Ontario Budget 2007: Backgrounder: Expanding opportunities for children and families

March 22, 2007

Expanding opportunities for children and families is an important investment in Ontario’s future. All children must be given the best possible start in life if they are to seize opportunities for success. Families must be given the support they deserve to secure their most basic needs and be equipped to participate in Ontario’s economic prosperity.

Ontario Child Benefit (OCB)

The OCB would provide an additional $2.1 billion in benefits cumulatively over its initial five years.
It would:

• Help nearly 1.3 million children in low-income families annually when fully implemented – many more than the 196,000 children in families currently receiving social assistance and the 271,000 that currently receive the Ontario Child Care Supplement for Working Families (OCCS);
• Provide similar benefits to all children younger than 18 in low-income families, whether their parents work or receive social assistance;
• Help parents receiving social assistance make the transition to work, because they would continue to receive income support for their children after beginning employment; and
• Begin with a down payment in July 2007 of up to $250 per child under age 18, rising to a maximum of $1,100 per child once the program is fully implemented in July 2011, providing an additional $765 million in support annually.

OCB payments would be reduced by 3.4 cents for every dollar of adjusted family net income above $20,000 in 2007, and eight cents from 2008 onwards. When fully implemented, the OCB would benefit about 800,000 more children than under the current OCCS and social assistance programs combined.

Maximum Annual Ontario Child Benefit
($ Per Child Per Benefit Year¹)

Year	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Benefit level	250	600	805	900	1,100
1 Benefit years are from July 1 to June 30.

Relationship to Federal Child Benefits

With these reforms, the government goes well beyond ending the clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement (NCBS). The government plans to invest four times as much money to help more than twice as many kids.

Since taking office in 2003, the government has flowed through all incremental increases to the NCBS, providing an additional $56 million in 2006-07 to families receiving social assistance. The government would go further by flowing through all future incremental increases to the NCBS permanently.

Upon implementation of the OCB, neither the OCB nor social assistance benefits would be reduced by any portion of the NCBS.

Ontario is working with the federal government to ensure that the proposed federal Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB) realizes its objective of supporting vulnerable individuals in Ontario and the rest of Canada. Once the WITB is implemented, the Ontario Government would help low-income families and individuals by flowing the full amount of the benefit through to Ontarians receiving social assistance.

Lowering the "Welfare Wall"

The new OCB would help lower the welfare wall by removing children’s benefits from social assistance. This would:

• Ensure families continue to receive income support for their children when parents leave social assistance for employment; and
• Allow families receiving social assistance to keep a much larger portion of income support for their children as their earnings increase. This is because the OCB would be reduced by only eight per cent of adjusted family net income exceeding $20,000. By contrast, social assistance benefits are reduced by 50 cents for every dollar of earnings.
  

Child Care/Early Development

To support Best Start – the McGuinty government’s plan to ensure that children in Ontario will be ready and eager to achieve success in school by the time they start Grade 1 – this Budget proposes to:

• Enhance current child care programs by $25 million in 2007-08, growing to $50 million annually starting in 2008-09. This would be in addition to the $63.5 million in annual funding announced in the 2006 Ontario Budget;
• Expand the Healthy Babies Healthy Children program with an on-going investment of more than $5 million to support the needs of at-risk families with children. The expanded program would address the health and social needs of these families through early intervention and intensive follow-up so that children arrive at school with the skills and abilities to succeed; and
• Establish a College of Early Childhood Educators to improve and maintain consistent standards of quality in the child care system. The college would establish professional standards of practice, qualifications and ongoing professional development for early childhood educators.

Success For Students

The McGuinty government is continuing its plan for better student achievement and higher secondary school graduation rates by investing $18.3 billion in Grants for Student Needs (GSN) funding to school boards in the 2007-08 school year, an increase of $781 million from last year, and of more than 17 per cent from 2003-04. By 2008-09, GSN funding will rise to $18.6 billion.

Family Literacy and Parenting Centres

Family literacy and parenting services are free programs for parents, grandparents and caregivers of children from birth to six years old. These programs help prepare children for successful school entry by supporting the establishment of early positive connections to future schools and building a strong home-school partnership. In 2007-08, the Province is committing an annual investment of $6 million, expanding services across Ontario.

Children’s Treatment Centres

Children’s Treatment Centres are community-based organizations that provide about 40,000 children annually with such services as physiotherapy and speech and language therapy. The government’s total annual funding to these centres will have increased by nearly $30 million between 2003-04 and 2007-08, including $10 million announced in the 2006 Ontario Budget to provide services to almost 5,000 children and youth across the province, and an additional $4 million starting in 2007-08.

Children’s Mental Health

The province is building on its previous investments to more than 250 child and youth mental health centres and 17 hospital-based outpatient programs by providing $8 million to address gaps in local service needs and reduce wait times. As of 2007-08, the government will have increased funding in these areas by nearly $80 million since 2003-04, including enhancements announced in the 2004 Budget.

Housing Allowance

The 2007 Budget proposes to help low-income working families with children pay their rent by creating a new, $185 million housing allowance program that would begin in January 2008 and create more than 27,000 new housing allowances and provide up to $100 a month, for a maximum of five years.

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Contact:
Scott Blodgett
Ministry of Finance
416-325-0324