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.

Targeted initiatives for groups over-represented in poverty data

Recommendation 11: Automatically enroll all young people transitioning out of care in an income support program that meets their basic living costs and ensures they have safe, secure and affordable housing.

Targeted initiatives for groups over-represented in poverty data

Recommendation 12: Review and enhance supports to grandparents raising grandchildren and other kinship care providers, including Child in the Home of a Relative care providers. Allow grandparents on CPP Disability who are raising their grandchildren to continue to receive the CPP children’s benefit after they turn 65 and remove administrative barriers to receiving the Canada Child Benefit for kinship care providers.

Lower barriers and improve lives through universal programs

Recommendation 15: Continue to prioritize new early learning and child care investments in 2023 budget and beyond to establish universal access to a system of high-quality, inclusive child care for BC children and families that has no parent fee for low-income families. Create enough licensed child care spaces for all who choose them. Ensure early childhood educators are paid compensation that reflects their education and the importance of the work they do by implementing a province-wide, publicly funded competitive wage grid for positions within the child care sector. Ensure there are adequate resources and support for the implementation of the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework.

Lower barriers and improve lives through universal programs

Recommendation 16: Increase program funding and support for families raising children with disabilities and complex medical needs to ensure they have timely, universal access everywhere in BC to a core suite of early intervention therapies; timely assessments; family respite; inclusive child care; health, medical and in-home supports.