Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 1: Establish a permanent Fair Wages Commission to examine issues related to low wages and precarity in BC to advise government on strategies that bring workers above the poverty line. Make sure all workers in BC are covered by the hourly minimum wage by the end of 2023.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 2: Governments at all levels should ensure their direct and contract employees are paid a living wage that allows them to meet their basic needs, properly support their children and avoid chronic financial stress.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 3: Significantly raise income and disability assistance rates to bring total welfare incomes up to the CFLIM after-tax poverty thresholds and index them to inflation. Federal investments must support social assistance adequacy through the Canada Social Transfer and tie investments to adequacy standards.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 4: Adjust income and disability assistance rates for families with children with disabilities to recognize the additional costs associated with raising children with extra support needs.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 5: Ensure the Canada Child Benefit, in combination with other income measures, raises all families with children above the CFLIM after tax poverty lines calculated through tax filer data and ensure access to this and other federal benefits for families in population groups with higher rates of poverty.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 6: Index the BC family benefit to inflation to ensure the value of the benefit does not erode over time.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 7: Enhance Employment Insurance to expand access, duration, and level of benefits to reduce inequity for lower-income workers and prevent and reduce child and family poverty, including establishing a minimum benefit floor.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 8: Ensure maternity and parental leave benefits are universally available to all parents (regardless of work status), increase the duration of leave and ensure the benefit levels are not less than the CFLIM after-tax poverty lines.

Tax fairness and income support

Recommendation 9: Address growing income inequality and generate revenue for poverty reduction programs by eliminating or reducing highly regressive and expensive tax loopholes, closing tax havens, taxing extreme wealth and implementing an excess profit tax focused on corporate pandemic windfalls.

Targeted initiatives for groups over-represented in poverty data

Recommendation 10: Collaborate with First Nations, Métis and Inuit governments and Indigenous organizations to address the factors leading to child and family poverty in order to prevent, reduce and eradicate child and family poverty in Indigenous communities. The federal government must comply with the rulings of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to provide adequate funding for child welfare services on reserve and ensure the full application of Jordan’s Principle for First Nations children. Federal and provincial governments must ensure culturally safe supports and public services are also provided to Métis and Inuit children and to other Indigenous children living off-reserve in urban centres not covered under Jordan’s Principle.