On Monday, February 7^th Campaign 2000 National Director, Leila Sarangi, appeared at the finance committee to highlight several recommendations that we’ve made in our 2022 Budget Submission and child poverty report card, as well as to highlight the recent crisis of low-income seniors who have had their GIS clawed back and are suffering – unable to pay for rent, food, or medications. Click here to watch the FINA presentation or read below for a full transcript.

FINA presentation – February 7, 2022

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

Hello and thank you for inviting me to appear today.  My name is Leila Sarangi and I am the National Director of Campaign 2000, a coalition of over 120 organizations working to end child and family poverty.

Today, I’ll be highlighting several recommendations we’ve made in our Budget 2022 submission and our latest child poverty report card, which found that more than 1.3 million children continue live in poverty.  That’s nearly one in five kids but the rates are much higher for indigenous children, racialized, immigrant, children with disabilities and children in lone-mother led families, among others marginalized by systemic barriers. These families are living in deeper poverty and inequalities are growing.  And while the national rate of child poverty reduced slightly in the last year, when we looked by province and territory, we found it actually increased in several of those sub-jurisdictions.  

I’m going to focus in on two areas – income benefits and childcare – although we address many other essential areas in those documents.

The first is the need to budget for a full CERB Amnesty.  Funds that have been earmarked in the fiscal update to repay seniors who lost GIS, must be released now.  We’ve been hearing from seniors who have lost their housing, who are living in their cars, who can’t afford their medication and food.  Many have contemplated suicide because of this hardship, and too many have lost their lives already. We implore you on their behalf to pay an emergency $2500 to these seniors now and create a new $100 million housing fund to help keep all clawback victims housed.

The CERB has interacted with other federal and provincial benefits.  So, in addition to losing GIS, people with low and moderate incomes have lost child benefits, workers benefits, GST credits, social and disability assistance, housing supplements and other provincial benefits such as those for energy and childcare costs, which they depended on to get through these extraordinarily difficult times.

A full CERB Amnesty would mean that all clawed back benefits would be returned, and it would mean to stop pursuing low- and moderate-income individuals for repayments of pandemic benefits. 

It would ensure that pandemic benefits would not negatively interact with income benefits in this or future tax years.

And it would immediately increase the current lockdown benefit to $500 and maintain that amount until EI is reformed.

We also recommend using the Canada Social Transfer to ensure adequacy of income programs by increasing investment by $4 billion and tying funds to adequacy standards, making sure that provincial and territorial programs are meeting human rights obligations.

Our last two annual report cards have found that the Canada Child Benefit is losing its power.  It needs significantly more investment into the base amount so that it can reach children who are left in deep poverty. Repealing the section of the income tax act that ties eligibility to immigration status would enable access to people with precarious immigration status but who are considered residents under the Income tax Act.

And we support the recommendation of disability communities to speed up the design and implementation of the new federal disability benefit, and we recommend the creation of a new federal disability benefit for children.

While the tax system is broad and ongoing activities to bring more people into it are important poverty reduction initiatives, it will never be universal.  We need a parallel benefit distribution system that is federally funded and works with local charities to get benefits to people who are outside of the tax system.  This kind of work is happening informally in communities across the country, and programs are formalized in jurisdictions around the world that we can learn from.

And lastly, on childcare, a national system has the power to be transformational if designed with low-income families in mind.  Our recommendation is a sliding scale $0-$10/day model that reduces fees through funding of operational costs, not through an individual parental fee subsidy model, which we know from experience hasn’t worked for families and doesn’t actually reduce fees.  Operational funding must also factor in decent wages for staff.  Provincial and territorial wage grids will be an essential piece of this funding policy.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to answering any questions.

Read the letter to Minister of Seniors, Kamal Khera below highlighting the consequences GIS clawbacks have had on seniors and the urgency of moving the repayment date up.

Dear Minister,

We write today first to congratulate you on your appointment as Minister of Seniors. We also wish to applaud your government’s important decision to exclude the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) as income sources that would lower payments under the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for low-income seniors.

Our understanding is that sufficient funds have been set aside to reimburse GIS recipients in May 2022 for the income they lost as a result of the earlier policy to claw back pandemic benefits. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) reported that typical losses to the 80,000+ recipients affected would be in the $5,000 range for each recipient.

The reason we are writing to you today is that for many very low-income seniors, May 2022 is far too late a date for the expected reimbursement. We are aware of seniors who have already been evicted from their housing. Those who live in rent geared to income housing had rental charges increase by 30% of the pandemic benefits received in addition to the GIS clawback.

Other seniors are on the verge of eviction, and they need help now. In many cases, their landlords can’t and won’t wait until May. Still others are faced with borrowing against the future payment through payday loan outlets that can charge exorbitant interest rates and perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Eviction can often mean the loss of eligibility for retail credit which would result in more reasonable interest rates.

In addition, many social service agencies and legal clinics have been swamped with urgent requests from affected GIS recipients for help with housing at a time when community shelters have been overrun with the Omicron variant.

It’s one thing for a non-aged person to become homeless when shelter beds are unavailable. It’s quite another for a low-income senior woman to be faced with eviction and absolutely no place to go. Yet this continues to happen and will continue throughout this abnormally cold winter unless action is taken immediately.

In order to blunt the worst effects of this unfolding crisis, we propose that you undertake the following measures immediately:

1. Immediately implement a $100 million housing fund for pandemic clawback victims using a very low barrier distribution method to help keep seniors housed and mitigate evictions; and
2. Immediately provide an interim down payment of $2,500 to all GIS clawback victims with losses of at least this amount.

With these direct measures, you can assure the success of your government’s decision to end the clawback. Without them, this important element set out in your Mandate letter will fail.

We urge you to act now.

Sincerely,

Leila Sarangi, National Director, Campaign 2000

Shalini Konanur, Executive Director/Lawyer South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario

For CERB Amnesty

c/o Leila Sarangi, National Director
Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty
355 Church St. Toronto, ON M5B 0B2
C: 647.393.1097
E: [email protected]

National anti-poverty coalition reacts to 2021 federal fiscal update – precedence set for a full CERB Amnesty

Toronto – Since June 2020, national anti-poverty coalition Campaign 2000 has been sounding the alarm about the negative consequences the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) has been having for people living on low incomes.

Yesterday’s fiscal update promises a one-time repayment to low income seniors who received the CERB, which then unexpectedly reduced, and in some cases cancelled, their Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), resulting in loss of housing, homelessness, food insecurity, the inability to pay for medications and increased stress and anxiety.

The update also provides debt relief to students who received, but were ineligible for, the CERB and were eligible for the Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB) by offsetting their debt with the CESB amount.

“A one-time repayment for seniors who lost their GIS and creating a mechanism to offset student CERB debt are first steps in the right direction,” said Leila Sarangi, National Director of Campaign 2000.  “Compensation must now be expanded to include anyone living on low incomes who had other income benefits reduced, including people on social and disability assistance, and those who saw their workers benefit, child benefits and housing supplements reduced.”

In an open letter to Members of Parliament sent yesterday, Campaign 2000 urged all elected officials to support a full “CERB Amnesty”, which includes ensuring pandemic emergency benefits do not interact with other types of income supplements; that anyone living on or near poverty levels who had a loss to income supplements receive full repayment to compensate for that loss; and for the federal government to immediately cease pursuing people for CERB repayments who are living in poverty, regardless of eligibility. 

CERB Amnesty also recommends the reinstatement of the Canada Recovery Benefit for individuals whose working hours are still impacted by the pandemic into Bill C-2, An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19 and ensuring social and disability assistance adequacy standards are tied to the funds given to provinces and territories through the Canada Social Transfer.

 “No one should be left worse off for having received federal pandemic benefits in a time of crisis,” Sarangi added.  “Now that precedence is set with repayments and debt relief for certain groups, we expect that this fix will be extended to everyone living in 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 download 2021 report cards or for more information, please visit https://www.campaign2000.ca.

Contact information

Leila Sarangi, National Director of Campaign 2000, 647-393-1097, [email protected]

Ahead of the federal fiscal update and passing of Bill C-2, An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19, Campaign 2000 sent an open letter to all Members of Parliament recommending that the federal government continue income benefits for individuals and ensure that past emergency benefit programs are not penalizing people who have low incomes and leaving them in greater distress. The inequality gap is widening and there is an opportunity to close the gaps that those who have low income tend to slip through. Read the full letter below.

December 14, 2021

Re: CERB Amnesty

Dear Members of Parliament:

I am writing to you on behalf of Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty, which is a broad pan-Canadian coalition of more than 120 organizations who, together, represent every province and territory in the country. In anticipation of the federal fiscal update and ahead of the passing of Bill C-2, we strongly recommend that the federal government continue income benefits for individuals and ensure that past emergency benefit programs are not penalizing people who have low incomes and leaving them in greater distress.

Campaign 2000 members have been calling for a ‘CERB Amnesty’ for those living in poverty or near poverty since June 2020. A CERB Amnesty refers to the need to amend the unintended consequences of that program, which have had detrimental impacts on individuals, families and youth aging out of care who are living on low incomes. Bill C-2, An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19, provides an opportunity to legislate supportive changes as we are cresting on another wave of pandemic. Our recommendations are as follows:

• Ensure that the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) and the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) payments do not result in claw backs of the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and refundable tax credits such as the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) and the Canada Worker’s Benefit (CWB);
• Refund all lost benefit amounts related to CERB/CRB receipt and recalculate and apply the readjusted benefit amounts to the remainder of this benefit year;
• Cease pursuing people living on low incomes for repayments of the CERB and ensure that no payments are sought for the CRB;
• Legislate the reinstatement of the CRB at the full $500 amount weekly into Bill C-2 until Employment Insurance is reformed; and
• Ensure social assistance adequacy through increased investments into the Canada Social Transfer, tied to adequacy standards accountability mechanisms.

The CERB rolled out quickly to support people during the economic crisis brought about by the pandemic. Nearly nine million people accessed the CERB, many of whom were low-income earners. This benefit was a real lifeline for those who could access it; it helped people to pay rent, purchase necessities, and to keep themselves and their communities safe by isolating at home, while buoying local economies as individuals shopped close to home.

However, several severe issues have been emerging in relation to the CERB that are causing unanticipated hardship in the lives of people with low incomes. These include:

• Recalculations of GIS – These recalculations have resulted in partial, and in some cases full, reduction of GIS payments for nearly 90,000 low income seniors. It is important to note that the $5000 exemption threshold for earned income that is ordinarily applied to GIS calculations was not applied to the CERB;
• Recalculations of refundable tax credits – CERB payments have factored into calculations for income programs such as the Canada Child Benefit and the Canada Worker’s Benefit, resulting in lower payments to families and individuals;
• Federal CERB repayment debt – Nearly half a million Canadians have been asked by CRA to provide proof of eligibility or repay the CERB in full. Many of these people, however, were either confused about eligibility requirements, are unable to obtain the necessary documentation to prove that they met eligibility criteria, were encouraged to apply by CRA workers, or in some cases were pushed to apply for the CERB by provincial social assistance authorities despite not being eligible. Some people living in poverty could see no other option but to apply as all their community support programs had closed;
• Interactions with provincial and territorial income and disability assistance programs – Income assistance recipients who lost work applied for the CERB, and in some cases they were mandated by case workers to apply. Since the CERB was counted as earned income, it was clawed back from many social assistance and disability benefit recipients in part or in full, depending on the province or territory they lived in; and
• Interactions with housing rent subsidies – In jurisdictions where income is calculated on a monthly basis, low income earners who received CERB saw their rent subsidies decrease immediately, resulting in rent increases (as was the case for Toronto Community Housing residents). In jurisdictions where income is calculated annually, renters learned of decreases to subsidies this summer and fall (as is the case with the Rent Assist program in Manitoba).

These consequences are the result of program design features that were not transparent. This meant that most CERB applicants were not aware of them. They have resulted in people losing their housing and small businesses, facing increased stress and anxiety, and having less income now to make ends meet. These individuals and families are those who were living in or near poverty levels before the pandemic, who were disproportionately affected by the pandemic and economic fallout, and who now are worse off after accessing emergency pandemic benefits than they were before.

Campaign 2000 commends the Bloc Québécois and NDP parties for ensuring that reviewing and fixing these CERB related issues are legislated into Bill C-2, An Act to provide further support in response to COVID-19. We urge all federal parties and leaders to support a full CERB Amnesty for communities who were vulnerable to the pandemic and economic fallout and who are now in further distress. Indeed, as we head into another wave of the pandemic driven by the Omicron variant, this moment requires moral leadership.

We welcome the opportunity to further discuss a CERB Amnesty with you. Please feel free to contact me at any time at [email protected] or 647.393.1097.

Sincerely,

Leila Sarangi, National Director, Campaign 2000 & Director of Social Action, Family Service Toronto

Join Campaign 2000 for this discussion Wednesday, December 1^st, 2021, at 1 PM – 2:30 PM ET / 10 AM – 11:30 AM PT. Speakers will be announced shortly – check the event page regularly for updates!

Register today on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/no-one-left-behind-strategies-for-an-inclusive-recovery-webinar-tickets-209300372047

What does a just and equitable pandemic recovery look like for low-income communities across Canada? The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the deep inequities that exist in Canada with already vulnerable and marginalized communities experiencing greater impacts in their health, social and economic outcomes. As we begin to look at a pandemic recovery, what does it mean for low-income communities? How do we ensure that no one, and no child, is left behind? Campaign 2000: End Child and Family Poverty will be releasing its 30^th edition of a series of national and sub-national report cards on the state of child poverty, which include a suite of evidence-based solutions to put us on the path to ending poverty in Canada and realizing a just and equitable pandemic recovery. The report cards release on or around the November 24^th anniversary of 1989 all-party federal resolution to end child poverty by the year 2000.

The webinar will share key findings about the state of child and family poverty from our report card, as well as bring together poverty reduction thought leaders to highlight the relevance of the findings to ongoing efforts to address anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, affordable housing, childcare, ableism, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It will include a presentation of the findings, a moderated panel discussion, spotlight a provincial report card, and opportunities for audience Q&A. 

For questions about the event, or to request accommodations, please contact [email protected]

This webinar, along with the release of the report card, are part of a series of joint actions by several national anti-poverty and social policy organizations including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Dignity for All Coalition, and UNICEF, to call on this new federal government to take decisive action on ending poverty in Canada.

Campaign 2000 releases its annual report card on child and family poverty, No One Left Behind: Strategies for an Inclusive Recovery. The report shows data that suggest poverty reduction has declined and in some parts of Canada, poverty has increased. Using the latest data available (from 2019) this report paints a stark picture of income, health and social inequalities and deepening levels of child and family poverty.  In fact, children are living in deeper poverty. For example, the average single parent family with 2 children living in low income was $13,262 away from the CFLIM-AT in 2019, compared to $9,612 away in 2015. To reach the poverty line, a parent earning $15 per hour would need to work an additional 5.5 months full-time, assuming no taxes or deductions.

For the first time, the national report examines poverty through a social determinant of health framework. It is accompanied by an interactive map that shows that child poverty is a significant issue in every federal riding across the country. The report finds disproportionately higher rates of child poverty among communities marginalized by systemic barriers.

It was found that poverty reduction associated with the Canada Child Benefit will continue to stall and that it does not provide enough support to move families out of poverty. As such, the report offers recommendations for moving forward in a way that is inclusive and plays a clear role in poverty reduction.

This report offers 60 recommendations for poverty reduction and recovery efforts.

Key Findings from the 2021 National Report Card, No One Left Behind: Strategies for an Inclusive Recovery

• Nearly 1 in 5 children lived in poverty (1,313,400 or 17.7%) in 2019
• The national child poverty rate declined by .5 of a percentage points between 2018-2019, representing an additional 24,170 lifted out of poverty.  At this rate, it would take 54 more years to end child poverty.
• The child poverty rate is higher (18.5%) for children under six than all children.  
• The reduction in poverty associated with the Canada Child Benefit will continue to stall. The benefit cannot move eligible families in deep poverty out.  The maximum CCB was $6,639 for each child under six and $5,602 for each child between the ages of six and seventeen in 2019.
• Canada’s universal childcare plan must include low-income children with a sliding scale fee model of $0 to $10 maximum.
• Care work should be decent work. The care economy (including health, childcare, education) represents 21.1% of all jobs and generates 12% of GDP and must be central to an inclusive recovery.
• Canada still needs a national pharmacare plan, which should be expanded to include dental, vision, rehabilitation.

Want to read more?

Click on the following links to read and download the new report cards as they become available.

English National Report Card (Amended), Infographic and Press Release

French Executive Summary; Full French National Report Card and French press release

Check out the provincial report cards:

British Columbia Report and Press Release

Alberta

Saskatchewan Report Card and a Critical Review of Canada’s Poverty Line: The Market Basket Measure

Manitoba Report Card and Press Release

English Ontario Report Card and Press Release; French Ontario Report Card and Press Release

New Brunswick Report Card and Press Release

Nova Scotia Report Card and Press Release

Prince Edward Island (amended)

Yukon (forthcoming)

On August 6, 2021, Campaign 2000 submitted investment priorities and recommendations for the 2022 federal budget, with a focus on a supportive recovery plan. This was submitted nine days before the election was called. These recommendations remain as key policy priorities during the election and as budget priorities for the government. The budget submission states that during this period of uneven economic recovery, marginalized groups and families are the ones experiencing systemic discrimination and have been disproportionately impacted by the economic fallout of the pandemic. Budget 2022 must aim to support these families and individuals and in doing so, ensure that no one is left behind in recovery efforts. To achieve this, we must remove barriers to increase eligibilities for families to get access to the efforts they need, such as recovery benefits. You can read the 2022 Pre-Budget Submission here.

People across Canada are supportive of a broad repayment amnesty for anyone living on low incomes, according to a Campaign 2000 petition presented to the House of Commons today.

The petition, signed by people living in nearly every jurisdiction in the country, called on the government to implement a repayment amnesty for all people who received the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) whose incomes are below or just above the poverty line, and for all youth transitioning out of care, regardless of eligibility to receive the benefit.

“The CERB was not intended to be a poverty reduction tool, but that’s exactly what it did. The federal government should be applauded for taking quick action in a time of crisis and delivering this low-barrier benefit to people who needed it,” says Leila Sarangi, National Coordinator of Campaign 2000. “Not only is it cruel to ask for money back from those living on low incomes who took and used the benefit for what it was meant to be used for, but it goes against the government’s own goals to reduce poverty.” Read the full press release.

Campaign 2000 and partners have been calling for a Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) repayment amnesty for anyone living below or near the Low Income Measure, and the call is gaining traction. With tax time upon us and the federal budget looming, it’s time to make sure this issue is front and centre.

One year in and it’s clear that the pandemic has disproportionately impacted already marginalized groups: im/migrants, racialized women, Indigenous Peoples, people with disabilities, women and gender diverse people fleeing violence, youth transitioning out of care, low waged and precarious workers, people receiving social assistance.

The CERB was a lifeline for many. It helped people to isolate safely at home, to deal with rising costs of food, PPE, cleaning supplies, broadband/cell/computer access, rent and other kinds of necessities.  There was a lot of confusion about who was eligible for this benefit but the dominant message coming out of the government was apply anyway, we won’t leave anyone behind.

Now the federal government is saying that low-income folks who can’t prove their eligibility will have to pay back thousands of dollars that they just don’t have. Even after they were encouraged and, in the case of social assistance recipients, legislated, by government and social service workers to apply.

It is both immoral and impractical for the government to saddle people with this kind of long-term debt, and it flies in the face of a human rights approach to poverty reduction, as well as the vision for an intersectional feminist pandemic recovery.

You can help support the call for a CERB Repayment Amnesty in the following ways:

Click here to sign the E-Petition before April 23

Share your CERB Story through this form

Want to know more about the Campaign? Read our policy brief in English and in French.

Today campaign partners in Saskatchewan and Yukon release new reports on child and family poverty. This is the first ever Campaign 2000-affiliated child poverty report released in the Yukon – thank you and congratulations to the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition. 

The Yukon report found that in 2018, 10.9% of Yukoners were considered low income, but Yukoners most likely to be considered low income based on the Low Income Measure included Lone-parent families (22.1%) and Households living outside of the Whitehorse (14.5%). Read the full report, which includes 10 recommendations and several policy proposals to improve the health and wellness of children, youth, and families in the Yukon.

The Saskatchewan report reveals a provincial child poverty rate of 26.1%, well above the child poverty rate of 18.2% for Canada as a whole, and greater than all other provinces and territories with the exception of Manitoba and Nunavut. Children in lone parent families had a poverty rate of 59.9%.

Read the Saskatchewan 2020 Child and Family Report Card and Poverty Report Brief.

Read the Yukon 2020 Child and Family Report Card and the media release.

Also out today is the French 2020 National Report card.