with disabilities, lone mothers and youth in the child welfare system, among others. Canada is moving in the wrong direction; any progress we’ve had in the past is being undone. The SDG Summit is the right place for Canada to reflect on where it is falling behind and plan for new actions to end poverty once and for all. We are a wealthy nation, we have the means, we now need the political will.”

“Canada has made real progress in the last decade, especially when it comes to reducing child poverty.” said Terence Hamilton, Policy Specialist at UNICEF Canada. “But the UN Sustainable Development Goals cannot be achieved by 2030 by leaving some children behind. Every child has the right to be free from poverty.”

Campaign 2000, Citizens for Public Justice and Canada Without Poverty co-lead a national research project that engages communities experiencing poverty in policy development to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The project recently completed an eleven-month tour to host 17 conversations with 227 people affected by poverty and systemic marginalization in every province and territory. Participants across the country shared how low wages, precarious work and stagnant government assistance rates, which were dramatically insufficient prior to the pandemic, do not allow them to cover the costs of basic needs today, including food, rent, medications, energy and transportation, which in turn leads to worse health, education and social outcomes for these families.

“Governments must do more to accurately capture experiences of poverty in Canada,” says Natalie Appleyard, Socio-Economic Policy Analyst at Citizens for Public Justice and a co-lead of the project. “Collecting disaggregated data and firsthand accounts of unmet needs is necessary for developing policy solutions that are effective in addressing the structural causes of poverty.”

Canada’s latest Voluntary National Review for the SDGs reports gains in poverty reduction made in 2020 were so significant that poverty reduction targets were achieved a decade early. But the report also shows that progress was a result of temporary pandemic income transfers from the federal government to individuals and families.

“Those benefits are no longer available, and data is showing poverty rates climbing back up,” said Sarangi. “We need to fix the major holes in our income and social security systems. Our communities are in crisis. We are at the halfway mark for meeting our obligations under the SDGs but we do not know what the federal plan is as it relates to ending poverty.”

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Campaign 2000 is a non-partisan, pan-Canadian network of 120 national, provincial and community partner organizations committed to working to end child and family poverty, hosted by Family Service Toronto. To learn more about Campaign 2000 and the Localizing Canada’s Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goal’s project, visit https://sdg.campaign2000.ca

Contact Information
Athavarn Srikantharajah, Project Coordinator, Campaign 2000

647-894-8737

[email protected]

The Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition released the first Yukon Poverty Report Card in March 2021 as part of Campaign 2000’s annual assessment of child and family poverty in Canada. The report provided an overview of current data regarding the prevalence of poverty in the Yukon as well as relevant indicators related to the housing crisis, food insecurity, and affordability. The report concluded with ten recommendations to reduce poverty and to improve the health and wellness of children, youth, and families throughout the territory.

Yukon Poverty Report Card 2022 provides a status update on the key issues identified in the first report including each of the recommendations and assigns a grade to each level of government responsible for implementing each recommendation. It also includes new recommendations to address ongoing and emerging issues relating to social assistance, the housing crisis, and transportation.

Read the report.

Written Submission of Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty

Campaign 2000 is a non-partisan pan-Canadian coalition of over 120 organizations working to end child and family poverty.  The coalition came about in response to the 1989 federal resolution to end child poverty by the year 2000.   For more than 30 years, Campaign 2000 has been monitoring and tracking rates of child and family poverty and presenting achievable federal policy solutions through annual reporting.  From inception, Campaign 2000 has researched and written about the role of housing in experiences of poverty, and the need for affordable, accessible, quality housing as one of the critical components to ending child and family poverty. 

Child poverty is disproportionately experienced by families who are systemically marginalized in Canadian society, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples, immigrants, newcomers, those who are racialized, those who have disabilities, lone-mother led families, 2SLSGBTQI+ families, youth aging out of the child welfare system, among others.   These children and families experience both the crisis of poverty and the crisis of housing together.  The financialization of purpose-built rental housing is a significant contributor to the housing crisis, as experienced by families and children living in low incomes. 

Across the country, Campaign 2000 coalition members hear from communities that they feel hopeless and that there is no way out of poverty, no access to adequate housing, and too many barriers to achieving wellbeing.

Campaign 2000 is providing this submission to the National Housing Council for the review on the issue of the financialization of purpose-built rental housing in Canada in which we aim to highlight the correlation and effects of the financialization of purpose-built rental housing on children and families who live in low-income and provide a set of evidence-based recommendations that will help to address this urgent issue. 

Background

Financialization of purpose-built rental housing

The “financialization of housing” refers to structural changes in housing and financial markets and global investment whereby housing is treated as a commodity or asset as a means of accumulating wealth, often as security for financial instruments that are traded and sold on global markets. It refers to those institutional investors in housing who cater predominantly to their shareholder or investor clients and in the process — inadvertently or not — cause harm to tenants. It refers to the way capital investment in housing increasingly disconnects housing from its social function of providing a place to live in security and dignity and hence undermines the realization of housing as a human right.[i]  Human rights violations resulting from the financialization of housing include, but are not limited to, evictions, escalating rents and diminished building services and maintenance.

Demographics of children in families with low incomes

Data from the most recent Campaign 2000’s latest national annual report card tells us more about who the families and children in low income are. It should be noted that there is a two-year lag in the release of data. These rates reflect the presence of generous pandemic benefits transferred by the federal government to families in 2020 that attributed to historically low poverty rates.  Since these benefits have all been withdrawn and preliminary estimates are showing that the situation is worse today. In 2020:

• 13.5%, or nearly 1 million children in Canada, lived in poverty according to the Census Family Low Income Measure, After Tax (CFLIM-AT). That is more than 1 in 8 children growing up with the short- and long-term physical, mental, emotional, economic and social harms of poverty.
• Child poverty rates for children under six were even higher at 14.2%, representing 327,550 children.[ii]

Child poverty rates continued to be disproportionately higher for those who are systemically marginalized by colonization, racism, ableism, family status:

• 37.4% for First Nations children living on reserve.
• 24% for First Nations children living off reserve.
• 19.4% for Inuit children.
• 15.2% for Métis children.
• 15.1% for racialized children.
• 21.8% for newcomer children who have been in the country five years or less.
• 18.8% for immigrant children.
• 29.7% for children in lone mother led families.[iii]

Systemically marginalized groups experience housing insecurity at higher rates. For example, 2021 Census data show the disproportionate effects of housing insecurity on racialized families:

• 18.2% of racialized families with children aged 0-14 were in core housing need (defined as spending over 30% of household income to afford adequate housing), compared to 9.8% of non-racialized families with children 0-14.
• 7.1% of racialized families with children 0-14 spend 50% or more of their household income on housing, compared with only 2.8% for non-racialized families with children aged 0-14.^[iv]

Effects on low-income families and children, particularly in systemically marginalized groups

Low income families and children are significantly negatively affected by the financialization of housing and by the human rights violations they cause.  Their incomes, whether through low-waged or precarious work or government assistance programs, have not kept pace with the dramatic increase of rents, which have in large part risen because of financialization.  

Displacement, for example, occurs when investors buy affordable rental housing and to sell it to wealthier households.  Marginalized and low income families struggle to pay for the costs of moving and often are unable to find replacement affordable units in their neighbourhoods.  They are forced to leave their communities and children must move to new schools often losing friends and community supports.  Oftentimes, families find themselves in unsafe or overcrowded housing, they spend a disproportionate amount or even their entire paycheque on rent, or lose their housing entirely. This in turn affects their ability to keep a stable job, pay for basic needs, provide adequate food for their children, maintain their physical, mental and emotional health, friendships and community supports, and more.

Shockingly, some landlords have publicly stated their intentions of removing low and moderate-income tenants whom they deem “undesirable” from buildings they acquire, targeting buildings in gentrifying areas and intentionally displacing working-class tenants.[v]

Financialized landlords are those who perpetuate human rights violations in the interest of maximizing profits through illegal and unethical methods.  Northern Properties Real Estate Investment Trust (NP REIT), now Northview, is one example.  This company holds 74% and 85% of all privately initiated rental structures in Iqaluit and Yellowknife respectively.[vi] They have used their monopoly to influence rental rates, driving prices higher while reportedly neglecting services, allowing pest problems to fester in some buildings, and implementing exclusionary practices such as renting selectively (ie. not renting to income assistance recipients) and ‘blacklisting’ tenants.  Their business model focuses on renting to ‘creditworthy’ tenants.  In northern communities, this practice reinforces the socio-economic divide along income and Indigenous identity, where long-term housing contracts with government and corporations benefits renters from the Canadian south who travel to the north for work that is often well-paid.    Local Indigenous people and communities, who experience much higher rates of poverty, housing insecurity and homelessness are unable to access this housing supply.[vii] 

Human rights violations

Canada has an obligation to uphold the right to housing for children, but the federal government is falling far short of ensuring that right is realized.

Canada’s failure to ensure the right to housing for children is in violation of The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).  The CRC, ratified by Canada in 1991, outlines that states have a duty to assist those responsible for caring for children with housing.[viii]  The National Housing Strategy Act, passed in 2019, enshrined the right to housing for all in Canadian law. 

Campaign 2000 made two joint submissions in 2020 to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s review of federal progress towards implementing and upholding the CRC.  In both submissions, the poverty, the lack of adequate housing and the connection between the two challenges, particularly for marginalized groups, were highlighted as violations of the CRC.[ix] [x]

In May 2022 the Committee released concluding observations in which they stated they were ‘deeply concerned’ about discrimination of children from marginalized communities including Indigenous and Black children, children in different regions and territories, children with disabilities and migrant and racialized children.  Areas of concern included higher rates of poverty and structural discrimination with regards to their access to education, health and an adequate standard of living, including access to adequate housing.^[xi]  The review noted that women and children are particularly vulnerable to housing insecurity due to a variety of reasons including family violence, a lack of affordable housing, low wages, under employment and low social assistance rates.  

On housing and homelessness for children, the committee recommends the government of Canada:

Strengthen measures, including time-lines and priorities to achieve its targets to end homelessness of children and to progressively guarantee all children from low-income families stable access to adequate and affordable long-term housing that provides physical safety, adequate space, protection against the threats to health and structural hazards, including cold, damp, heat and pollution, and accessibility for children with disabilities.[xii]

Campaign 2000 strongly recommends a rights-based approach to address the financialization of housing where purpose-built rental housing is not treated as a commodity that generates wealth for institutional investors.  Rather, purpose-built housing must be re-connected to its social function of providing a place to live in security, health and dignity.  Housing is a fundamental human right for children and families who are marginalized and living with low incomes. Targeted action is urgently required.  Campaign 2000 submits the following recommendations.

Recommendations

• Recognize the human rights violations resulting from the financialization of purpose-built rental housing in Canada. The federal government must collaborate with provincial and territorial governments to ensure that unfair evictions, rent increases and service decreases are proscribed by provincial statutes and that accessible enforcement mechanisms are available to tenants.  Federal funding related to housing should be binding, requiring that these conditions be met and reported on.
• Address the financialization of purpose-built rental housing and ensure the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing, including targeted action for low-income and marginalized children and families who experience disproportionate rates of poverty and housing insecurity. This will require the federal government to take a more active role in the rental housing market by increasing the production of social, cooperative and affordable housing. This could be partly financed through increased taxation on corporate profits related to purpose-built rental housing and taxing the increased value of such properties when they are inherited from previous generations.
• Ensure that federally financed housing is affordable for low-income families and reflects the diverse needs of families with children from a range of cultures and with a range of abilities.
• The federal government should establish standards that must be met to implement the right to housing and should tie funding to meeting these standards. There should also be a requirement that federal funding should not increase the financialization of housing.
• Change affordability requirements in federal rental housing financing and co-investment funding to ensure that any supported housing development includes a sufficient number of units and a range of unit types that are affordable for, and meet the adequacy needs of, low-income families with children, defining ‘affordability’ at 30% of gross income. 
• Take immediate action on the commitment to ending homelessness as part of Canada’s international human rights obligations. Reassess the definition of ‘chronic homelessness’ to capture the experiences of women and gender diverse people fleeing violence, immigrants, refugees, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples, families and youth. 
• Eliminate inflows into homelessness by establishing a national framework with programs for extended care and support for youth in child welfare, in collaboration with First Voice Advocates, territories and provinces.

Conclusion

Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty respectfully requests the National Housing Council to consider the arguments and evidence presented in this submission and to take appropriate action to protect and promote the right to adequate housing in relation to the financialization of purpose-built rental housing in Canada.

Sincerely,

Leila Sarangi, National Director
On behalf of Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty

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[i] The Shift.  (June 2022).  “The Shift Directives: From Financialized to Human Rights-Based Housing”.  https://make-the-shift.org/directives/

[ii] Campaign 2000.  Pandemic Lessons: Ending Child and Family Poverty is Possible. February 14, 2023. https://campaign2000.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/English-Pandemic-Lessons_Ending-Child-and-Family-Poverty-is-Possible_2022-National-Report-Card-on-Child-and-Family-Poverty.pdf

[iii] Ibid

[iv] [iv] Statistics Canada. Table 98-10-0328-01  Shelter-cost-to-income ratio by visible minority and immigrant status and period of immigration: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts. https://doi.org/10.25318/9810032801-eng

[v] Martine August (2020). The financialization of Canadian multi-family rental housing: From trailer to tower, Journal of Urban Affairs, 42:7, 975-997, https://herongatetenants.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-financialization-of-Canadian-multi-family-rental-housing-From-trailer-to-tower.pdf

[vi] Martine August (2020). The financialization of Canadian multi-family rental housing: From trailer to tower, Journal of Urban Affairs, 42:7, 975-997, https://herongatetenants.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-financialization-of-Canadian-multi-family-rental-housing-From-trailer-to-tower.pdf

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child

[ix] Colour of Poverty Colour of Change et.al.  (March 2020).  Joint Submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child at its 87^th Session and Review of the Fifth and Sixth Periodic Reports of Canada.  csalc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COPC-CRC-Report-FINAL-update.pdf

[x] Canada Without Poverty, Campaign 2000 and Citizens for Public Justice.  (February 2020).  Submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child: Reply to issues 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, & 142, and to articles 2, 4, 6, and 27.  rightsofchildren.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/FINAL-CWP-C2000-and-CPJ-Joint-Submission-to-the-Committee-on-the-Rights-of-the-Child.pdf

[xi] United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2022, June 9). Concluding observations on the combined fifth and sixth reports of Canada. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3978336?ln=en

[xii] Ibid.

Campaign 2000 has submitted a set of budget recommendations in advance of the release of the 2024 Federal Budget.  

We call on the Federal government to invest in childcare, affordable and accessible housing, equity, ending income inequality, clawbacks, and much more in order to eradicate child and family poverty. Download or read the full submission below.

Pre-Budget 2024 Submission, House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance

August 4, 2023

Recommendations:

1. Remove growth restrictions and add binding conditions to the Canada Social Transfer ($2B).
2. Reverse reductions to the CCB ($1.45B), retire CERB debt and implement a CERB Amnesty.
3. Expand eligibility ($160M), enhance adequacy of the Canada Child Benefit ($5.9B).
4. Implement an interim benefit for people with disabilities of working age, enhance adequacy of the Child Disability Benefit and create a Caregiver’s Benefit.
5. Create a parallel cash transfer system for marginalized non-tax filers outside of the personal income tax system ($100M).
6. Address growing income inequality and generate revenue for poverty reduction programing by eliminating tax loopholes, closing tax havens, taxing extreme wealth, making the personal income tax system more progressive and implementing an excess profit tax focused on corporate pandemic windfalls.
7. Invest $10B for capital costs associated with increased demand for child care and $7B to support their workforce.
8. Ensure that federally financed housing is affordable for low-income families and reflects the diverse needs of families with children.

Child and Family Poverty in Canada

Campaign 2000’s latest annual report card found record decreases in rates of child poverty in 2020 largely because of temporary pandemic measures including the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit and the one-time top up to the Canada Child Benefit.[i]  Although emergency pandemic income measures were not meant to be poverty reduction programs, that is the effect that they had, reducing child poverty rates by 4.2 percentage points between 2019 and 2020.   These benefits were so effective that the federally legislated target to reduce poverty by 50% by 2030 (measured from the base year 2015), was exceeded a decade early. 

Despite historic reductions, nearly one million children lived in poverty.  Child poverty rates continued to be disproportionately higher for groups who face systemic marginalization and discrimination including First Nations, Inuit, Métis, racialized, im/migrant, newcomer, children and families with disabilities, in lone mother led families, 2SLSGBTQI+ families, among others.

Temporary income supports have expired, and the cost of food, housing and basic needs continues to increase.  As low income families struggle with the affordability crisis and gaps in our support system, the federal government is seeking repayments for CERB and CRB recipients deemed ineligible.  Data released this year for 2021 confirms the expected rollback on progress made on poverty reduction.

The federal poverty reduction strategy is the mechanism through which Canada will achieve its commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals number one, which is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere” and to achieve a sustained 50% reduction in poverty by 2030.  The pandemic revealed that there is room for more ambitious targets in the Canadian Poverty Reduction Strategy.  Indeed, low income children and families cannot wait any longer.

Campaign 2000 strongly recommends the CPRS be strengthened with the goal of sustained reduction in overall poverty and poverty within marginalized communities who have higher rates of poverty by 50% between 2015 – 2026 based on the CFLIM-AT using tax filer data, by investing in the measures outlined here.

#1 Remove growth restrictions and add binding conditions to the Canada Social Transfer ($2B).

Investments into the CST could be better leveraged to support social and disability assistance adequacy by removing the arbitrary growth cap of 3%, investing an additional $2B and recognizing regional economic variations.  Bind funding with conditions including that benefit amounts be substantial enough to meet basic needs, child related benefits including spousal support, are not deducted, and requiring regular reporting from provinces and territories on how funds are advancing human rights obligations using disaggregated data and local indicators.  Require provinces and territories with unspent pandemic transfers, including clawbacks through social and disability recipients who received CERB and CRB, to invest those transfers into social assistance adequacy.

#2 Reverse reductions to the CCB (1.45B), retire CERB debt and implement a CERB Repayment Amnesty.

From 2021 to 2024 the federal government will spend $1.45 billion less on CCB payments because CERB and the CRB have been included in the CCB income test.[ii]  We recommend reversing these reductions and providing families with CCB repayments, as was done with the Guaranteed Income Supplement.

Low and no income earners are experiencing hardship and undue stress with post-verification eligibility and repayment processes years after the benefits were received.  These are individuals who applied in good faith, who were misinformed by changing eligibility requirements from CRA, were encouraged to apply by social workers and government officials or were mandated to apply by income assistance case managers.  Federal appeals processes demonstrate that the threshold for proving eligibility is unusually high.  Government is mis-characterizing benefits that contributed to the most significant year over year reduction in poverty rates as ‘overpayments’, ‘ineligibility’ and in some cases, ‘abuse’.   We recommend the federal government retire CERB and CRB debt and immediately cease pursuing repayment from low income individuals.

#3 Expand eligibility ($160M), enhance adequacy of the Canada Child Benefit ($5.9B).

Research by Campaign 2000 shows that the CCB is not able to sustain a continued reduction in child poverty without significant additional investment because it is not large enough to reach families in deep poverty.[iii]  For example, the average after-tax poverty gap^[1] for a lone parent with two children (the largest of all family types in 2020) was $14,825 and the poverty rate for children growing up in low-income, lone-parent households (which are mostly female-led) was nearly 27% compared to the national average of 13.5%.[iv] 

Budget 2024 must increase investment and target funds to families who have been left in deep poverty.  We recommend the non-taxable End Poverty Supplement, which would provide an additional $8,500 per year to a family with an earned income of less than $19,000 for the first child.  Additional amounts would be provided for multiple children and the supplement would reduce at a rate of $0.50 for every additional dollar of income.  This supplement would have a dramatic effect on the rates of child poverty, reducing it from 11% to 3% with 369,000 fewer children in poverty, according to the Market Basket Measure in 2024.[v]

Ensure government transfers are accessible.  Repeal s.122.6(e) of the Income Tax Act that ties eligibility for the CCB to immigration status. Enable different government agencies to share information required for caregivers to access benefits, such as birth certificates.  Expand the circle of people able to attest to residency and ensure that kinship, customary care, and families caring for children outside a formal care arrangement have access to the CCB.

#4 Implement an interim benefit for people with disabilities of working age, enhance adequacy of the Child Disability Benefit and create a caregivers benefit.

The Canada Disability Act has passed but people with disabilities will have to wait until 2024 to see its implementation.  People with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty than those without disabilities.[vi]  We urgently recommend that an interim emergency benefit for people with disabilities be implemented immediately and ensure adequacy of the legislated Canada Disability Benefit.

Families with eligible children with disabilities will receive up to $3,173 for 2023-2024 tax year.  In 2019, the Minister of Disability Inclusion was given a mandate to double the Child Disability Benefit.  We support the recommendation from BC Complex Kids and other self-advocates of their recommendation to triple the Child Disability Benefit, and create a Caregivers Benefit for those who lose work hours to care for children with disabilities.

#5 Create a parallel cash transfer system for marginalized non-tax filers outside of the personal income tax system ($100M).

Campaign 2000 supports movement towards automatic tax filing.  However, not all vulnerable or systemically marginalized groups will benefit from such a program.  The Auditor General found that federal departments overestimate access to benefits and recommended developing a comprehensive action plan to reach people who are not accessing benefits.[vii]  We recommend an alternative direct cash transfer system to ensure income benefits reach those who need them most (i.e., most often those without a permanent address, those without citizenship status, and those who work in informal or cash-based economies). The federal government must look to other jurisdictions for best practices to deliver cash transfers, whether through prepaid reloadable credit cards or electronic transfers. Community organizations should be relied upon to provide these cash transfers because they are the most likely to be able to reach these populations.

#6 Address growing income inequality and generate revenue for poverty reduction programming by eliminating tax loopholes, closing tax havens, taxing extreme wealth, making the personal income tax system more progressive and implementing an excess profit tax focused on corporate pandemic windfalls.

Corporate profits reached record highs during the pandemic. In 2021, corporate after-tax profits totalled $435 billion, up from $332 billion in 2019.[viii]   The largest corporations in Canada reduced their effective tax rate to 15% through a myriad of tax loopholes despite a statutory tax rate of 26.5%[ix] and 9% of corporate tax revenue was lost because of tax havens.[x]  People living in poverty feel this injustice deeply.

#7 Invest $10 billion for capital costs associated with increased demand for child care and $7 billion to support the workforce.

The national childcare system has the potential to be a game changer for low income mothers and families.  Campaign 2000 recommends developing a $0-10/day maximum sliding scale fee per family (not child), decent work through competitive, equitable wage grids and improved benefits and working conditions, and ensuring infrastructure investments are tied to community benefit agreements.  We support these recommendations from Child Care Now, including the call for governments to ensure First Nations, Métis and Inuit rights and jurisdiction are respected throughout the childcare system-building.

#8 Ensure that federally financed housing is affordable for low-income families and reflects the diverse needs of families with children.

Change affordability requirements in federal rental housing financing and co-investment funding to ensure that any supported housing development includes a sufficient number of units and a range of unit types that are affordable for, and meet the adequacy needs of, low-income families with children, defining ‘affordability’ at 30% of gross income.

Take immediate action on the commitment to ending homelessness as part of Canada’s international human rights obligations. Reassess the definition of ‘chronic homelessness’ to capture the experiences of women and gender diverse people fleeing violence, immigrants, refugees, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples, families and youth. 

Eliminate inflows into homelessness by establishing a national framework with programs for extended care and support for youth in child welfare, in collaboration with First Voice Advocates, territories and provinces.

Endnotes

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[1] This is the amount that a family’s income falls below the CFLIM-AT measure.

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[i] Campaign 2000.  Pandemic Lessons: Ending Child and Family Poverty is Possible. February 14, 2023. https://campaign2000.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/English-Pandemic-Lessons_Ending-Child-and-Family-Poverty-is-Possible_2022-National-Report-Card-on-Child-and-Family-Poverty.pdf

[ii] Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.  The Impact of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and the Three Canada Recovery Benefits on the Canada Child Benefit Program.  June 8, 2022.  https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2223-007-M–impact-canada-emergency-response-benefits-three-canada-recovery-benefits-canada-child-benefit-progra–incidence-prestations-canadiennes-urgence-trois-prestations-canadiennes-relance-economique-programme

[iii] Campaign 2000.  Pandemic Lessons: Ending Child and Family Poverty is Possible. February 14, 2023. https://campaign2000.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/English-Pandemic-Lessons_Ending-Child-and-Family-Poverty-is-Possible_2022-National-Report-Card-on-Child-and-Family-Poverty.pdf

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives.  Alternative Federal Budget 2024.  Forthcoming.

[vi] Disability Without Poverty, Campaign 2000, and Family Service Toronto.  Disability Poverty In Canada: A 2023 Report Card.  June 2, 2023.  https://www.disabilitywithoutpoverty.ca/2023-disability-poverty-report-card/

[vii] Office of the Auditor General of Canada.  Report 1: Access to Benefits for Hard-to-Reach Populations. Reports of the Auditor General of Canada to the Parliament of Canada.  May 1, 2022, https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_202205_01_e_44033.html

[viii] Statistics Canada. Table 36-10-0117-01: Undistributed corporation profits (x 1,000,000). 2023.  https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=3610011701

[ix] Cochrane, D. T.. Unaccountable: How did Canada lose $30 billion to corporations? Canadians for Tax Fairness.  October 2022. https://www.taxfairness.ca/sites/default/files/2022-10/oct-2022-tax-gap-report_0.pdf

[x] Torslov, T., Wier, L., & Zucman, G. (2022). Close to 40% of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens each year. https://missingprofits.world/

Statistics Canada is undertaking their third comprehensive review of the Official Poverty Line, the Market Basket Measure, or MBM.  Campaign 2000 was invited to make a submission to help identify themes and issues to guide their review.  Campaign 2000’s position is that the MBM is too narrow of a definition of poverty, excludes many who have higher rates of poverty and results in poverty rates that appear lower than what is experienced in communities.  You can read the full submission here.

Join Campaign 2000, Citizens for Public Justice and Canada Without Poverty for a three-part virtual roundtable series on poverty and human rights.

In 2015, Canada committed to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  These goals are part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a global call to action to achieve social, economic and environmental prosperity.  Enshrined in the 2030 Agenda is a commitment “to realize human rights for all,” including economic, social and cultural rights.

The Localizing Canada’s Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals Project (SDGs Project) is developing a community-driven indicator framework for the federal government to use to measure progress towards achieving several of the SDGs, including Goal #1: No Poverty.  The SDGs Project uses principled, community-based and participatory research approaches to engage people who experience systemic marginalization and poverty, community service organizations, advocates and organizers from coast to coast to coast that will inform the measurement framework for realizing rights and ending poverty in local contexts. 

The virtual roundtable format will include presentations, guest speakers and breakout discussions and will feature those who have been engaged through the SDG’s Project.  Participants will have an opportunity to connect with organizations and individuals dedicated to ending poverty from across the country for movement-building.

Register for all three or attend when you can! 

Roundtable 1: 
June 14, 2023 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. EST
Connecting lived expertise to public policy: meaningful engagement as a means to advancing human rights

Roundtable 2: 
June 15, 2023 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. EST
Holding government to account: legal and policy levers for ending poverty

Roundtable 3: 
June 16, 2023 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. EST
Poverty-free communities are possible: strengthening the national anti-poverty movement

Learn more or register for the roundtables on Eventbrite.

To request accommodations, please contact Mithilen Mathipalan at [email protected] by June 7, 2023. The event will be live captioned and ASL and French interpretation will be available.

Campaign 2000 releases its annual report card on child and family poverty, Pandemic Lessons: Ending Child and Family Poverty is Possible. The report shows that during a global pandemic, rates of child poverty in Canada were reduced by a record 40%.  Using tax filer data from 2020, the latest available, this report card finds that child poverty fell to 13.5%, down from 17.7% the previous year.  That is the largest year over year drop since the federal government promised to end child poverty in 1989, and is largely a result of temporary pandemic benefits.  These benefits have all been retracted and this progress is unlikely to be sustained in the future. The federal government must take action to maintain and build on these gains in poverty reduction.  

This year’s national report card focuses on changes to income security measures, the need for decent work for all and the role of childcare in supporting low-income families.  It draws on data from focus groups and community conversations across the country to share the experiences of the real people who often get lost behind the numbers and emphasizes the need for trauma-informed and rights-based policy solutions to address the inequities of child and family poverty in this country.   

This report offers more than 50 recommendations on poverty reduction measures that cover inequality, income security, decent work, childcare, housing and public health. The pandemic, government response and significant reduction in poverty rates demonstrated that child poverty is a policy choice, not an economic inevitability.  These recommendations offer the opportunity to build on the progress of 2020 and make the choices necessary to end child and family poverty.    

Key Findings from the 2022 National Report Card: 

• Nearly one million, or more than 1 in 8 children, are growing up with the short- and long-term physical, mental, emotional, economic and social harms of poverty.   
• Child poverty declined in every region across Canada.   
• Government transfers can end poverty.  Without temporary pandemic benefits, 1.5 million children would have been living in poverty or nearly 21% 
• Child and family poverty disproportionately affects marginalized communities: For racialized children, it was 15.1%. For children in lone-parent families led by women, it was 29.7%. For First Nations children living on reserve, it was 37.4%. 

Want to read more? 

Click on the following links to read and download the 2022 report cards.  

English National Report Card, Infographic and Press Release 

French National Report Card and Press Release 

Check out the provincial and territorial report cards as they become available: 

British Columbia Report Card and Press Release

Alberta Report Card  and Press Release

Manitoba Report Card and Press Release

Nova Scotia Report Card and Press Release

Ontario Report Card, Interactive Maps of Child Poverty in Ontario, Press Release in English and French  

New Brunswick Report Card and Press Release 

Prince Edward Island Report Card and Press Release

Newfoundland and Labrador Summary of Report Card and Press Release

Yukon Poverty Report Card

We are asking for your support to sign and share the House of Commons E-Petition calling for an immediate stop of clawbacks to the Canada Child Benefit (CCB). 

The petition closes on January 19, 2023, at 9:14 a.m. (EDT).

Although pandemic income supports have all ended, families continue to have their CCB payments confiscated along with other tax credits. 

The CCB is Canada’s signature poverty reduction program, but a recent Parliamentary Budget Office report shows that approximately 791,000 families will have their payments reduced by an average $606 in the 2022/2023 benefit year as a result of having received pandemic benefits such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) or Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB). The report found that federal spending on the CCB will be $1.45 billion less because of these clawbacks over three years.

Those who are the hardest hit are mothers with multiple children who earn a moderate income, precisely the mothers who need it most.  For example, a mother with 4 children who earned $33,000 last year, will have her income benefits reduced by more than $3,000 this year.

Join the call to end pandemic clawbacks to the CCB and to implement a full CERB Amnesty!

Sign the CERB Amnesty House of Commons petition by heading to: tinyurl.com/ccbclawbacks.

Press Release and News Coverage

Mothers with multiple children most affected by punitive CERB clawbacks
Received pandemic benefits? You might be losing some of this year’s Canada Child Benefit
Not moms who tucked money away in a Swiss bank account’: advocates warn of clawbacks to Canada Child Benefit for those who received pandemic supports
Advocates press Ottawa to retract child benefit cutbacks
Mothers receiving Canada Child Benefit payments deserve CERB Amnesty

The Auditor General’s report released last week on COVID-19 benefits is a cause for concern say anti-poverty advocates.  The report, which calls for a more vigorous post-payment verification and repayment process for individuals, will drive more people into deeper poverty while it lets corporations who benefitted from the pandemic off the hook.

Data show that marginalized workers – women, Indigenous, racialized, young, low income, and with precarious labour market attachment – were more likely to receive pandemic benefits.  These benefits led to significant reductions in poverty and inequality, precisely when these payments were needed most.

Alarmingly, the AG finds that the benefits paid resulted in disincentives to work at a time that the government was urging Canadians to stay at home and many lower wage service jobs were unsafe.  “The AG was not hired to be an expert in social policy, and she has no qualifications in employment policy,” said Sid Frankel, Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Manitoba and Campaign 2000 Steering Committee member. “She clearly lacks awareness of relevant research from more than a dozen basic income trials that found no evidence of significant reductions in either hours of work or labor participation rates in response to these programs.”

During the pandemic and after its worst days, low-wage workers have experienced difficulties in obtaining and maintaining housing, supports to manage child and elder care, and achieving basic food security, contributing significantly to the inability of people to return to work when pandemic restrictions were loosened or lifted altogether.

For the AG to say that the availability of additional income resulted in failure to take on employment among the poorest of the poor reveals a significant misunderstanding of how the job world works. Canadians would be best served if the AG focused on accounting and audit functions within her considerable realm of expertise and refrained from conjecture rooted in stereotypes of benefit recipients gaming the system and being lazy and undeserving of help. 

“Parliament presumably neither retained nor paid the Auditor General to serve up this kind of misinformation concerning which features of pandemic relief programs actually incentivize work. On the one hand, she is out of her depth. On the other, it is simply not in her mandate,” said Shalini Konanur, Executive Director of the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario. 

The federal government is already spending more than $250 million in taxpayer dollars to verify eligibility and pursue repayments from people they have deemed ineligible for pandemic benefits they received.  While they have been calling their approach compassionate and flexible, what we have been learning in the nearly two years since this process started is that it causes unnecessary hardship for the mostly low-income people who are being pursued. 

Low-income earners have a much harder time meeting verification requirements.  Many are paid in cash and these payments do not flow through bank accounts because of their need to make essential purchases immediately.  People who receive honoraria from non-profits rarely receive accompanying paperwork they can use to prove eligibility. 

Others were encouraged to apply at the outset of the pandemic when the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) was rolling out quickly and there was much confusion regarding eligibility.  We will not leave anyone behind, the federal government repeatedly announced.  Social workers, community workers, welfare case workers, constituency office workers, CRA workers all either encouraged or mandated people to apply. 

“The pandemic benefits were not tucked away into savings accounts by people who struggle to live on low incomes.  The money was spent to provide for their basic needs,” Leila Sarangi, National Director of Campaign 2000.  “Seeking repayments now, in the context of record high inflation, from people who already cannot make ends meet, can only result in more hardship and destitution.”

The Auditor General’s report also looks at the Canada Employment Wage Subsidy.  It found that, alarmingly, the program did not collect enough data for the report to determine its effectiveness in supporting employees. The Auditor General was unable to determine if wage subsidies were even used to prevent layoffs because the government chose not to collect that data or to follow up with employers.

The report fails to address the fact that wage subsidies flowed to major corporations who were strong enough to withstand pandemic downturns.  It does find, however, that unlike the CERB, which changed over time to address the changing landscape, there were few improvements made to the wage subsidy program over the course of its life. 

The Auditor General’s report should have recommended more aggressive pursuit of large corporations that used wage subsidy programs to pad their bottom line and the pockets of their CEOs, and a CERB repayment amnesty for individuals living on low and moderate incomes who continue to struggle to make ends meet.

“The bias displayed in this report is reprehensible.  Individuals who were struggling before the pandemic took the lifeline, CERB, offered by the federal government as they had nothing to fall back on.  Now we are going to force them to pay back what they used to survive and have a different standard of accountability for businesses who accessed pandemic benefits?” said Kate Kehler, Executive Director of Social Planning Council of Winnipeg.  “If employers want to attract and retain employees, they need to pay a living wage and provide good working conditions and governments should be mandating that, not pushing struggling individuals and families over the edge.”

About Campaign 2000: Campaign 2000 is a non-partisan, pan-Canadian network of 120 national, provincial and community partner organizations committed to working to end child and family poverty, hosted by Family Service Toronto. For more information visit https://www.campaign2000.ca. To view an interactive map of Canada showing child poverty rates by federal riding, click here.

Download press release

MEDIA CONTACT                                                                            

Leila Sarangi
National Director, Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty
647-393-1097

[email protected]

Campaign 2000 has submitted a set of budget recommendations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance in advance of the release of Budget 2023.  We call for significant investments into equity, income security, decent work, childcare, housing, pharmacare and more to get us on track for an inclusive recovery and to end poverty.  Download or read the submission below.

Budget 2023 Submission, House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance

October 2022

Immediate priorities for income security

The federal government must create a plan to end poverty in Canada.  More ambitious interim targets are needed.  The government must commit to reducing overall poverty and poverty in marginalized communities by 50% by 2026, and support these targets with robust investments into the following income security measures:

1. Create a Canada Child Benefit End of Poverty Supplement (CCB-EndPov) targeted to families in deep poverty ($6.4 billion).
2. Broaden access to the CCB for families with precarious status by repealing legislation tying eligibility to immigration status ($160 million). Expand the circle of people able to attest to a child’s residency, ensuring that kinship, customary care and families caring for children outside a formal arrangement have access to the CCB.
3. Reverse CCB reductions due to receiving CERB for moderate income mothers ($1.45 billion).  Implement CERB Repayment Amnesty for everyone living below or near the low income measure.  Immediately cease treating CERB and recovery benefits as taxable income.  
4. Create a parallel cash transfer system for marginalized non-taxfilers outside of the personal income tax system ($100 million).
5. Address gaps in the income security system by implementing a Canadian Livable Income for working age individuals ($3.9 billion), lowering GIS eligibility for seniors and immediately implementing the Canadian Disability Benefit.
6. Support social assistance adequacy through the Canada Social Transfer; tie investments to adequacy standards ($2 billion).

Additional recommendations to end child and family poverty

7. Ensure all who are unemployed or underemployed have access to income security measures
   within a revamped Employment Insurance (EI) program that increases access, amount and
   duration of benefits.
8. Provide equitable funding for child welfare services on First Nations Reserves and ensure the full
   application of both Jordan’s Principle and the Spirit Bear Plan.
9. Fund full implementation of the 94 Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation
   Commission and the 231 Calls to Justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered
   Indigenous Women and Girls.
10. Invest $10 billion over three years to support expansion of public and non-profit childcare
    facilities
11. Ensure that federally financed housing is affordable for low-income families and reflects the
    diverse needs of families with children. Adopt and robustly fund an Urban, Rural and Northern
    Indigenous Housing Strategy that articulates clear goals and timelines for the elimination of
    homelessness and core housing need.
12. Address growing income inequality and generate revenue for poverty reduction programing by
    eliminating tax loopholes, closing tax havens, taxing extreme wealth, making the personal
    income tax system more progressive and implementing an excess profit tax focused on
    corporate pandemic windfalls

Child and Family Poverty In Canada

Low income families are in crisis.  Record inflation is affecting every area of life, and more than 1.4 million children in the provinces are living in food insecure households.  Poverty is disproportionately experienced by groups who face systemic marginalization and discrimination including First Nations, Inuit, Métis, racialized, im/migrant, newcomer, children and families with disabilities, in lone mother led families, 2SLSGBTQI+ families, among others.

The poverty rate overall and the poverty rate for children and families declined significantly in 2020 resulting from government transfers to families and individuals at the onset of the pandemic.  However, with the expiration of all pandemic benefits, and government seeking repayment from those who have been deemed ineligible, we anticipate a reversal of these rates in subsequent years.

There are two targets in the Canada Poverty Reduction Strategy (CPRS): to reduce poverty by 20% by the year 2020 and by 50% by the year 2030 (from the base year 2015).  Both targets were achieved well ahead of schedule – the 20% reduction realized in 2018 and the 50% reduction realized in 2020.  This demonstrates there is much more room for ambition as well as how effective government transfers can be at eliminating poverty. 

The CPRS must be strengthened with the goal of sustained reduction in overall poverty and poverty within marginalized communities by 50% between 2015 – 2026 based on the CFLIM-AT using taxfiler data. 

The Poverty Reduction Act must recognize the right to an adequate standard of living and contain mechanisms to realize this right such as a well-resourced all-party appointed advisory council and a poverty reduction advocate who can investigate major systemic issues.

#1 and #2. Canada Child Benefit (CCB)

Research by Campaign 2000 shows that the CCB is not able to sustain a continued reduction in child poverty without significant additional investment.  Budget 2023 must increase investment and target funds to families who have been left in deep poverty.  We recommend the non-taxable End of Poverty Supplement, which would provide an additional $8,500 per year to a family with an earned income of less than $19,000 for the first child.  Additional amounts would be provided for multiple children and the supplement would reduce at a rate of $0.50 for every additional dollar of income.  This supplement would have a dramatic effect on the rates of child poverty, reducing it from 8% in 2023 to 3.6% according to the Market Basket Measure.  Single parent families, who are mostly female led and who have extremely high rates of poverty, would see their child poverty rate reduce from 24.3% to 8.4%.

Ensure government transfers are accessible.  Repeal s.122.6(e) of the Income Tax Act that ties eligibility of the CCB to immigration status. Enable different government agencies to share information required for caregivers to access benefits, such as birth certificates.  Expand the circle of people able to attest to residency and ensure that kinship, customary care, and families caring for children outside a formal care arrangement have access to the CCB.

#3. CERB Repayment Amnesty

According to a recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Office, child benefit payments were reduced on average by $606 in 2021/22 because of pandemic benefits being counted into income calculations.  Over three years, these clawbacks will mean that the federal government will spend $1.45 billion less in child benefit payments.

Although the CERB expired in September 2020, families are still experiencing clawbacks to their Canada Child Benefit.   Working mothers with moderate incomes who have multiple children have experienced the largest reductions to their CCB entitlements.  For example, a mother with four children who had an earned income of $33,000 and received the maximum amount of CERB in 2020 would have her CCB reduced by 23%, or $2,760 in 2022/23.  

Clawbacks are not limited to the CCB only; they are being experienced by all refundable tax credits with the exception of the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is protected from reductions as a result of legislative changes.

Compounding clawbacks, the federal government is continuing to seek repayments from people who have been deemed ineligible or who have received an overpayment of CERB.  Repayment plans of any amount will put additional unnecessary pressure on families to meet their basic needs. 

The federal government must immediately reverse the CCB reductions for moderate income mothers as a result of receiving CERB and reverse reductions to all refundable tax credits, as well as implement a CERB repayment amnesty for everyone who received CERB and/or the CRB and who are living below or near the after-tax Low Income Measure. 

#4. Create a parallel cash transfers system for non-taxfilers

A 2022 federal audit has found that the government struggles to get support to ‘hard-to-reach’ populations. Efforts to broaden the personal tax system are important poverty reduction initiatives and should continue. Regardless of how accessible the tax system becomes, it will not be universal.  Those who are most likely to be ‘hard-to-reach’ include people with no fixed address, without citizenship status, who work in informal economies, those who have mental health and/or addictions issues, and others who experience multiple locations of marginalization. 

We strongly recommend that the federal government invest to research and develop a parallel community-based benefit eligibility and delivery system for low-income, marginalized non-taxfilers.  The federal government must look to other jurisdictions for best practices on financial inclusion immediately, such as delivery by prepaid reloadable credit card systems implemented in partnership with trusted charities, and in the medium term, such as mobile or digital transfers as poverty elimination efforts.

#5 and #6.  Income Security

We support the recommendations in the 2023 Alternative Federal Budget, which closes gaps in the income security system.  Measures include: lowering the age of eligibility for the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for seniors from age 65 to age 60, as the poverty rate for this age group is unacceptably high;  introducing a new non-taxable benefit for working age adults (replacing the Canada Worker’s Benefit) providing up to $5,000 for unattached individuals and up to $7,000 for couples with a net income of $19,000 or less; and the new Canada Disability Benefit (CDB) providing $11,040 annually per person targeted to low income individuals. 

Further invest $2 billion into the Canada Social Transfer to support social assistance adequacy, recognizing regional economic variations and meet human rights obligations to provide adequate income support.  Bind funding through the CST to minimum standards and make conditional that income supplements including the CCB, Child Support Payments, Child Disability Benefit, child related Employment Insurance benefits and pandemic emergency benefits are not deducted from social assistance. 

#7. Invest in Workers

Reform EI with measures to ensure marginalized workers have access with expanded access for premium payers currently excluded; extended access to new enrollees; permanent reduction of qualifying hours; boost the benefit rate (min. $500 as set by EI temporary reforms); and eliminate the discriminatory 33% benefit rate for extended parental benefits.

#8 and #9. Eradicate Poverty Among First Nations, Inuit and Métis Families

Budget 2022 must provide equitable funding for child welfare services on reserve and fully implement Jordan’s Principle and the Spirit Bear Plan. It must also provide full funding for the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action and adopt and the MMIWG Inquiry’s Calls to Justice.

#10. Child Care for All

Enshrine the right to childcare for all children and families in federal legislation.  Ensure that Indigenous rights and jurisdiction are respected and realized by fulfilling the distinctions-based obligations detailed in the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework.

Significantly boost investment into the federal capital expansion program to $10 billion over three years to support public and community planned expansion of public and non-profit facilities required to meet demand.

Ensure that maximum affordable parent fees of $10/day are established for all parents by 2026, with lower or no-fees for lower income parents.

#11. Invest in Housing

Commit to ending all forms of homelessness, not only ‘chronic homelessness’, to capture diverse experiences of children and families including women and gender diverse people experiencing violence, immigrants and refugees and First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples.  Accelerate the co-development of Indigenous housing strategies and prioritize the availability of safe and adequate housing for Indigenous women, girls and gender-diverse peoples as recommended in the Calls to Justice. Ensure that federally financed housing is affordable and accessible for low income families with children.

#12. Addressing Income and Wealth Inequality

Economic inequality has been on the rise for decades, and while the pandemic has disproportionately negatively impacted already marginalized communities, wealthy individuals and corporations have been benefitting.  Progressive tax measures are powerful tools the government has available to reduce economic inequalities and raise much needed revenues for pandemic recovery and poverty reduction initiatives.  These include: a modestly graduated wealth tax; an inheritance tax; eliminating or reducing highly regressive tax measures; and closing tax havens.

We also strongly recommend immediate implementation of an excess profit tax or corporate tax focused on pandemic windfall gains and increasing the corporate tax rate that applies to ‘normal’ profits.

Leila Sarangi
National Director, Campaign 2000
c/o Family Service Toronto
355 Church Street, Toronto ON M5B 0B2
647.393.1097

[email protected] 
www.campaign2000.ca & www.familyservicetoronto.org

Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty is a diverse pan-Canadian coalition of over 120 organizations working to end child and family poverty.  We are generously hosted by Family Service Toronto, a large multi-service organization serving the Toronto area.