The Clawback is ending

If you go to some of my links, you will notice there's one for Make Poverty History. The belief is this, we can end poverty in our life time.

One of concerns of Make Poverty History is the ending of child poverty. You can read the statistics, but let me share them.

* One in six Canadian children is poor.
* Canada's child poverty rate of 15 percent is three times as high as the rates of Sweden, Norway or Finland.
* Every month, 770,000 people in Canada use food banks. Forty percent of those relying on food banks are children. These statistics point to a betrayal of Canada's children. What makes the persistence of child poverty all the more disturbing is that Canada is a rich country, a country that ranked fourth in the world on the 2004 UN Human Development Index.

This is the reality. The Parliament of Canada once called for the ending of child poverty by the year 2000. We're now 8 years after the event was supposed to happen and it's still here.

Usually when talking about child poverty, the blog becomes a critical one, after all, child poverty exists because governments refuse to move, however I want to share some good news; the clawback of child tax credit is ending in Ontario. For years this has been a provincial disgrace, one that has been basically ignored but now it is coming to an end. I received a news release stating that the Province will no long clawback that amount. This is very good news.

I wrote a letter to my local MPP, Dave Levac commending the government for doing end the clawback.

I know it's not perfect and there is still much to do, but it's a start and I felt the need to commend the government for doing something good.

Another action of the Provincial government is the Ontario Child Benefit.

Like I said, its the first step, but an important one.